Concert review by Garrett Crusan, all photography by Tommy Krause
Twisted Teens at Bowery Ballroom by Tommy Krause
The mysticism and prolific nature of the NOLA country-punks Twisted Teens cannot possibly be overstated. The group’s origin story of two train-hopping punks seemed to me like the stuff of myth and rock ‘n’ roll legend: Caspian Hollywell and RJ Santos’ fascinating backstory begins with them meeting by pure happenstance in the Holy Cross neighborhood of New Orleans.
When I first saw them play live at Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right in March, I discovered that the rumors were true: Twisted Teens might be the living stuff of rock ‘n’ roll folklore, as traditionalists-turned-breakout stars.
That performance to a sold-out, 250-capacity room turned out to be a crystal ball moment that foreshadowed the current “Twisted Teens Fever”. Cut to November, and they’ve released three critically acclaimed, air-tight records in the span of nine months, signed to Sub Pop Records, and are playing a packed room three times the size to support their most recent record, The Holy Cross Tigers. Their November 3rd show at Bowery Ballroom wasn’t just any other gig for the group. The performance was a necessary celebration of just how drastically things have changed for them in less than a year.
Upon entering the downstairs bar of Bowery Ballroom, I was promptly greeted with a giant cardboard sign adorned with the cover of The Holy Cross Tigers with a human-head sized cutout at the top. Ecstatic show-goers seized the opportunity to place their own head inside the cutout artwork and snapped photos to commemorate the evening. The whole scene functioned as an apt metaphor for what the band has become: Twisted Teens fans reject passive listening, and instead poke their heads straight through the music and immerse themselves in the blown-out, punk-to-the-bone ethos the group has created.
Twisted Teens at Bowery Ballroom by Tommy Krause
THE HOLY CROSS TIGERS
Greeted by raucous applause, Twisted Teens casually took the stage and slow-burned a jam that powered straight into “Something I Haven’t Told Ya”. Dancing quickly ensued, and the floor became carelessly soaked and slick with cheap beer. The feedback loop of crowd-to-band energy was palpable and purely physical while the group barrelled through a bulletproof first act of tracks spanning their self-titled 2024 debut, February’s Blame the Clown, and July’s Florida Water Blues. One showgoer was discreetly handing out Marlboro Lights during “Hand Me a Cigarette” and taking the lead in the pit, infecting everyone around with Twisted Teens Fever, which is unsurprisingly highly contagious.
Sub Pop Records shipped preorders of The Holy Cross Tigers early, so my copy arrived the morning of the show; naturally, I listened several times. So when the band cooled off from the manic freak-out of “Circus Clown” and dove right into a Holy Cross standout “I Spend My Time Crying”, I was grateful to have enough inside-baseball to sing along to the track’s happy-sad refrain (and take a short break from hard dancing, as I was already sore). It’s a track that unites every musical quality that the band excels at: swampy earworm riffs, slippery console steel embellishments, moody storytelling that paints the barstool blues so vividly that you can practically see the Jim Beam in front of you.
Twisted Teens at Bowery Ballroom by Tommy Krause
Afterwards, Twisted Teens played the record’s two singles, “Stalks” and “When We First Met”-- tracks that come even more alive when performed. The closing suite was dominated mostly by cuts from their debut, and it was a sort of victory lap before the encore. Gone were the skeptical, curious Pitchfork bandwagoners from Baby’s All Right; make way for the newly converted, every-lyric-memorized diehards, of which there were several hundred.
The group was urgently beckoned back on stage by the crowd’s rowdy recital of the “Twisted Teens chant”—a cheeky feature at the tail-end of the song “Twisted Teen” that has turned into a sort of rallying cry for fans. They blew right into the anthemic “Florida Water Blues” and “Twisted Teen” to close out the night, and during that final round of dancing on a PBR-soaked floor, the crowd realized that the Twisted Teens lore wasn’t just an origin story or a single tale of their lightning-fast rise to fame. It was still being scribed before our eyes in real time, and we were all a part of this especially exciting chapter.
Twisted Teens at Bowery Ballroom by Tommy Krause
Check out the setlist and full photo Gallery below!
All photos of Twisted Teens by Tommy Krause
FULL GALLERY
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