Concerts

Review & Setlist: GROUPLOVE brings Boston together at Roadrunner

The "Tongue Tied" indie rockers simmer and shimmer with a high-energy show.

Hannah Hooper and Christian Zucconi of GROUPLOVE perform at Chase Field on October 09, 2023, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

By Christopher Gavin

3 minutes to read

The beginning of GROUPLOVE’s Friday night show at Roadrunner was a summoning.

In a darkened theater, before the Atlanta-based indie rock band took the stage, speakers blared Paul McCartney’s thundering bass groove and The Beatles loudly beckoned from the past those iconic words off of “Abbey Road:” “Come together — right now.”

And if the title of GROUPLOVE’s current tour is to be believed — “Rock and Roll You Won’t Save Me” — then maybe, as Friday’s show went on to suggest, we can all find some salvation in each other.

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“GROUPLOVE is literally beyond this band. It’s everyone in this entire room,” vocalist-guitarist Christian Zucconi told the crowd, just before jumping into a set-closing, driving take of “Colours,” off of the band’s 2011 breakthrough debut, “Never Trust a Happy Song.”

“So please, take that out … with you and share it with the world.”

For an hour and 43 minutes, GROUPLOVE poured out plenty of that camaraderie, boosted by their high-octane, ’90s-tinged rock-meets-pop that has sustained the band for 15 years now.

Much of Friday’s set felt like a bonfire, roaring undimmed throughout the night over the course of 23 songs. The flames crackled up through the opening “Close Your Eyes and Count to Ten” and into the simmering “Primetime,” then soared into the quick-driving “Deleter” and the spunky-riff behind “Borderlines and Aliens.”

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Only after six songs did the band stop to appreciate the blaze they built, the warmth of the crowd reflected back to them in jumps, sways, and plenty of support in GROUPLOVE’s inviting, catchy choruses.

“Damn Boston, this is crazy,” vocalist Hannah Hooper, clearly stunned, told the packed house.

The show, she said, was the biggest of the tour, which ends Saturday in New York.

“Feels good after all these years of being away,” added Zucconi, whose on-stage chemistry with Hooper, his wife, was palpable in the embers of Friday’s performance.

Hannah Hooper and Christian Zucconi of GROUPLOVE perform at Chase Field on October 09, 2023, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

GROUPLOVE’s latest trip to Boston came on the heels of last year’s release, “I Want It All Right Now,” the band’s sixth album, which the group describes as exploring “the deepest tensions of the human psyche with equal parts tenderness, curiosity, and exacting self-revelation.”

Much of this new material —“Cheese,” “Malachi,” “Hello,” and “Cream”—mixed seamlessly into GROUPLOVE’s live catalog, connected by the group’s signature synthy-sheen and grungy guitar sludge, which gives the band its ever-present playfulness. Bassist Daniel Gleason, guitarist Andrew Wessen, and drummer Ben Homol worked dutifully to bring it all to life.

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“Chances,” a single dropped in February in conjunction with the tour’s kickoff, also injected some fresh flair, the delirious “La la las” in its chorus echoing around Roadrunner during a late-set rendition.

“Tongue Tied,” the band’s 2011 romp, clearly remains GROUPLOVE’s unmatched fan favorite, its bright melody feeling both uplifting and wistful, simultaneously present and nostalgic.

“Take me to your best friend’s house, I loved you then and I love you now,” Hooper and Zucconi sang in unison.

There’s definitely an argument to be made that a GROUPLOVE show feels very much like that — your best friend’s house, where there’s plenty of encouragement, understanding, support, and love to go around — a place where memories are made, together.

“You are the only person that can make your art. No one else can make it. It’s like a gift,” an encouraging Hooper said, urging the crowd to create things with friends.

On Friday, that gift felt more than just art, though: The collective togetherness of a GROUPLOVE show is, in and of itself, the gift – a party where all are invited and all are friends.

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SETLIST

GROUPLOVE took the stage at 9:05 p.m. The show ended at 10:43 p.m.

  • Close Your Eyes and Count to Ten
  • Primetime
  • Deleter
  • Borderlines and Aliens
  • Cheese
  • Malachi
  • Ways to Go
  • Just What You Want
  • I’m With You
  • Shark Attack
  • This Is the End
  • All 
  • Girl
  • Eyes
  • Welcome to Your Life
  • Hello
  • Tongue Tied
  • Song 2 (Blur cover)
  • Chances
  • Cream

ENCORE:

  • Itchin’ on a Photograph
  • Raspberry
  • Colours

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