One could draw all kinds of parallels between the two bands gracing the gorgeous courtyard of the Museum of Fine Arts, a certain lo-fi aesthetic being only the most prominent. Both bands flesh out their minimal core members with guests instrumentalists. Both bands buck an indie rock glass ceiling that tends to assign girls a secondary role – a violin stage left, cooing harmonies – with women who blow the doors off from centerstage. Both are beloved of a certain kind of web-literate aficionado.
On the other hand, stylistically, the two bands are an exercise in contrasts, as their performances demonstrated. Headliners Drug Rug, hailing from all the way over in Cambridge, throw a fistful of ‘70s referents – coma-inducing reverb, co-ed harmonies, guitars aplenty – in the air and then stomp them into the ground with unapologetic glee. Their three-piece backing built generous pads of sound for the stomping, but the focus never swayed from the central couple of Tommy Allen (tall, knobbly, possibly ironic mustache) and Sarah Cronin (button cute). On “Coffee In The Morning,” the two gazed up at the brightly lit shelves of the Museum gift shop and sang, “I can see your library / But I’ve never been inside / Let me inside.”
In their robust, quasi-timeless writing, and plentiful goofiness – one old song describes Tommy Allen’s snore as “tiny people having a ball” – Drug Rug can evoke the White Stripes, though with Sarah Cronin in the part of Jack. In cutoff jeans and gladiator sandals, Cronin is a bashful firecracker who plays her guitar with the care of an amateur but the clatter of a pro, transfigured by head-back howls unleashed when the band follows her in the charge.
tUnE-yArDs is the solo project of Merrill Garbus, whose Bird Brains album was one of the most surprising and beguiling releases of last year, a cut-and-paste blur of a record on which Garbus’ collaged vocals collide with headbanging tomtoms and the best use of a ukulele since, well, whenever. Live, Garbus was assisted by the dapper Nate Brenner on bass, but otherwise discharged all duties herself. Each song began with the assembly of a loop of drums or vocals far more potent than seems plausible when recalled with a stab of a bare foot. Garbus has a voice as lithe and surprising as Sting in his pyrrhic Policeman prime, and there is nothing lo-fi about Garbus’ performance save the methods and, in some indefinable way, the melodies, obliterating themselves in blasts of yodeling and overdriven uke.
Of the two, tUnE-yArDs’ spacious sampling, which entailed banging on mic stands and the concrete plinth of the stage, was the more serendipitous fit for a gorgeous summer evening spent at the foot of an array of towering trees. After a streak of rainouts, the weather was unimpeachable, the airy environs a surprise third, unbilled performance. I overheard a debate about whether the omnipresent cricket chatter was a deliberate effect; Cronin announced halfway through Drug Rug’s set that a bird had “crapped” on her guitar, which Allen took for clever stage banter until closer examination set him straight. As the sun fell, Drug Rug disappeared into a dim kaleidoscopic light array, crooning in the glorious gloom.
