Concert Reviews (129)

• May 1, 2018
• Colleen Johnson
• 1405
• 0

(photo by: Luke Urbanzcyk)

The recordings that you hear on  Spotify do not do  justice to Boston locals JUICE. The band has been on my radar for a few months and unfortunately it took me till Sunday to see them live for the first time, when they performed as part of Emmanuel College’s Spring Fest. While this gig was a day gig, the band has played all around the city as well as just coming off a US tour with more dates announced. While at first, the band played to a small crowd for the first two or three songs, the crowd quickly became engaged and grew substantially. I see it as the Warped affect where there are eight bands playing at once so a certain hook or high note can easily pull in the crowd and it just gets bigger and bigger as the set progresses.

Juice, on the record, screams adult contemporary but when it comes to the live performance, that’s where they truly won me over. The six piece’s live energy and how they feed off of each other reminds me of a more classically trained 2 Am Club or Down with Webster. Their new single, “Heartbreak in a Box” , brought Maroon 5 to mind as well. The way the band grooves together is electric and it’s clear the chemistry is there. The band switched it up with rap versus clean vocals and really made for a can’t miss live show. Ending the set on current single ‘Sugar’, with a Kanye West ‘Gold Digger’ cover just before which I’m sure went over really well but who cares at a Roman Catholic college, the crowd was yelping and clapping up a storm after the end of the set!

The guys answered some questions via email for me as well. They were clearly a little secretive but can’t blame them! The band just announced their new project, “Workin’ on Lovin’” which will come out June 15th!

Currently you’re out on a headlining run, tonight you’re in Nashville, how did you go about planning the sets for this tour? Are you road-testing new material, all originals, any covers?
Well, we pretty much always write our sets a few hours before we go on stage. We’ve got our songs that we know work at different points in the set, and all the new songs have been going really well. The only cover that we really play these days is “Gold Digger,” which we’ve been able to make our own.

How has this run of shows been going? Why, if someone hasn’t seen Juice before, should they be coming out?
The shows have been going very well, thank you. In a time where people are pressing play on a laptop to an audience of 20,000 people, we try to engage our fans as much as possible in an authentic way. We also have cool solos.

The band released their latest single “Sugar” in February. How did this song come together writing wise?
It was a snowy day at Boston College and the boys were chilling at modular 3B. We played some notes, and realized they sounded very nice together. These notes together became the song “Sugar.”

Is it a good indication of what’s to come/something new?
haha kinda

Juice has opened for DNCE and Ludacris. What would be a dream tour/collaboration for the band?
Kendrick Lamar, Gary Clark Jr., Frank Ocean, John Mayer

We are still so early in 2018. What are the focuses/maybe goals for the band this year?
We’re really focused on getting each other thoughtful birthday gifts this year. We’ve got a lot of birthdays coming up