Alec Ounsworth takes Clap Your Hands Say Yeah for a spin at Crystal Ballroom on Thursday, 8 May 2025.

Philly’s Knifeplay played with knives in the opening slot.

Bassist Alex Stackhouse negotiates catastrophe.

Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix

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Hump Nights

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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️ Hump Nights 〰️

Hump Nights

May 24

Matinees are punk rock.

May 31

Maine backwards at Jamaica Plain’s favorite dive. Don’t miss this!

Rent Strike / Dirty Harry / The Michael Character / Justin Arena

Jun 5

A rent strike sounds like a pretty good idea at Deep Cuts.

Jun 7

The Big Lonesome release show with a ton of special guests!

Jun 12

A portrait of a music business pioneer who can’t stop hustling.

Declaw / Husbands / Not Milk / Office Hours

Jun 16

A quadruplestack of rock in Rat City, USA.

Raspberry Pie / Battlemode / Koji Kompote Band

Jun 17

Raspberry Pie: The Tokyo Summer Tour comes to Boston!

Bottom Bracket / Clipboards / Oldsoul / Trash Rabbit

Jun 26

Rock n roll fourstack extraordinaire at Deep Cuts.

Jun 28

The legendary documentary about the legendary rock n roll band.

Jun 29

Matinees are punk rock at Midway Cafe.

Hump Nights

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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix

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Hump Nights 〰️ Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️

Knifeplay

Knifeplay was one member down due to a last minute injury to the bassist Alex Stackhouse, which required an emergency room visit. No word on whether the injury was knifeplay-related.

The bassist from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah filled in for the Crystal Ballroom gig with no time for practice. But the two bands had been on the road together for a few dates, so maybe he had absorbed some of the tunes by osmosis.

Or maybe he hadn’t. It was a particularly short set from the opener, given only a two-band bill. Started a little after 8:30, finished by 9:00. Hey, it’s quality, not quantity.

The six-person lineup piled a lot of guitar textures on top of winding, winsome alt rock ramblers with the kind of poppified gravitas that made a good match with the headliner. Extra points for the Alex Stackhouse photo collage projected at the back of the stage.

*Alex Stackhouse (bassist), recuperating*

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was always Alec Ounsworth. It was also, you know, other people too. Seems like the frontman parted ways with the rest of the original band a while back. Which is a thing that happens in the hurly burly world of indie rock. But if you wanted to relive the magic with the original lineup on their 20th anniversary of their debut album, sorry, no, not happening.

With Ounsworth on guitar and vocals, the touring band was completed with Todd Erk (bass, synth), Jonas Oesterle (drums), and Ben Collins (guitar, keys, lights). I got that tidbit straight from the PR people – I’m not sure what “lights” means.

The plan for the night was a setlist determined by the self-titled debut album. The headliners didn’t keep too slavishly to the format, mixing in other tunes from other albums, like “Satan Said Dance” off Some Loud Thunder.

The frontman took his time throughout the evening, mixing in a little stage banter and a few anecdotes. He was pretty upfront about songs from the album that didn’t really do it for him anymore, like the appropriately-named “Over and Over Again,” which he’s probably played a million times.

Here’s a nugget: “Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood” is a protest song, inspired – if I heard correctly – by a photo of Iraqi children who would end up being casualties of the Gulf War. I never made the connection, and Ounsworth suspected that most people hadn’t, because the lyrics, like so many of his songs, tend toward the abstract. I mean, the first stanza mentions Bigfoot, so a social realist he is not.