I go to a lot of shows alone. The short version as to why is that one, I no longer live near the people I would usually go to concerts with in the past; and two, I listen to more music than the average person, so the likelihood of me knowing someone who also wants to see the same band that I do is not always high, and when given the option of staying home and doing nothing and going to a show, I’d rather go to a show, even if I have do so by myself. 

But even though I do appreciate my alone time, going to shows by yourself certainly accentuates the elements of the experience that feel more like a chore. It’s a lot of standing around and waiting with people you don’t know in rooms with air conditioning systems of varying quality, sometimes while holding a coat and without an easy way to pass the time. Merely thinking about these things is enough to make me wonder why I want to go to shows alone in the first place, and after finding out that there would be no balcony railing on which I could lean at the Bowery Ballroom while I waited for Chicago indie rockers Ratboys to take the stage on September 28, I found myself wondering how long I could really keep this whole solo concert thing going.

Thankfully, that all changed once the band came out. I’ve tried writing about Ratboys and The Window, their excellent album from August of this year, but their appeal to me is so innate that I find it difficult to do. Emerging in the late 2010s as a twangy, mellow, emo-adjacent act, Ratboys took a step towards big budget sounding alt rock on 2021’s Printer’s Devil, trading in most of their slower songs for more uptempo tracks with loud, crunchy guitars. In a different era, both that album and The Window might have been enough to launch them to mainstream success; it’s not a stretch to imagine a song like “Alien with a Sleep Mask On” becoming a hit on alt-rock radio or crossing over the top 40 the way Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” did back in 2001, and their homely love song “Go Outside” has already been featured in a Walmart ad campaign. The ingredients for crossover success are there, even if the cultural climate may not be.

As someone who has written about how much they long for the days when rock music was the center of culture, Ratboys’ approachability and pop potential should be very appealing to me. But while I consider myself a fan of the band and would heartily recommend them to most people, I’ve also found Ratboys’ accessibility vexing. I like to think of myself as being a fan of music that is not only good but important, music that will be remembered in the future for contributing to a distinct movement or moment in time, something that reflects the world it was created in. When I listen to Ratboys, I sometimes can’t help but wonder if they’re the indie rock equivalent of the many low-calorie alt-rock bands that had brief moments in the sun in the post-Nirvana gold rush of the 90s – the 21st Century equivalent of The Toadies or Harvey Danger. And what would it mean if, instead of wringing a culturally significant meaning out of a band, the most insightful thing I could say about them was that they were merely “fun” or “catchy” instead of challenging and important?

It took me seeing them live to realize that them being “fun” and “catchy” and “approachable” is a major part of their appeal – and it could, ultimately, be what makes them important. I’ve been to a lot of good shows this year, some of which were gnarly and cathartic and some of which were witty and sardonic – but none radiated the pure warmth that Ratboys did as they ripped through The Window and a handful of highlights from their back catalog. Bruce Springsteen once described “Thunder Road” as “an invitation,” and it’s a word that kept coming back to me throughout Ratboys’ performance. The laid-back bass groove of “Black Earth, WI,” the bucolic idealism of “Go Outside,” they all felt – distinctly welcoming, setting them apart from the wailing dissonance of Wednesday or the ironic caginess of Mo Troper, artists who I enjoy immensely but who didn’t necessarily leave me feeling comforted by the end of their performances. Rather than taking the stage as rock stars or tortured souls looking to emote, Ratboys approached the crowd as friends, urging us to join them in the joy of making music. Sure, they still played songs about the family cat being euthanized and COVID forcing an old couple into a premature goodbye, but these songs never felt manipulative or maudlin. Instead, they felt purifying, like the idea that making music out of these memories represented some kind of a solution, a way to memorialize and celebrate the dead, not just wallow in their absence. 

A few months ago, Stereogum published a live review of Big Thief by Julian Towers titled “Big Thief Are a Band,” a piece whose banal title and gonzo prose prompted an unnecessarily catty social media backlash. Despite my ambivalence towards Towers’ attempts to revive the spirit of Brent DiCrescenzo, I found it hard to argue with his piece’s central conceit. Big Thief are, in fact, a band; a band in which every member feels vital. While Ratboys may not have the notoriety or live resume of Big Thief, it’s hard not to come to a similar conclusion about their band-ness.

While vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and principal songwriter Julia Steiner is the group’s primary focal point, the supporting players feel irreplaceable. Bassist Sean Neumann provides surprisingly wandering bass lines to help fill out the groups more expansive-sounding songs like “Black Earth, WI” and “I Go Out at Night,” while drummer Marcus Nuccio served up surprisingly muscular bets; the steady rise in intensity of his playing on “The Window,” starting with soft but steady back beat into deliberate but breaknight hi-hats, adds the necessary sense of drama and intensity that brings the song together. Of course, the most important non-Steiner contributor is taciturn guitarist David Sagan, who’s fretwork is key in dictating the mood and style of a given song, be it the punky power chords of “Crossed that Line” or countrified-solo he added to “Go Outside,” not to mention the noise and feedback the punctuates nearly every one of their songs and whose leads provides the bands steadily building momentum with a necessary climax.

As a person inclined to anxiety, I’m always conscious that the spell that a performer casts upon an audience, and their promise to keep up for 40 to 90 minutes, can be broken at any moment. I’ve been to shows interrupted by fire alarms, medical emergencies, and even some stray walkie talkie chatter – and the possibility of something like that happening again is always ever present in the back of my mind. Ratboys, with their effortless cohesion, melted away that anxiety – when they promised to play the entirety of The Window from front to back, it didn’t feel like a test of endurance that could fall apart. Instead, it felt like the natural outcome of the energy they were already pouring into their set – when things are going this good, why stop? Why hold back? Why not bring a guitar that you’ll only use for one song? Why not joke around with the audience? Why not acknowledge the corny nature of coming out for an encore head on? Like Big Thief, it’s the lack of embarrassment, the lack of irony, that Ratboys have about being a relatively traditional band that makes their band-ness vital, and what makes their show so warm and entertaining. I’ve written in the past about how, from a musical perspective, the 2010s were a decade of misery. Not because the music was bad, but because the people playing it were focused on communicating their sorrows and their traumas. There is some sadness and trauma in Ratboys’ music, but they do much more than wallow in it. Instead, they build upon it and try to find a way forward, a way back to peace. I won’t make any bold declarations about whether or not they represent the future of music – whether or not they or similar bands have what it takes to make “indie rock fun again,” as I’ve posited about other groups in the past – but maybe the fact that they even exist as an option is meaningful in and of itself. Maybe that’s what makes them important.