Distracted

BY ALLIE RUSSELL

Some shows remind you why live music matters. Not just in the “wow, great vocals!” way, but in the way where something real and messy gets shared across a room of strangers, and you all leave just a little more cracked open than before. That’s what Blondshell brought to the Royale last night. Boston showed up to really feel something, and she gave us plenty to work with. 

The show marked one of the early dates on her latest tour behind If You Asked For A Picture, the sophomore album she dropped back in May. The record is sharper, more layered, and even more emotionally brutal than her self-titled debut. Live, these songs feel like they’ve already lived a hundred lives. 

The night opened with Daffo, an indie act who felt like the perfect pairing to Blondshell’s simmering intensity. It was their first night on the tour, and their biggest crowd yet, but you wouldn’t know it. They owned the stage with a kind of spark that makes you say, “Okay, I need to remember this name.”

When Blondshell (Sabrina Teitelbaum) finally walked out, the energy snapped into place. The crowd wasn’t just excited, they were losing it. She opened with “23’s A Baby,” a slow-burn confessional that immediately pulled us into her orbit. From there, she never really let go. 

“Docket” was where everything seemed to click, on stage and off. You could tell that the crowd had history with this song. It wasn’t just that everyone knew the words – it was the way they yelled them, like the song had been sitting in their chests for too long. You could see something shift in her, too, like that was the moment she stopped performing at the crowd and started singing with them. She looked totally at ease, her delivery looser and more powerful than before.

Midway through the set, she debuted an unreleased track – “Berlin TV Tower” – performed as a hushed duet between her and her guitarist. The room fell quiet, respectful in that almost reverent way, as if everyone knew they were getting something special. It was a beautiful pause in a night full of cathartic scream-alongs. 

Then, there was the Addison Rae cover. Blondshell’s take on “Diet Pepsi” is all grit and dark glamour. It’s sly, sultry, and completely on-brand for an artist who’s made a career out of embracing contradiction. It’s now streaming, but live, it hit even harder. 

She closed the main set with “Kiss City,” the kind of song that makes you want to cry and dance all at once. A perfect closer. But the crowd wasn’t letting go yet, and she rewarded them with a two-song encore: “Event of a Fire” and “Salad”. She didn’t try to outdo the moment; it was a quiet finale that somehow wrapped everything up perfectly. 

There’s something singular about a Blondshell performance. It’s part therapy session, part rock show. She’s not interested in perfection; she’s interested in presence. If last night proved anything, it’s that people are more than ready to meet her where she’s at. She gave her full self to Boston, and Boston gave it right back.