Joywave at the Bowery Ballroom

Daniel Armbruster

Vocalist Daniel Armbruster, guitarist Joseph Morinelli, and drummer Paul Brenner played in several bands together during their youth in Rochester, New York. They formed Joywave in 2010 and a year later recruited bassist Sean Donnelly and then keyboardist Benjamin Bailey. Joywave released its first mixtape in 2011 and first EP in 2012, but achieved its first notable success in 2014 with its collaboration with electronic music project Big Data on the song "Dangerous," which hit number one on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart. Joywave's second and most recent album, Content, was released on July 28, 2017.

After opening for the Bleachers in 2015 and the Cold War Kids this past summer, Joywave embarked on a headlining tour of mid-sized clubs, including the Bowery Ballroom tonight. With the opportunity to headline came additional theatricality via a series of artful videos and animation on four small television sets as a backdrop to the songs. Joywave still looked like a lo-fi indie band but performed as a polished mainstream band, frequently manipulating whimsical shoegaze melodies into bombastic blasts that whipped into aerobic arena-rock pop anthems. Armbruster's soft vocals and the band's silky, danceable rhythms made for radio-friendly hooks that enlivened and energized the songs, and somewhat edgy arrangements saved the show from being pure bubblegum fare. These slick pop treatments will attract a large and mostly younger audience to Joywave.

Visit Joywave at www.joywavemusic.com.