In the summer of 2022, I worked as a production intern for BRIC Celebrate! Brooklyn, a multi-week community music festival in Prospect Park. The days were long and hard, but the joy that came from pulling off successful and memorable nights of music was worth it every time. One of my favorite shows came towards the end of the season where this up-and-coming group from New Zealand played to a massive crowd of excited indie rock fans.

The winter has begun to descend upon the east coast, with earlier sunsets and cooler temperatures bringing a slightly higher level of difficulty with traversing in a mainly walkable city. However, the stark contrast between the freezing temperatures outside and the warmth inside of packed out rooms always make the trek worth it, and Portugal. The Man certainly brought the heat with their show at Terminal 5.

Shoegaze has been having a bit of a moment lately, to put it lightly. The surge of a new generation of music fans with access to the vast majority of recorded music right at their fingertips gave a somewhat forgotten alternative style a breath of new life. While the peaks of the first wave of shoegaze heavyweights like my bloody valentine may be long gone, they certainly aren’t forgotten, with newer bands stepping up to the plate left and right, each of them creating massive soundscapes that