Mystery Friends and Kinda Evil @ The Atlantis 1/26/24

Chuck Levin's Concert Club Review 

Forty years after the original venue opened, The Atlantis re-emerged onto the DC music scene in May of 2023 like a phoenix rising out of our collective concert-going past. Photos of Cindi Lauper, The Pixies, and KRS-One now adorn the backstage hallways connected to 9:30 Club as a chronicle of famous artists who graced the original stage decades ago. This reintroduction holds even more meaning to us when local bands have a chance to not only join the artistic history in this space, but also to pack it out! The new Chuck Levin’s Concert Club had a blast attending Mystery Friends’ sold-out album release show there. 

Kinda Evil opened the night as a quartet that wears their influences on their sleeve in both a creative and commemorative way. They play hard-hitting rock music with a heavy push towards groovy hooks and formidable vocals. We heard shades of everything from Jack White’s The Dead Weather and Raconteurs to Courtney Barnett and Queens of the Stone Age in their performance.  

With powerhouse vocals and stage presence to boot from Amanda Dove, the band’s moody, bluesy, and punky music underneath was everything you would want a classic rock n’ roll show to be. 

If Kinda Evil brought the rock, Mystery Friends definitely brought the party. Their new album Utopia plays out like a celebration of 80’s dream pop and indie rock with a distinctly modern sense of clarity and sheen. Their music felt like an homage to funky, alternative art-rock bands of the past like Joy Division, Blondie, and The B-52s while also speaking directly to the tastes of contemporary pop queens like Dua Lipa and Carly Rae Jepsen.  

Lead signer Abby Sevcik could belt with power in one moment and then be charming and silly in the next, keeping the feel of the show fun and fresh. If their goal was to keep the crowd dancing all night, they certainly succeeded. Highlights for us included the infectiously catchy single “Serotonin” and a tender rendition of the album’s closer “Apartment” which had the audience pulling out cell phones and lighters for a heartfelt ballad. 

It should come as no surprise that with all of this music being made onstage, interesting gear was on full display! Fender amps generally ruled the night for both bands, but we saw some honorable appearances from a Roland JC-40 and Harmony Series 6. For guitars, Kinda Evil leaned into higher output humbuckers and mini-humbuckers – they rocked an iconic Gibson SG and a Sterling by Music Man St. Vincent – whereas Mystery Friends had a single coil red Strat and sunburst Telecaster for those glassy clean funk rhythms. Keyboards and synths were also in no short supply – we counted five during the headlining set, with Dave Mohl’s Sequential Prophet–5 being a standout.

Mystery Friends Album "Utopia" is available now! https://mysteryfriends.bandcamp.com/album/utopia

Photo and Video by Emory Hensley/Chuck Levin's