By Isabel Liu
It’s not often you get a second chance at rock fame. bôa, who found themselves a deluge of new fans after 19 years of inactivity, understood this gospel. Their show at DC’s 9:30 Club on 5/6 showed that true musical camaraderie is inseparable by time or distance.
The London band began with “Deeply,” a song from their 2010 album Twilight that possessed a satisfying crunchy guitar riff. Jasmine Rodgers’ guttural delivery firmly placed bôa in hard rock wonderland, her confidence akin to the captain of a pirate ship: “Feelings, they’re really burning low / They’re burning higher than they’ve ever done before / I need to talk to you, I need to feel it deeply.”
“Whiplash,” which featured Rodgers shaking a tambourine and wagging her fingers to the audience, let in on the band’s more mischievous side: “Sometimes it hurts / Take me as I am / Sometimes it hurts / Take me as I bleed.” It made me feel like I was being told off. But in a good way? Pause.
A classic from their 2005 album Get There, “A Girl” showed all of us that we will never be as good at drumming as bôa’s drummer, Ed Herten. Lest readers suspect bias, it was a crowd favorite too. “She was the kind of girl / Beauty, you think you know / You know that you want her,” Rodgers sang. I wonder if a certain girl in the audience inspired that one!
For a break from the rock goodness, Rodgers opted for an acoustic guitar and explained that the next song was highly requested by fans. “Drinking” was a ballad mourning the loss of a no-good lover: “You say the drinking is better than a woman / And you say the thinking takes too much time / Well, God save your children, should you have them? / For to you, there’s nothing if there’s no wine.”
“3 more songs! 3 more songs!” the crowd chanted, but I wasn’t really sure how they arrived at that number. We all really liked bôa, so why not 4 more songs, or 5 more songs, or how about it, 6?
“Walk With Me” was another crowd pleaser, with bôa commanding the stage: “Walk with me / Share this space and walk with me.” bôa, I’ll go anywhere you guys want me too!
Finally, bôa performed the song that gave them their first big break in 1998, and led to their eventual revival in 2024, “Duvet.” Occasionally, bands have some resentment to newer audiences for making one of their songs TikTok-popular, but bôa seemed genuinely floored for the opportunity to be performing again. Tasteful guitar overdubs were added over the bridge that made me hope for a live recording. bôa led the crowd for the last extended outro. “I am falling, I am fading / I have lost it all.” Such misinformation because I gained so much from this performance!
(Originally published May 19, 2025)
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