Boston Calling 2024: Day 1

By: Gabriella Celona

A Blast to the Past: Reliving Our Preteen Days

5 Seconds of Summer star Luke Hemmings shares that Boston Calling 2024 is the first-ever music festival performance of his career.

The last time I saw Luke Hemmings in concert was ten years ago when 5SOS opened for One Direction back in 2014. Now, most of the time there’s this idea that once a boy band breaks up they don’t get very far in their musical career individually. Hemmings on the other hand proved otherwise. I can genuinely say that there was not one song that didn’t exceed the others on his setlist. He gives almost a Harry Styles-type feel to his music but with a little edge!

After a set of switching tunes and guitars between songs, he says to Boston’s crowd, referring to himself in a joking manner, “Who is this guy? We don’t know any of his songs”. Then proceeded to finish with two final songs, the first one being “Friday I’m In Love” by The Cure. While he passionately sang and vibed with the crowd during his time on stage, the crowd easily reciprocated the joyful energy. “You all dance so beautifully,” he says, and let me tell you, we were all thinking “You look… I mean, you sing so beautifully!”

A Literal Icon Admits to Loving Boston

Renee Rapp: iconic actress, singer, and songwriter; truly got the audience pumping. Her personality is extremely present on stage, she knows how to flirt with the camera in front of her, and she is interactive with the crowd in between songs. Not only is she talented but she is also an incredibly caring soul. In the middle of singing one of her songs, a fan passed out– so she stopped the song and made sure everyone made a path for the EMTs to get to the audience member, making sure she was safe. Rapp then told the girl who passed out that she was “serving in the sun”. I mean honestly, how else do you make a situation like that sound as cool as Renee makes it sound?

Now, in the past, she has previously mentioned that she doesn’t like Boston given she has had some “trying times” due to her past dating experience. She then sings her song “I Hate Boston” from her Snow Angel album which originally was not scheduled to be on her Boston Calling setlist.

Back to the baddie-slaying energy that she radiates, proving to the audience how careless you can be when you love what you do. Her pianist said to her in the middle of her set “So do you wanna go to the next song or you wanna shake some ass?” and yes, she indeed did take that opportunity to shake some ass. She was shaking it alone and she was shaking it with her other band member Ari! This is something that has been added to my bucket list: Shake some ass with Renee Rapp. I’m telling you right now, if and when this happens, we will become besties.

Although Rapp does have this captivating exciting energy, let's slow it down a bit for a second. She sings one of her more popular songs “In the Kitchen”, where she shares that this song was written about a boy. It’s humorous because considering she is open and proud to be a lesbian, she doesn't know why this was about a boy, but it was.

She finishes her awe-inspiring time on the Boston Calling Green Stage by saying “I love Boston now. I’m a hater for a lot of sh*t but I guess not here!”

The Anticipated Final Act: Headliner Ed Sheeran

A one-man live band: Ed Sheeran.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Ed Sheeran live in action, let me tell you why he is exceptionally unique compared to other artists nowadays. As I quote another audience member when walking out of the festival, “I now have a new appreciation for him” after seeing him live for the first time.

Every single performance he plays is completely live and has no backtrack to any of the songs. His natural talent is presented through the creation of music he executes on the stage, by using the instruments around him– recording and adding layers to the music at the same time as serenading the audience with his captivating voice.

The gifted artist is a purebred performer: starting at an open mic night in a pub in England, to being a world-known artist who never gave up on himself. If you are asking yourself what he sounds like in person vs in his recorded tracks, I'm telling you you wouldn’t even know the difference.

Not only can the man perform and keep his audience happy, but he interacts with them throughout his performance to give an inviting touch to his set. He spoke to the Boston Calling audience about how grateful he is that when he sang some of his slower songs we all just really listened to him perform, and as an artist all he wants is for people to listen to his music, then continued to say “for the rest of the night, [he] wants everyone’s voice gone the next day! “My job is to sing in tune, your job is to scream out of tune”, and that’s exactly what we did.

Music has a profound ability to provoke emotions. Music activates areas of the brain associated with emotion and memory, therefore explaining why it can provoke chills in the body, the hair standing up on your arms, or if you feel as heavily as I do, bringing you to the point where you actually cry. At this point in his set, I thought to myself “Real love is just like an Ed Sheeran song”.

Now if you didn’t already know– Ed Sheeran's songs are all written by himself, but he gave us a little secret about what he likes to call, his “hard drive hits”. These songs sit in his back pocket for years to either eventually be taken out and used, or sold to other artists to sing. He began to sing a song he wrote years ago, “Love Yourself”, which became an incredibly well-known hit by Justin Bieber.

These three artists were a few of many talented artists performing for Day 1 of Boston Calling; alongside David Kushner, the pop band Cannons, and other artists including local musicians. What an amazing start to a great weekend!