Q101 Twisted X-Mas 2023 Night 3: Bleachers, MisterWives, and Sincere Engineer at Chicago's Aragon Theater

As someone that came of age during the 90's in the Chicago suburbs, Q101 was THE authority when it came to alternative music. I spent more hours listening to the DJs on that station than just about anyone else in my life for a very long time (and just now as I'm typing this out a whole lot of weird things about me started making sense but that's for me to unpack on my own). When I went off to college (back in the days where radio stations weren't on the internet yet), and subsequently moved to California, Q101 and I lost contact with each other for a while. And honestly that might have been for the best. From about 2011 to 2022, 101.1 in Chicago went through all kinds of weird-ass experimentations, everything from FM news to top 40, before finally 'officially' becoming Q101 again in 2022.

Throughout all that time, one of the best traditions from Q101/WKQX was Twisted X-Mas, their annual Christmas show(s) formerly held at places like the United Center and House of Blues before finding what seems like a permanent home at the Aragon Ballroom. Usually held at the beginning of December, these shows have regularly brought in heavy hitters in the rock/alternative world. Recent years have included headliners like Jack White, Muse, Queens of the Stone Age and Run The Jewels. It's like getting absolutely spoiled on Christmas morning, except it lasts for 3-4 nights and doesn't say racist stuff over dinner.

Seriously, look how spoiled we were this year:

Braving the rapidly-dropping Chicago temperatures for night 3, expectations were at a fever pitch after two absolute banger evenings leading up to it and the "hey it's a Thursday during the last month of the year let's get fucked up" factor running pretty high. Fortunately, a lineup stacked with Sincere Engineer, MisterWives, and Bleachers was genetically modified in a lab to meet exactly those expectations.

One of the best things about seeing a Sincere Engineer performance live is the contrast between singer/guitarist Deanna Belos' persona when performing and not performing. For anyone that's ever listened to a Sincere Engineer song, one of the first things that jumps out at you is the aggressiveness, both musically and lyrically. Look no further than the opening lyrics of "Fireplace" off the band's brand new album Cheap Grills (I hate your guts/Wouldn't even help if you were stuck in some guy's basement/And he was getting ready to chop you up). "I get high on the thought of you on fire" is a statement that would make the average person step back and say "hot damn!" at a minimum and Belos uses it as a chorus.

And yet, as soon as a song is over, it's like a literal switch is flipped and she turns into the same type of shy, self-deprecating millennial that made up the majority of the Aragon audience for her performance, occasionally asking "Does anyone have any questions?" between songs, as if looking for a way to take attention away from herself before the next one kicked in.

It's the ability to crack a joke and a smile between songs that elevates Sincere Engineer songs from being nothing but negativity for negativity's sake. Sure, there are a lot of themes touched on in Sincere Engineer songs that aren't the happiest of topics, but there's almost a sense of communal suffering that makes it less "feel sorry for yourself" and more "let's face this kind of bullshit together". Her problems are our problems. Her difficulties are our difficulties. Her basement skeletons are our basement skeletons. But that also means that we've all got each other's backs. And having everyday struggles to deal with is the perfect excuse to let loose at a concert, which both the band and audience had no problem with during their twelve song set that covered most of Cheap Grills.

And if THAT isn't enough Sincere Engineer for you, they have a show at the end of the month celebrating the release of Cheap Grills at the Metro. Limited number of tickets still available.

If I had to pick a Christmas item that perfectly encapsulates MisterWives' performance, it would probably be a gingerbread house: has a little bit of everything, looks fantastic, and is chock full of sugary pop goodness to the point where it might make your teeth tingle. Kicking off their set with the 1/2 punch of 'Out Of Your Mind' and 'Dagger', the opening tracks off their 2023 album Nosebleeds, they didn't take their foot off the gas for the entire night. And while a good chunk of their set was devoted to Nosebleeds, fan favorites like 'SUPERBLOOM' and 'Reflections' made their way into the evening's festivities as well. To be honest with you, it's been quite a long time since I've seen a frontwoman whose performance exhausted me just from watching the way that Mandy Lee's did. Not only does she hit every big note from their studio recordings, but she does it while running back and forth across the stage, spending just as much energy pumping up the rest of her band as she does the audience. The end result is a humid, frenetic, jumping mass of pop music with a dash of alternative thrown in, especially on the newer Nosebleeds tracks. This is a band that's going to keep getting bigger and it's going to happen sooner than later.

It's hard to describe what a Bleachers show is like in a 5,000 capacity venue. It's like the perfect sweet spot for a band like them. Not that they couldn't (and haven't) put on absolute killer shows in arenas, but arenas are too big and impersonal for the kind of connection a crowd has with Bleachers songs. On the flilpside, a club setting of 1-2K people would be far too small to do justice to the anthemic heights the band can (and does) hit in a lot of their songs.

With this in mind, the Aragon was the absolute perfect venue for Jack Antanoff and the rest of the band to really throw down a performance worthy of being the final show on the Taking the Sadness Out of Saturday Night tour, a note that Antanoff made a point to mention partway into the evening. Whether that was behind the band's absolutely unreal performance or not, they put on a show for the ages, not only playing multiple songs off each of their albums (including the live debut of 'Alma Mater' off 2024's upcoming self-titled record), but thrown in an inspired cover of Tom Waits' 'Jersey Girl' to boot.

And while the evening was full of quieter, more reflective moments when the time was right, the reason you go to a Bleachers show is to sing the absolute piss out of the gigantic choruses of songs like 'Rollercoaster' and 'I Wanna Get Better' with 4,999 of your closest temporary musical friends. Right? That isn't the indie/cool thing to say but it's true. And my god, is it ever fun. These songs were written to be sung at maximum volume with people goin crazy and dancing and shaking their asses and sitting on top of each others' shoulders (something that Antanoff demanded from the crowd and even re-started a song to give the audience more time to physically climb atop each other). And that's exactly what we all did. And it was even better than it sounds in your head. By the time the last bits of confetti fell and the waning notes of 'Stop Making This Hurt' faded down the halls of the Aragon, it felt like everyone had been through a spiritual experience, which is pretty much what the best case scenario is for the holiday season, isn't it?

Bleachers will be back on tour behind their upcoming self-titled album in 2024. Tour dates can be seen here.

Bleachers (Q101 Twisted X-Mas 2023) Setlist - 12.7.23

91
Dream of Mickey Mantle
Modern Girl
How Dare You Want More
Everybody Lost Somebody
Goodmorning
Wake Me
Jersey Girl
Chinatown
Don't Go Dark
Rollercoaster
Let's Get Married
Alma Mater
Foreign Girls
You're Still a Mystery
I Wanna Get Better
Don't Take the Money
Stop Making This Hurt