Bad Copy

There’s a very specific kind of anxiety that comes with seeing a band you love after they’ve dropped a new album you haven’t fully clicked with yet. Not because you don’t believe in them — and definitely not because you think they’ve “fallen off” — but because you know exactly what their older songs did to you, and you’re not sure if the newer material is going to hit with that same urgency.

That was kind of where I was walking into Bottom Lounge for Pinkshift with LustSickPuppy and Combat. I’ve been a Pinkshift fan for a while — the kind of fan who still instinctively reaches for the Love Me Forever era songs first. So I came in excited, but also a little selfishly hoping for a set that would remind me why I fell in love with them in the first place. And honestly? That’s exactly what happened, just not in the way I expected.

Combat was completely new to me and, my god, what an amazing band. They were a perfect opener. Melodic enough to pull you in, chaotic enough to make the pit start twitching before you’ve even finished your first drink.

Then LustSickPuppy came out and basically detonated whatever sense of genre cohesion the night had left. Their set was feral, confrontational, and completely unbothered by whether anyone in the room was “ready” for it. It was abrasive and weird and physical in a way that made the whole venue feel smaller and intimate. You could feel people either getting pulled fully into it or standing there trying to process what the hell they were watching which, honestly, is exactly the sign of a great live act.

Then Pinkshift hit the stage, and within maybe thirty seconds, every weird little reservation I had about being “behind” on the new album, Earthkeeper, just kind of dissolved. Ashrita has that rare frontperson quality where the second they’re onstage, the whole room organizes itself around them. Not in a detached, rock-star way, but more like they’re dragging everybody into the same emotional tides together. And the band as a whole just moves. Not in the over-rehearsed way some modern rock bands do, where everything looks choreographed

And when they played the newer material, I could feel the room change. I don’t mean this as a knock on the newer material at all. In fact, hearing the newer songs live helped to make them make more sense to me. The newer songs hit with a little more shape, a little more texture, maybe a little less straightforward “instant punch,” but in a live room that actually worked in their favor. The dynamics had more room to breathe. The heavier moments felt earned. The hooks crept up instead of just punching you in the face immediately.

I left thinking, “Okay… I need to go back and really sit with the new album now.” As someone who walked in still emotionally parked in an earlier version of Pinkshift, this show was kind of the ideal correction. It didn’t make me love the newer album out of obligation. It made me want to love it. And that’s a much more honest thing.

Check out my photos of the night below!