Horsegirl, Iceage, Water From Your Eyes, and Lifeguard @ Central Park SummerStage - NYC

July 20th 2023: Horsegirl, Iceage, Water From Your Eyes, and Lifeguard @ Central Park SummerStage - New York City

Horsegirl - Photos Courtesy of Edwina Hay

On Thursday, July 20, 2023, Horsegirl, Iceage, Water From Your Eyes, and Lifeguard performed at Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park. All four acts have one thing in common: they’ve all released music on the same record label that’s based in New York City, Matador Records. The show was free to attend, for all ages, and was one of the highlights of their schedule this season.

Chicago’s Lifeguard, who began their tour with Horsegirl tonight, just released a pair of EPs on Matador Records (Crowd Can Talk EP and Dressed in Trenches EP) and kicked off the show at 6 PM. The young band was full of energy and was a great start to this highly anticipated show.

Water From Your Eyes released their Everyone’s Crushed album at the end of May on Matador, and their set featured songs from that release. The duo of Nate Amos and Rachel Brown were joined by an additional guitarist, Al, and seemed to have many fans in the audience who were eager for their early evening set.

Copenhagen’s Iceage went on next at 7:41 PM, and the last performance of theirs I caught was in 2019 in Queens and Central Park’s outdoor stage seemed to fit them well, with many people near the barricade dancing and singing along during their set. Singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt barely stood still during their performance. Immediately after “High & Hurt,” Elias declared, “We love you, New York.”

Horsegirl, who I last saw in March opening for Unwound, closed the show when their set began just before 9 PM. The second song of their set was brand new, and Penelope mentioned her brother, Isaac Lowenstein, of Lifeguard, while on stage. Before starting their second brand new song, Horsegirl announced they were recently in their hometown of Chicago working on their second album. During “Billy,” Horsegirl brought out the trio of Lifeguard to assist them on the final song of their set.

Throughout the show, a t-shirt gun was used to launch t-shirts into the audience, and was done by a member of a band who wasn’t performing at that moment. For Lifeguard, Nora of Horsegirl shot a t-shirt to a lucky audience member who was near me, proudly whipping it around in the air after catching it. During Water From Your Eyes, Kai of Lifeguard used the gun, in Horsegirl’s performance, Nate of Water From Your Eyes shot shirts into the audience a few times before the show came to an end. The venue also kept fans cool by having their security team occasionally spray water but simultaneously needed more than just one water fountain/bottle refill station located in a somewhat hidden spot, which was a noticeable change compared to last year. Between the strong bill and venue inside one of our city’s most famous public parks, Thursday night was a stellar way to spend a warm July evening in New York City.

Horsegirl

Lifeguard

Water From Your Eyes

Iceage

Unwound @ Irving Plaza - NYC

March 10th 2023: Unwound, Horsegirl @ Irving Plaza - New York, NY

fans at Unwound - Photos Courtesy of Edwina Hay

Olympia, Washington’s Unwound disbanded in 2002. This was around the time I first discovered their music and quickly became one of those bands who I really enjoyed but liked other acts such as Pixies, Bikini Kill, or Murder City Devils where I was either born too late to see them when they were active, or connected with their catalog right as they were disbanding and figured I would never see them live. Twenty years after their final shows, Unwound revealed they were performing again in July 2022. They announced a concert at New York’s Irving Plaza on Friday, March 10, 2023, which quickly sold out, and then two more shows at the same venue were added.

Friday night’s show began promptly at 8 PM with a performance by Horsegirl, the trio from Chicago that relocated to New York City. The group didn’t say much while on stage during their 45-minute set, but Penelope Lowenstein disclosed that they were excited when this show was first announced and long before they were invited to play, that they would have been in the audience with us too. Before performing “Forecast,” Penelope announced it was the first song they ever wrote in her basement at the age of 15. In addition to playing songs from their record Versions of Modern Performance, they also included a Guided By Voices cover in their set (“As We Go Up, We Go Down”). 

For their first New York show in two decades, Unwound performed two sets. The first one began at 9:15 PM, followed by a 15-minute intermission, and resumed again at 10:20 PM. Their drummer, Sara Lund, asked before their fourth song how many people were supposed to see them at Bowery Ballroom in 2001 (they were scheduled to play on September 12, 2001), and not many people responded. She quickly modified the question by then asking who was born after 9/11/01 and dedicated their next song to the numerous young fans in attendance who qualified.

Unwound’s vocalist/guitarist Justin Trosper mentioned after intermission it was an honor to be here and when someone yelled out a song that they wanted to hear, he laughed and said they don’t take requests and that everything was pre-planned. He then dedicated the next two songs to their departed bassist Vern Rumsey, who sadly passed away in August 2020. Their current bassist is a longtime friend, Jared Warren of Karp, Big Business, and Melvins, plus Unwound now features Scott Seckington on guitar. With the show coming to an end at 11 PM, we all departed Irving Plaza in the cold rain, and I felt extremely grateful that I finally got to experience Unwound live after all these years.

Horsegirl