By John Faussemagne
Two years ago I saw Hotline TNT fresh off their album, Cartwheel, open up for Wednesday at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. It was an absolutely incredible show which included bringing out MJ Lenderman to play a cover of “Quiet” by The Smashing Pumpkins — yet the crowd stood still. One of my biggest issues while living in D.C. was that no matter how good the opener was, people didn’t want to move. Hotline TNT blew the roof off the 9:30 Club, so I was excited when I saw they were playing at Hendershot’s in Athens. I was curious how their shoegaze-fueled sound would echo through a bar-like setting.
I unfortunately missed the opener, Sour Widows, but according to a friend who I caught up with at the show, “They were actually really good. They sounded like Cusp if there was more yelling with a Horse Jumper [Of Love] type reverb.” I arrived as Hotline TNT was setting up and took a look at the merch table. All the merch created for this tour was wonderful, but my favorite piece was a shirt with the phrase “is it shoegaze?” written on the back. For years, online debates have gone back and forth on the shoegazeness of the band, especially since unlike other bands of the genre, Hotline doesn’t like using pedals. Shoegaze or not, from the first moment the band started playing, a wall of noise and distortion rang throughout Hendershot’s.
The crowd that came out for the show was a very mixed group of people. You had everything from college kids to men in their mid 20s acting like bulls to women in their 60s who ended up being the china shop (we’ll get to them later). The crowd didn’t seem to move for the first song, but still, heads were nodding and everyone seemed to be enjoying it. This didn’t satisfy lead singer Will Anderson who made a joke before the second song in an attempt to get the crowd moving. After this comment, a dedicated group of moshers between 5 and 10 people slammed into each other front and center of the crowd as Will jumped into the pit with them. This was the first time I have ever seen a mosh pit in Hendershot’s, but the crowd who wanted to mosh was very respectful of the older groups around them… for now.
The moshers didn’t let up as the show went on and Hotline showed off their stage presence fantastically. One of the best things they had going for them was the fact that this bar gave them an atypical stage. Will was able to move freely throughout the venue and go into the crowd to play certain songs, which made for an unforgettable experience for those who attended. He played, at times, facing the stage as people jumped around him. Later in the show I ran into the pit and snapped the blurry and lifeless photo that I used for this article, but give their photographer’s work a look, as he snapped some amazing photos that give a great feel to what it was like being there. Seeing a noisier group blowing distortion through the speakers in a tiny back-of-the-room stage was truly a grand experience that is captured well in his photography.
As the show began to wind down, the younger moshers began to get more rowdy. One gentleman in his mid 20’s decided to ram through the entire crowd pushing people to the side. He didn’t do this just once or twice, but about four times in the final minutes of the show, barreling through a crowd. One older woman, who appeared to be in her 50s or 60s, wearing a Nintendo switch shirt got the rough end of it as she seemed to be in the exact place he wanted to turn and run. He barreled into this lady multiple times before returning to his little spot in the front right to yell the lyrics to every song. It was truly a fight for the ages of the maniac who kept running through the entire crowd versus one random woman who couldn’t have been in a worse place. By the fourth time he did it I almost started laughing at the absurdity of the situation, as he genuinely seemed like a bull and she was the one person in the crowd wearing a red shirt.
The band left, the crowd chanted for another song and got two, and the show came to a close. The band stayed after to talk to dedicated fans as the majority of people left the venue to go outside and chat. From the merch, to the setup, to the show itself, Hotline TNT put on a phenomenal show for everyone who was in attendance. They played hits mainly from their two most recent albums that left the crowd walking out the door getting more than their money’s worth. Their most recent album, Raspberry Moon, of which they are touring on, was given a spectacular live treatment that had me going back and listening again the morning after as I wrote this.
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