“Rock music should be played in a room that is, like, ideally, 250 capacity,” stalwart DIY truther Greg Freeman told The New York Times earlier this year. Antone’s may be double that, but it’s still the kind of room where Freeman’s raucous-yet-contemplative writing is most at home, one where the closely gathered walls feel barely able to contain the Northeastern-raised songwriter’s grunge-derived distortion and rollicking riffs. Freeman’s cunningly poetic metaphors, delivered in a warbling yet assured howl, take on a heftier importance onstage, triumphantly surrounded by florid arrangements encompassing psychedelically used pedal steel, saxophone, and harmonica. – Caroline Drew
