By Ian Eisenbrand / Photos from Jasmine Rust

In the face of a horror show during Friday night’s edition of Syracuse’s Spook Ball, Saturday night’s sequel made up for any lost time.

At the time of its announcement, the Spook Ball was set to be a two-night concert serving as the spine-chilling soundtrack to a raucous four day bender laying under the terrifyingly shallow guise of Halloweekend. The concert’s lineup initially featured nine artists, including numerous popular stakeholders in the Syracuse music scene, such as Picture Us Tiny, A Kid Named Rufus, and NONEWFRIENDS. The combination of the event’s festive timing and star-powered lineup quickly accumulated traction within the community, with tickets selling out days before doors opened.

As Halloween loomed imminently over Syracuse, a thrilling bloom was growing in the shadows of the city. Yet, in the likeness of any classic horror film, the plot of this story did not escape from its fair portion of terror.

Regrettably, Friday set’s dived far too deep into the nightmarish fashion of Halloween. One could argue the night leaned into lines of demonic possession as the show was shut down minutes into the opening set due to ‘structural concerns.’ The incident quickly turned the two-night event into a one-night concert, forcing organizers to face the monsters in their closet head on. `

Following this mishap, though, the organizers of the event pushed past a reduced lineup and dampered community morale in committing to the Saturday night show. In this, they offered what became the holy water to a weekend in desperate need of an exorcism.

The line for Saturday night’s venue snaked around the front yards of homes on Sumner Avenue and into a back alleyway, leading into a thinly wooded backyard surrounded by low chain link fence. The set was clearly structured to promote a more intimate, and perhaps less destructive, environment for the concert. A small ground-level stage was assembled on a tarp placed over scattered autumn leaves and damp evergreen vines. Vintage Christmas lights strung along a canopy tent sheltering the stage illuminated the scene with gentle reds and greens as the crowd filed into the venue on first nightfall. By the time the show was planned to begin (8:30 PM), a crowd dressed in an absurdly wide range of costumes filled the yard, clearly holding no inhibitions regarding the events of the night before. 

The concert opened with Erin Manion, a Syracuse University student whose emotionally-driven indie sound recently reached notoriety in Syracuse. Manion made a clear attempt to mitigate any residual house-crippling tendencies early on, introducing the night with a set that seemed more effective in inducing cutesy slow dancing in the audience over anything resembling a mosh pit. Erin Manion’s personal discography became an early highlight of the night with her performance of “Cracks,” a track featuring heartbreaking lyrics by Manion alongside poignant harmonies between double acoustic guitars and an aqua green Telecaster. As the set went on, Manion also exhibited a wide range of sonic and emotional tones in her covers of “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac and “I Know the End” by Phoebe Bridgers. As she reached the end of her Bridgers cover, Manion entered a belting goodbye with the surprise support of a two-person horn section, leading the crowd into an electrifying salutation to her time in the night. 

For a moment after Manion’s set, the stage sat in silence. If one wasn’t looking, they might not have noticed the black tie affair quietly building on the tarped floor before them. Suddenly, a hypnotizing line of bass, drums, and twinkling keys reverberated through the crowd as BRI, who grinned confidently underneath a fuzzy white bucket hat, opened with her track “Comin’ Thru.” The entrance of BRI’s angelic vocals immediately entranced the audience, lacing a final layer of glue over a crowd already thoroughly trapped by the groove. Following a more than compelling introduction, BRI boiled the misty air of the night into a simmer with her performance of Doja Cat’s “Woman,” leaving the crowd to bubble and pop under BRI’s infectious energy and potent crowd control. This control continued through the entirety of the set as BRI engaged with the audience and her bandmates playfully, exuding imperturbable self-assurance in her talent. By the end of her set, BRI’s soul saturated the venue, leaving the audience still swaying with the rhythm of the wind as her last song ended.

The night took a distinct twist only moments after the collection of well-dressed talent exited the stage with the crashing character of 33col3. Entering the stage in a lilac ski mask, 33col3’s genre-bending style of hyperpunk pop-rock provided a unique tone in the night’s setlist; the crowd received his unapologetically brash tone with open arms, moshing as waves of smoke rode the dissonant melodies into cool night air. The set reached its pinnacle in 33col3’s recent single “Pet Bear'' as the crowd engaged in an angsty sing-along as they thrashed about in a mosh that ebbed and flowed with the pace of the song. As the song reached its resolution, 33col3 waved goodbye as he left stage right to enthusiastic hollering cheers from the crowd. 

The first headlining artist followed 33col3’s set, entering the stage with full engagement into the Halloween spirit as he sauntered towards the stage, drinking from the bottle of a genie. As he reached center stage, a kid named rufus placed his bottle on the tarp below to give a twirl to the purple robes of his Aladdin costume flowing elegantly behind him. a kid named rufus began his set wooing the crowd from their bedroom windows with the acoustic heartbreak “Useless,” in which he describes a love long lost months before the break up. One of the biggest names to come out of Syracuse in recent years, a kid named rufus also displayed a mastery of the two cover songs he performed, “Dark Red” by Steve Lacy and “I Love You Baby” by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons. In his performance of the covers, a kid named rufus interpolated the two songs, going back and forth between each track, creating a masterful indie-opera with the effective implementation of his own charismatic sound. Following a roaring applause from the crowd, a kid named rufus returned to the poetry of his mind with “things will be okay,” a nostalgic ballad that seemed to catch just about every member of the audience with something in their eye. Once the final chord was struck, a kid named rufus squatted down to quickly pick up his genie bottle to take a final sip of its contents before bowing to a thoroughly treated crowd. 

Immediately after the previous set, the crowd began to buzz with each moment raising the tension in the air as Picture Us Tiny set up their equipment. Picture Us Tiny has long found a home in Syracuse with the artist’s intermingling punk-pop-rock sound, and the notoriety of their live performances preceded their entrance onto the tarp stage. Picture Us Tiny initiated the set with signature piece “Party Girl,” immediately inspiring whatever angsty teen remained in the audience from their high school days to return as they moshed about to whining guitars and impressive drum breaks. The set continued on with the track “Indie Girls 101,” a lament on the girls of Syracuse University grounded by high-tempo instrumentation and a stirring vocal performance. Although Picture Us Tiny’s set held no point of reservation in terms of energy, its definite climax arrived with their cover of “Dear Maria,” as a mass mosh pit crashed against the chain link fences of the yard from the first refrain of the chorus until the final heartbeats of the track. With the song’s conclusion, it took a good few moments for the audience to even recognize its ending before offering a fanatical applaud.

It’s practically impossible to envision a Syracuse music scene without the dominant presence of NONEWFRIENDS., and the gravity of their finale performance held in the midst of a stacked setlist reflected the weight of their influence .The group’s members were some of the primary organizers for the Spook Ball, and the passion they held for the event was made clear from the onset of their performance. The set was initiated with the opening verse to “American Boy” by Estelle and Kanye West. The cover shifted the track’s instrumentation towards phasing electric guitars and the classic Nord Stage 3 keyboard, recreating the track into an infectious indie ballad while maintaining the roots of the track, even covering the iconic Kanye verse. The group’s first-rate live performance skills were also made evident through their dominant hand over the crowd in their tracks “Already Gone” and “Not Your Girl” as well, leading the audience in inspiring proclamations of liberation and love. The set ended with an irresistible cover of “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry, which held a tantalizing key switch into the world of jazz that enraptured the crowd as they sang along to the lyrics of youthful love. The song and set were concluded with an encore solo of the Nord Stage 3, twinkling the refrain’s melody gently away into the night as the rest of the collective took in the cheers of the crowd.

The energy of the night idled in the backyard for an unusually extended amount of time as the crowd slowly paraded out into the festivities of Halloween Eve. In the mind of an optimist, one could hope this means that beyond the nightmares of Friday night, Saturday night offered exactly what Halloweekend needed.