Farewell Friends, Farewell Have Mercy

Visual by Natasha Arnowitz

For the past ten years, emo/alt rock band Have Mercy has wreaked an emotional downpour of havoc in venues across America – with album tours for The Earth Pushed Back, A Place of Our Own, Make the Best of It, and recently, The Love Life. But on February 5th, Brian Swindle and his band took their final steps on the Sinclair stage in Cambridge during the first stop of their Farewell tour. 

The venue–a smaller, cozier, more intimate, and almost better version of the House of Blues–filled up slowly at first, but by the time opener Young Culture started, it quickly turned into a packed house. Fans flocked from states away to see the incredible lineup of Young Culture, Selfish Things, Fredo Disco, and Have Mercy – with one Emerson alumni even taking a bus all the way from Maine. 

The first band, a young, up-and-coming five-piece, took to the stage with nothing but confidence; they referred to their songs as “classics” and surprisingly amped up the crowd with what sounded like a peppy getting-ready-for-prom playlist. The crowd echoed back their lyrics, however, and only greeted them with praise.

But while Young Culture, only coming out with their first full-length album in 2020, and were rightfully, extremely excited to greet the audience, Selfish Things provided a much needed balance, emanating a humility that was almost endearing. Honest, they welcomed the crowd with an immediate insecurities, “I hope we don’t fuck this up.” The band, (a three piece with keys, guitar, and vocals) mirrored the harmonious blue lights gently dancing on the stage, with positive messages of urging fans to “get through the bad shit in hopes of finding the good.” With a very crisp, clean guitar sound (thanks to the combination of Fender and Orange gear), and a grandier opening of vocals that mimicked the likes of Adele, they provided a nice balance with synths in absence of a drum set. While their billing on this tour seemed strange at first, Selfish Things provided a pause – a breath – that we all needed in order to get through the emotional turmoil that lay ahead. 

Fredo Disco, on the other hand, completely turned the tables: appearing at first to be nothing more than a group of young high school kids, the four-piece from Chicago provided a colorful, all-encompassing upbeat flavor of color (of stage lights, energy, and hues of hair) that sent the crowd moshing and surfing during only their second song. Fredo reacted positively to the crowd’s energy, (“fuck, you guys are a really cool audience”) but encouraged everybody to stay safe, showcasing his maturity as a performer. Rather recognizable as a band, the fans screamed support along to every song, including the most popular: “saturn suv” and “shower song.” The band clearly knew how to have fun, and thus provided themselves as the perfect people to play prior to Have Mercy. 

And then it was time. When the stagehands finished setting up the mics and speakers, they walked to the back of the stage to pull the strings from a banner, revealing repeated lines of “Thank You” and at the bottom, “for listening to Have Mercy.” At that moment, I knew it was going to be an amazing show; the crowd awed in unity with loyal fans yelling out, “my heart hurts!” and “please reconsider!” A buzz of exasperation passed through the crowd before turning to cheers as Brian Swindle and the remaining members took to the stage, immediately starting on a high with fan favorite, “Coexist.” The band gave it everything they had, knowing the fans would completely lose it, only to wipe the sweat off their brows at the conclusion of the first song. 

Shocked, Swindle announced to the crowd, “I never thought we’d be saying goodbye but I’m ready to go home and fucking lay in bed for awhile,” (to which, the knowingly depressed singer received pleas of both support and also frustration) before continuing, “but it’s the first night, and it’s almost sold out – I thought no one would come – maybe 100, 200 people would show up; to find out we’re almost sold out with fucking 400 plus people here is amazing, you guys are amazing. Now I’m ready baby, let’s fucking rock out.” 

Cheers drowned out the intro to “Heartbeat,” but nonetheless, this upbeat, catchy plea of a lovesong felt very personal as Brian looked up to the sky, almost pondering his decision to quit music as the crowd begged him to sing more than seventeen songs. 

The entire night provided a contrasting mix of rigidity and compassion as the band was deciding whether or not they wanted to hold everything back or let it all go. A fitting encapsulation of the night occurred when Swindle started to sing the lyrics to “Good Christian Man” -– (“To be loved and feel hated still / Don’t give up, there’s a void you fill / to be loved and feel hated / We’ve got it wrong / We want to feel safe but we’ll never belong”)  — mirroring the very turmoil that he was emoting on stage as part of his story, a story of leaving the band. 

Swindle rang out the rawest of vocals (that he’s become so attune to and known for) sending chills down the spines of fans during classics “This Old Ark,” “Clair,” and “Cigarettes and Old Perfume.” The band held nothing back, jamming hard and acting as no one else but themselves as they laughed together, cried together, made mistakes together, and simply enjoyed one of their final sets together. Swindle even took shots of liquor with the crowd, joking with them as he responded to their pleas of admiration. A symbiotic relationship, the high energy echoed from performer to listener, with the crowd feeding off of Swindle’s charisma to storm the stage during the finale favorite, “Let’s Talk About Your Hair.” With a convincing, comforting, and reassuring smile, Swindle stated, “Ya know, this makes me feel good man; I didn’t think my life was going to go anywhere.” It was an honest and earnest portrayal of musicians bringing everything that they had to the stage, and I have never seen anything more organic.

From the ‘80s pop songs playing on the radio between sets, to the brazen crowd surfers, to the too-young performers with pink hair, the night had absolutely everything it needed. But while it was a night packed with hard jams and showcases of Have Mercy’s best songs, the moments that made the night came in soft spoken and earnest intimacies, with Brian bleeding out his emotions from the stage: it came from him expressing his brutal honesties and insecurities, it came from real reassurances to the crowd: “you guys are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” 

And I couldn’t think of a better way to end Have Mercy’s career.