PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED BY GABRIEL DAVID BARKIN | PUBLISHED ON October 23, 2024

Melt

Melt played a solid, stellar sold-out show at the Independent in San Francisco Tuesday night, preceded by a set featuring their current touring partner MARIS. India Thieriot opened the show.

Veronica Stewart-Frommer, Melt

Melt is touring in support of their 2024 album, “If There’s a Heaven.” It’s their first full-length release, but the band has been together for seven years and scored their first small hit way back in 2017. Cool story behind that hit: co-founders Veronica Stewart-Frommer (Vocals) and Eric Gabriel (Vocals, Keys), are both NYC natives who started playing music together in High School. They entered and won a local “battle of the bands.” Emboldened and modestly enriched, they used their prize money to fund the production of Melt’s first single “Sour Candy” in 2017.

Veronica Stewart-Frommer & Marlo Shankweiler, Melt

In addition to Stewart-Frommer and Gabriel, Melt is comprised of Marlo Shankweiler (guitar), Ralphie Smith (bass), and Luca Pinci (drums).

Eric Gabriel, Melt

Melt’s recorded music is equal parts indie pop and soul. On stage, they add a corresponding amount of high-energy rock. True to a band name that straddles different physical states of being, Melt is both cool like Sade and hot like Alabama Shakes. They’re a tight, fun ensemble with flowing, wavy melodies and tight arrangements. Some songs have whispers of Todd Rundgren at his Philly blue-eyed-soul best. Others harken back to very early Steely Dan. People have also compared them to Fleetwood Mac (though I don’t hear that particularly.)

Veronica Stewart-Frommer, Melt

Above all else, Stewart-Frommer’s vocals soar. She has the kind of stage-front star power that suggests a bright future. Her vocal range is striking, and she wields it skillfully to convey vulnerability, power, confidence, and desire. Stewart-Frommer’s vocals are never forced; she can sing the phonebook without breaking a sweat.

Veronica Stewart-Frommer, Melt

The first time I saw Melt and heard Stewart-Frommer sing, at this summer’s High Sierra Music Festival, I was reminded of my first live exposure to Brittany Howard fronting the aforementioned Alabama Shakes. Sometimes a performer’s potential is palpable. I felt the same about Beyoncé the first time I saw her sing with Destiny’s Child on one of MTV’s “Divas” specials. You hear a voice, you see someone on stage, and you can see them in the future in front of tens of thousands headlining a festival. At High Sierra in the Vaudeville Tent, Stewart-Frommer killed it on Katie Perry’s “Fireworks.” (It was the Fourth of July, after all.) I was sold. And she left few doubters behind at the Independent on Tuesday this week.

Eric Gabriel, Melt

The stage at the Indy was festooned with plastic ivy draped over the front of the keyboard, guitar amps, and bass drum, and long, white scarves flowing from the mic stands. The quintet began their set without an introduction and proceeded to play most of their new album. Highlights included a most-definitely NOT shy version of “Shy” and a spirited version of the lyrically charming “Your Name”:

Your name is a cardboard box
Full of memories, home DVDs
That I don’t watch

Veronica Stewart-Frommer & Ralphie Smith, Melt

A friend came on stage to sing join Stewart-Frommer in singing Gillian Welch’s “Look at Miss Ohio.” Sadly, this was an homage to another friend who died recently. The moment was clearly emotional for some in the audience as well as on stage; many cell phone flashlights were held aloft.

Ralphie Smith & Marlo Shankweiler, Melt

Throughout the night, Shankweiler had many turns in the spotlight with some shredding guitar leads. Shankweiler’s contributions are one of the main differentiators between the recorded and live versions – for the most part, these impassioned, energetic instrumental stretches that featured Shankweiler’s guitar are absent on the studio recordings, but they are one of the things that makes Melt an exciting act on stage.

MARIS with Eric Gabriel & Ralphie Smith of Melt

Smith, on bass, was also prominent, frequently joining Stewart-Frommer at the front of the stage with vigor and bounce to punctuate the instrumental bits. He threw down a seriously tasty funk bass solo toward the end of the show too.

MARIS with Veronica Stewart-Frommer of Melt

Near the end of the set, Melt played “Heaven,” a standout track on the LP with a chorus that starts by declaring, “If there’s a heaven, everybody’s getting in.” For spiritual contrast, they encored with MARIS joining in with Stewart-Frommer to sing a duet version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” (Small World Department: The night before, I watched “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which featured the same song in an extended fight scene.) MARIS and Stewart-Frommer indeed got down on their knees, and the audience was enraptured.

MARIS with Veronica Stewart-Frommer of Melt

Remember how I name-checked Brittany Howard above as a similarly mesmerizing force of nature? I wrote that before the show. Afterwards, I noticed Howard’s picture hung on the wall in the hallway entrance at the Indy. Perhaps one day, Stewart-Frommer’s picture will be hanging beside it.

Melt

And now, we get to talk about MARIS. For openers, she has a bio on her website that echoes the otherworldly ethos of David Bowie:

MARIS

“MARIS first discovered planet Earth in 1999 while traveling through the endless vacuum of space on an expedition for life, love, and adventure … Her mission on this planet is to connect with listeners through her candid experiences as a queer and emotionally vulnerable songwriter with an ‘80s-inflected pop universe and beats you can’t help but dance along to.”

MARIS

She took the stage with a silver spacesuit on, complete with a fabric helmet covering the top half of her head. Her vibe was instantly infectious, and she engaged the crowd immediately, meeting the gaze of each person in the front row directly (including my camera lens). For the next 45 minutes or so, her highly caffeinated (I’m guessing here) performance captivated everyone’s utmost attention. This person knows how to work a stage!

MARIS

MARIS sang her heart out, backed by a live drummer and some prerecorded dance tracks. The songs were catchy – and it was obvious a significant number of people in the audience were familiar with her stuff and were there primarily to see her (including several front-and-center folks I talked with during the break). Many people sang along on the choruses. Everybody sang along when she covered Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

Fun was in the house.

MARIS fans hugging themselves

MARIS kneeled down and sang right to front row. She rolled on the floor like Madonna did long ago in that wedding dress on MTV. She said she was from Montana: “Yellowstone and shit, yeah!” She “smashed” a blow-up guitar like Pete Townshend in a toy shop. There was a love song for the foster cat she had to give up, and there was the moment when she had everyone hug themselves tightly and shout, “I love you just the way you are you fucking bitch.”

MARIS

The obvious comparison is Chappell Roan, but without the pink cowboy hats and a far smaller crowd. And that last part may change; MARIS ain’t going away soon, that’s my bet.

For good measure, she sells shirts that say, “Did YOU listen to Maris before it was cool?”

Well – did you?

MARIS

The first act, India Thieriot, has roots in the Bay Area but she currently calls New York City her home. She credits Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift among her influences. Thieriot has released a hefty string of singles over the past half dozen years, including “Deep End,” which dropped the day of this show.

India Thieriot

Thieriot has a deep voice that shows promise. The Independent crowd was her biggest audience yet, and she may have been nervous. Also, her guitar player (she also had a drummer) seems to have drowned his computer with a bottle of water before the show, so things got off to a shaky start. But she had lots of friends in the house for her first ever San Francisco hometown appearance, and her set was received warmly.

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Review and photos by Gabriel David Barkin | www.gdbarkin.com | IG: @gabrieldavidbarkin