Twen at The Basement East, 8/8/2024
Not quite a decade ago, Twen rolled into Nashville from the Boston area as a very new band and quickly established themselves as one of the most interesting and dynamic rock groups in town. The excitement for their 2019 debut LP Awestruck led to the core duo of singer Jane Fitzsimmons and multi-instrumentalist Ian Jones becoming world travelers. By the time their follow-up One Stop Shop came out in 2022, they’d pulled up the roots they’d put down in Music City and embraced the van life, and now they take their home and their recording studio with them wherever they go. (From social media and music videos for recent singles, it seems coastal Florida has been their home base lately.)
On Thursday, Jones, Fitzsimmons and the latest incarnation of their backing band — Asher Horton on second guitar, Camden Pink on bass and Forrest Raup on drums — made a brief return to Nashville to headline The Basement East, where they channeled their boundless enthusiasm into a night of poetic chaos.
The night kicked off with industrially inclined dream-pop group Pressure Heaven. (Unfortunately, our photog missed out on their set.) Seemingly out of nowhere, the band started popping up on stages around town late last year, and it’s felt like they’ve been everywhere you look in Nashville in 2024. That work has also led to their recent EP Head Start, from which most of Thursday’s set came. Heavy drums and Grace Hall’s ethereal, beautifully drawn-out vocals dominated the stage as they performed “Spiral.” One of their earliest singles, the song built up slowly before paying off with an explosion on the second chorus: “Tried so hard / Let it in / Spiral again.”
Enumclaw at The Basement East, 8/8/2024
Washington state alt-rock foursome Enumclaw revved things up with a wealth of fan favorites peppered with unreleased songs from their forthcoming second album Home in Another Life, set to drop Aug. 30. By request, the group dusted off their 2021 debut single “Fast N All.” Though singer Aramis Johnson mentioned they hadn't played it in a while, you wouldn’t have guessed it from the way the band attacked it. The set was an emotional roller coaster, with the band diving deep into the heavy weight of losing someone close as well as the pure joy of forming new connections. Johnson’s even vocals rang out as the band raged on — a dynamic reminiscent of Pavement in their heyday. They’ve mastered the art of turning life’s messy, complicated moments into something you can rock out to.
Still, they kept the mood light, bantering about their ongoing debate over the best grocery store chain and their love of used-media mecca McKay’s. “There’s so much room up here, everybody,” said bassist Eli Edwards (who happens to be Johnson’s younger brother), gesturing to the gap between the stage and the crowd. “Please take a step forward. We’re afraid of dying alone.” Later the intimate throng of the crowd surged with dancing, and Edwards jumped off the stage to join in.
Twen at The Basement East, 8/8/2024
Twen encapsulates many things about being young, like the freedom of seemingly infinite choices, tempered by rough socioeconomic conditions that make any of those choices seem hard to reach. They also pair serious chops and dedication to craft with a zany sense of humor. Setting the tone, the band took the stage to “The Age of Not Believing” from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Fitzsimmons stretched casually before diving headfirst into “Awestruck,” one of the band’s earliest songs; she spent much of the set bobbing and pogoing around the stage, swiveling her hips and practically daring the crowd to stop moving.
The set showcased the evolution of their sound from the kind of dreamy, shoegaze-y psych they were first known for through the addition of darker post-punk influences to the funky indie-psych groove of their latest single “Lucky Onze.” Leaning into the song’s reflection on how the precarious nature of our world can make life feel like a gamble, the band invited a fan named Jordan to the stage for a dice roll to decide their next song; his unlucky throw yielded a cover of Weezer’s “Island in the Sun.”
Twen at The Basement East, 8/8/2024
More highlights whizzed by, from longtime set staple “Damsel” to “Long Throat,” a riff on consumerism from One Stop Shop whose intense performance was punctuated by Eli Edwards taking a stage dive. As the show neared its end, some of the crowd started to drift away, but die-hard fans pushed closer to the stage, chanting for an encore. Jones and the band snuck back onstage for an instrumental spin on “Iron Man” before Fitzsimmons returned for Twen’s bittersweet “Sweet Dreams (in the Parking Lot).” The song is about the struggle to focus on what’s truly important — a fitting message for such a dynamic band to leave their fans with.
The Spin: Twen at The Basement East, 8/8/2024
With Enumclaw
Twen at The Basement East, 8/8/2024
