I Wanna Be a Cowboy Baby! BUGGIN and Other Punk Cowboys at Schubas for Tomorrow Never Knows Fest
Show review by Mia Thompson
There was nowhere to stand in Schubas Tavern on the night of January 18th. The small concert hall at the back of the Lincoln Park bar was crammed and the air thrummed with restless energy. It was a big night; a sold out show with five hardcore bands eager to take the stage, a blustering winter wind whipping outside, and a crowd of fans primed for chaos and ready to give back fiercely whatever they got.
Thursday’s show was night two of this year’s Tomorrow Never Knows Fest, a Chicago music festival spanning five days and multiple venues: “Founded in 2005 by the team at Lincoln Hall and Schubas, Tomorrow Never Knows has proven for over a decade that music fans will brave the brutal Chicago cold for a good show” (TNKfest). Thursday proved no different.
The bands gathered in Schubas had been handpicked by the headlining BUGGIN, and the whole night felt like an intimate and raucous party, hardcore punk friends hanging out and showing off. Lead vocalist Bryanna Bennett of BUGGIN took a minute to address the buzzing crowd towards the end of their closing set, saying, “We got asked to put together a show for Tomorrow Never Knows and we just decided to put a bunch of our friends and some of the best bands of the Midwest right now.” Each set was brief, ranging 15-25 minutes, a compact and fast-moving sampling of the indie punk scene.
Useless Information took the stage first, although their lead vocalist performed much of the set from inside the mosh pit. Instill, a punk band out of Chicago, followed and the room began to heat up, the crowd becoming a writhing, living thing that propelled people up and onto the stage. Their set encouraged stage-dives and impromptu cartwheels and played to a steady punk heartbeat that pounded away the winter wind. Instill’s 2023 EP, Reasons to Remember, features polished versions of tracks found on their 2021 release, Demo in addition to new songs like the gritty, full-sounding “Warmth.”
Milwaukee punk bands Big Laugh and Enervate played next, working the crowd into a final frenzy before BUGGIN came out. Enervate brought fun and unbridled excitement to the stage, playing triumphantly angry tracks like “Don’t Need You” off of their 2023 EP, All Said and Done. Big Laugh had a distinctly different punk sound, playing with piercing feedback sounds and a punishing energy, both of which can be found on their 2023 album Consume Me.
By the time BUGGIN took the stage at around 10:15, the room had become impossibly more full and the mosh pit had already seen a medical emergency (one girl reported an eye injury). But spirits were high and BUGGIN was greeted with true hardcore joy. Their set was raw and alive, sucking even the most timid into a swirl of fast moving punk and screaming expression.
According to an interview with Rare Peace, BUGGIN came to be in 2018, and each of its founding members — “guitarist Peyton Roberts, vocalist Bryanna Bennett and drummer Michael Rasmussen” — went to Depaul. Five band members were playing on Thursday, and they took to the stage with the vengeance of the storm brewing outside. Although brief, BUGGIN’s set was high energy and gleeful.
Bennett commanded the room with authority and a hunter orange beanie that glowed, illuminated by the strobing stage lights. Their set pulled from their 2023 album, Concrete Cowboys and the album’s title track seemed to light a fire in an already burning audience. Throughout the show, audience members took to the stage for brief moments of thrashing before throwing themselves back into the crowd. Punk shows seem to break down any traditional separation between artist and crowd; participation is encouraged, rebellion advised, audience antics prerequisite. Chaos was the mandate and was what made the show so fun. Because really, how can you respond to Bennett’s rallying cry, “I wanna be a cowboy baby!” with anything other than fierce, unrelenting dancing?
You can catch BUGGIN at Disturbin’ the Peace fest in Baltimore on January 27th and stream their new album Concrete Cowboys wherever you get your music.
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