In The Pit of Arcy Drive at Fine Line Minneapolis
After quite the dinner at Billy Sushi downtown Minneapolis, my husband and I wandered to Fine Line to check out the show that Arcy Drive with support of Mercury were going to put on. Being quite the indie music enthusiasts, and my husband a new found Arcy fan, we were pretty excited to continue our date night catching some great live music.
Mercury is typically a five piece band out of Nashville. Although when they took the stage at Fine Line downtown Minneapolis, there were only three, all with guitars. Lead singer Maddie Kerr explained that there’s usually more of them, and to imagine more of a grunge sound when listening to these songs. Mercury delivered a show that felt like more than just performing songs it felt like channeling feeling. I was significantly impressed with the talent that this trio still carried with just three guitars, and the feeling that they could bring to these typically grungy songs. If you get the chance to see them live, don’t hesitate as this band is carving a live identity worth catching now, while they’re still shaping it.
There’s a kind of magic that happens when a band feels both entirely new and deeply nostalgic and that’s exactly what Arcy Drive brought to Fine Line in Minneapolis. The New York-based four-piece, known for their unpolished charm and “garage surf rock” sound, turned the intimate venue into a sweaty, joy-filled celebration of friendship, freedom, and the thrill of live music. This was definitely a packed house, and probably one of the largest crowds I have seen at Fine Line in awhile. When talking with the other photographer there, we both agreed that this band really hadn’t been on anyone’s radar in the Twin Cities, up until recently. I had seen Arcy Drive back in March when they had opened for Flipturn, and have been familiar with them ever since I added the song “They Don’t Dance” to my Spotify playlist right around the time it came out.
My husband who joined me for this show was one of those people who recently got Arcy Drive on their radar. He has been listening to the song “Superbloomer” nonstop, and was incredibly excited for this show. When Arcy Drive came out, as my husband had noticed, they felt just a little stiff and going through the motions. This definitely seemed like a different band than I had seen in March. But after a little bit of an amp malfunction and an acoustic song that lead into the regular version of the song (in a very cool way), the band seemed to open up a lot more. Especially front man Nick Mateyunas who ended up crowd surfing. Their setlist definitely changed up slightly because of this hiccup, but they embraced it gracefully and pumped the energy fully up.
They ended the night with a song about Nick’s grandfather (titled “Louie”) and hits home for us as this band from New York shouts out Buffalo, the city my husband is from. At first I didn’t understand this song being the encore, but after seeing it live it was definitely a good choice. By the end of the night, the stage lights glowed like the last bit of a summer sunset (even though we are leading into winter), and no one wanted it to end. Arcy Drive left Minneapolis buzzing a little louder, a little warmer, and a little more in love with live music.
