It’s the first Saturday night back at the University of Massachusetts. Most college students are either going out to the local bars, pulling up to house parties, trying to make ratio at a frat house or getting ahead in their classes by cranking out assignments way too early.
But at The Drake, there’s a packed audience filled with fans waiting to see the pop-rock band, Laundry Day.
Laundry Day consists of members Jude Ciulla-Lipkin on vocals, Sawyer Nunes on vocals, drums and guitar, Henry Weingartner on guitar and Henry Pearl on bass. The band was formed in 2016 at Beacon High School in New York City.
To get the audience warmed up for the main act of the night, DJ Satchel Shure hit the stage to play a huge mash-up of iconic party songs such as “Hotel Room Service” by Pitbull, “Heads Will Roll” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “B2b” by Charli XCX while the stage lights spewed out hues of reds, yellows and white.
Laundry Day at The Drake. (Suzanne Bagia)
Once Satchel Shure’s set was over, the venue cut the lights, and out of nowhere, Randy Newman’s song “The Time of Your Life” (featured in the Disney-Pixar movie “A Bug’s Life”) started playing from the speakers.
When the lyrics, “As far as I can tell/It’s the time of your life,” began, the four boys ran from the green room onto the stage stairs to start the show.
The screams coming from the audience were strongly reminiscent of what you’d hear from an old Beatles performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Right away, anyone can see that Laundry Day truly is a boy band that fans can literally freak out over.
And that’s just what the audience did when the first song, “R U READY?” began.
“Everybody, gather ‘round/This is how it’s going down tonight…Are you ready?/Ready for the time of your life?” It seemed that almost everyone in the audience knew every word to this opening song, something that would be present for the duration of the show.
Even if someone in the crowd wasn’t a diehard fan of the band, it was nearly impossible not to groove along to Laundry Day’s infectious melodies. Frontman Ciulla-Lipkin controlled the audience with his effortless vibrato reminiscent of Justin Timberlake.
There were very memorable moments throughout the show. For example, the band showed off their skills of diving into different genres during “CHA,” where Pearl ripped a funky bass line. Even more impressive was their transition into the song “ALIEN,” where vocals were layered up one by one using a sampler machine.
In “ALIEN,” Ciulla-Lipkin shows off his surprisingly good rapping skills while Nunes harmonized with him during the chorus. The boys were offbeat here and there with one another during this number, but it was opening night after all, so a little bit of rustiness is expected.
Their voices meshed well together, especially during “MEDICINE”. The love song tells listeners that the vocalists don’t want to be anyone else’s lover, friend, problem or man. The solid harmonization with one another during this song truly made up for any minor slip-ups that could have occurred during the remainder of the show.
But it wasn’t just Ciulla-Lipkin and Nunes who showed off their tight-knit connection on stage; Pearl and Weingartner were so locked in with one another’s guitar and bass playing that the two even went back-to-back with each other a couple of times during their set.
While watching Laundry Day perform, you could tell that these are just four buddies who love to jam with each other. They knew what to do, when to do it and how to do it well.
Laundry Day at The Drake. (Suzanne Bagia)
They were just doing their own thing. They were making the whole audience feel like they were close personal friends with the band themselves, providing a similar atmosphere to what it would be like to watch them rehearse in a friend’s garage.
During the song, “SUPERMODEL,” this aspect really stood out; it felt like Ciulla-Lipkin was singing to each audience member and probably had many of them thinking, “wait, is he looking at me?!”
The cherry on top of Laundry Day’s set was their final song, “IN ANOTHER LIFE.” While rainbow lights and white strobe lights flashed across the entire venue, the frontman literally jumped into the crowd and danced along with the audience, showing the true intent of this band: to connect with their fans and provide them with the fact that they want to have fun too.
To officially end their set, the band performed a quick rendition of “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes (featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing”), bringing the show full circle to how it initially started.
Laundry Day truly gave Amherst the time of their life, which is the goal that the band wants to accomplish at each show they perform on their “THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE” tour, which will be running until Feb. 28.
Paige Hanson can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @Paige_Hanson1.
