Viagra Boys with Provoker @ Warsaw- Brooklyn, NY
Photos & words courtesy of Edwina Hay | April 4th 2022
Stockholm post-punk band Viagra Boys tour came to Brooklyn, NY for a sold-out show at Warsaw on Monday, April 4, 2022. They’re currently on their first North American tour after the release of their 2021 record, Welfare Jazz, and will wrap up their jaunt in the US by performing at Coachella at the end of the month.
Viagra Boys are joined on this tour by Los Angeles’ Provoker, their YEAR0001 record labelmates. Provoker kicked off the night at 8PM with their moody songs that were further enhanced by the dramatic stage lights. Their debut album, Body Jumper, was also released last year and their setlist consisted of those songs. Before they began “Blue Sheen,” vocalist Christian Petty requested blue lights to compliment the track.
Taking the stage at 9PM were the Viagra Boys. After the band appeared on stage, singer Sebastian Murphy immediately took off his shirt before they began their first song, “Research Chemicals,” from their 2016 EP Consistency of Energy. He spent much of their set drinking and spewing beer, crawling around on stage, and announcing that it was his birthday in between songs. At one point, many people in the audience began to sing “Happy Birthday” to him before the band started another song. The five members of Viagra Boys blazed through their dozen song setlist plus two song encore (“Sports” and “Down in the Basement”).
This was my first time seeing Viagra Boys live due to me missing their prior NYC shows at Bowery Ballroom and Rough Trade NYC (which subsequently closed with only the record store relocating to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan) in 2019. I arrived at the venue expecting a rowdy and fun show and the band, along with the audience, lived up to those expectations.
