The Bebopperpuhl
Nicole Dobberpuhl dances in the moonlight at The Bebop on Tuesday, 19 August 2025.
Dex B. plays older shit.
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
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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix
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Hump Nights 〰️ Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️
Nicole Dobberpuhl
Nicole Dobberpuhl
A languorous and lazy August along the Fens showed signs of life thanks to an early music showcase at The Bebop (1116 Boylston St.). Nicole Dobberpuhl, singer, songwriter, and singer-songwriter, graced the low dais on a warm Tuesday afternoon to perform a set of acoustic ballads.
For a moment, as she scanned the room, it appeared that Dobberpuhl was going to be serenading herself. The pub was empty, apart from a senior couple sipping sodas in the corner and a lone barfly enjoying a Narragansett tallboy.
But that tireless engine of summer commerce, the Boston Red Sox, made its presence felt as fans in town for the baseball game later in the day (Orioles over Red Sox, 4-3) filtered in for some pregame sauce and spritzers.
Music too? Don’t mind if I do… The room perked up considerably with the addition of about a dozen baseball caps parading through the door.
When there’s no game in town, The Bebop can be a tough room to fill in the middle of the week on a summer afternoon. In addition, there’s no sound tech and no pay for these “DIY” slots, which operate like open mics on autopilot. The musicians fiddle with the PA on their own during soundcheck, plugging familiar plugs into unfamiliar holes, and hope for the best. There’s usually one or two shrieking peals of feedback to endure before the sets hit their stride.
Not a scenario that any performer would call ideal. But in the workaday world of a gigging musician, you play the cards you're dealt. If anyone was scared off from signing up for the afternoon slots, it wasn’t reflected in the music calendar, which was booked for every “DIY” slot that week. In a city with about four guitars for every one person, and about a half million college students and recent grads willing to play them, we’re dealing with what the Econ majors like to call a “supply and demand” asymmetry.
Dobberpuhl performed with a relaxed and confident air. One acoustic guitar, one microphone, one music stand with iPad for sundry lyric, chord progression, and on-the-spot song learning needs. The recent Berklee graduate is versed in music theory, no doubt, and possesses a deep library of personal favorites that platform her musical talents best. But what she most wanted on a Tuesday afternoon at The Bebop was someone, anyone, please, for the love of all that is good and holy, to make a request.
Even a boisterous baseball crowd can turn timid when put on the spot. It took the room at least half a beer to warm up to the idea of speaking up. Finally, a brave couple at the corner of the bar offered “Dancing In The Moonlight,” which triggered a minor debate among the trivia heads over who wrote and performed the original version: King Harvest or Van Morrison?
Turns out, neither of them did. Sherman Kelly wrote the song for his band Boffolongo in 1970. It didn’t become a hit, however, until King Harvest recorded a version in 1972. And Van Morrison never recorded the song at all, though many believe that he has due to (according to one theory) a widespread error mislabeling the song on digital streaming platforms.
The musician on stage dutifully took up the task of covering “Dancing In The Moonlight,” though she was too young to have ever heard the radio hit in its heyday. Maybe too young to have heard the radio in its heyday? No matter. She dialed up the sheet music on her iPad, sight-read the notation, and performed the pop hit in real time. The couple at the corner of the bar toasted her as she strummed the final chord.
Other cover songs from the set included “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan, “Round Here” by Counting Crows, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar, and “Boat” by Ed Sheeran. A pop sampler designed to land in the meaty middle of bar’s demographic bell curve.
An older gentleman with a white beard and grey ponytail gave the room a pregnant nod as he carried a hardshell guitar case across the threshold of the pub. It was the next act, reminding Dobberpuhl that her “DIY” slot was coming to an end. She closed with an original, titled “When Are You Going To Start Loving Me?”, a single off her forthcoming full-length album due this September.
The song swayed and shimmied with a pop-forward, neo-soul style that played free and easy with genre constraints, like the best contemporary music does. The room gave Dobberpuhl a final round of applause before sinking back into the sweet and oblivious chatter of game day carousing.
The life of open mic performers is free of luxuries. There is no green room. There are no complimentary water bottles placed tenderly at the foot of the artist. There is no sound tech fretting over the EQ settings. There is no dramatic lighting to usher you on and off the stage. The audience is ever appreciative, but rarely adoring. There is no pay except for tips -- and if you don’t cajole people to tip, you’re not going to get that either.
But for all that there is something to be said for the experience. You, the performer, are initiated into the beautiful eternity of the stage, whose secret pleasures are known only to those with the courage to sing their songs, tell their jokes, act their roles. It’s a pleasure that’s intense enough that some can’t live without it.
Dobberpuhl greeted the next act, Dex B., as he piled on the stage with the ragged mien of a man whose back had buckled slightly under the weight of carrying his guitar to too many gigs.
“What kind of stuff are you going to play?” she asked.
“Older shit,” he replied.
The pub’s inhabitants capitalized on the interlude to relieve themselves of excess weight, ordered another round of drinks, and, with the game still hours away, eagerly settled in for a set of older shit.
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Nicole Dobberpuhl dances in the moonlight at The Bebop.