On Saturday during the Re:SET concert series in Riis Park on the Northwest Side, two roommates awaited the night’s headliners covered in blue paint in an homage to “True Blue,” a boygenius song about self-discovery, old friends and Chicago’s “L” train.
Maya Wanner, 26, and Madeline Lauver, 25, of Rogers Park, figured the song would get a response from concertgoers. That night, as band member Lucy Dacus sang about a friend who moves to Chicago and makes a phone call from the train platform — “when you called me from the train / water freezing in your eyes / you were happy / and I wasn’t surprised” — under blue lights, the crowd did indeed erupt.
More Top Picks Massage Chair
Under a tree in the park in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, with paint streaking their foreheads and splattered in their hair, Wanner and Lauver said they’d wanted to dress up somehow for the event.
The pair said they’d been inspired by the supergroup’s video featuring the song, in which Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker paint a room blue before turning brushes and cans on themselves.
Boygenius capped off the day’s quartet of acts alongside Bartees Strange, Dijon and Clairo. All performed in the summer heat and reminded audience members crammed against barricades to drink water.
LCD Soundsystem and Steve Lacy were the other two headliners over three days’ worth of indie and alternative music that brought throngs of concertgoers to Riis Park.
The Chicago Park District permitted the event about 10 days before it was set to take place after months of vocal protest from neighbors, who said event organizers didn’t give them enough of a heads-up and didn’t involve them enough in planning.
Inside the event gates, fans in white shirts and black ties (the headliners’ frequent concert attire) and innumerable pairs of Dr. Martens clustered under massive trees for shade.
Many incorporated teeth into their concert attire in an apparent nod to the matching tooth tattoos of boygenius’ group members.
Julia Lakin, 23, was wearing a total of six extra teeth on her macabre earrings, paired with a hand-embroidered “boys will be boys” shirt.
She had made the trip up from central Illinois’ Chatham for what she said was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” with her girlfriend Ashley Bresnahn, 25.
Bresnahn said she was most excited to hear Clairo’s “4EVER” and a number of songs from boygenius’ 2018 EP.
Katie Kasendorf, 22, was sprawled out near the merchandise tent with an armload of new purchases: a Clairo sweatshirt for a friend depicting a small dog in headphones, a Re:SET bandana for her wall and several boygenius shirts.
She held up a shirt that showed the group members posing together against a background of flames reminiscent of Hell.
“If somebody saw me wearing this, they’d totally steal my lunch and call me a loser,” Kasendorf said, before clarifying that this was a plus in her book.
Kasendorf had taken a Greyhound bus from Minneapolis to the concert, deeming the trip “a very main character moment.” She was most looking forward to hearing the boygenius number “Me & My Dog,” a song about going to the lengths of outer space in an attempt to forget someone, from the group’s 2018 release.
“Me & My Dog” also topped the list for Jacob Kemiel, 25, of Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, along with “Letter to an Old Poet.”
Bridgers described “Letter to an Old Poet” later that night as a song about “being in love with someone who (expletive) hated me” and said how nice it was to perform it alongside two of her closest friends.
The band, she said, had history in Chicago: “We’ve made some core memories here, and some core friends here. We love it.”
Then the opening chords of “Salt in the Wound” rang out to close the show. Three minutes and a lot of guitar shredding later, the three friends collapsed into one another onstage.
Caroline Kubzansky is a reporter for the Pioneer Press papers.
More Top Picks Black Plusdecker 12v Max Drill Driver Bdcdd12c