The Blue Ribbons/PlusOrMinus

$15/$20

Doors 7

"The Blue Ribbons’ latest album, 2024’s “Forever, But Not For Long,” has plenty of pop hooks. Or rather, it had plenty of them before the band took sledgehammers and scalpels to most of the pretty bits.

“It took a while to get the bones of some of the tunes down just so we could break them,” bandleader James Rohr told Herald with a laugh.

Local champs the Blue Ribbons are a pop band in the same way that the Beatles or Steely Dan or Television are pop bands in that they like pop but “aren’t too precious about the songs,” Rohr said.

Jed Gottleib - Boston Herald

The Blue Ribbons

Instrumental music leaves room. No lyrics to tell you what to feel, no words to get in the way - just sound and room for your own story. We've always believed that visual art doesn't just explain that space, it expands it.

Plus or Minus is how we explore that - a Boston-based trio writing and playing music built for the space between sound and image. Everything is live-played and overdubbed, never programmed.

We're Eliot Hunt and Jon Bistline - longtime collaborators, formerly of the Boston-based band, Chauncey - alongside drummer Mike Piehl, formerly of Expanding Man and Reverse.

PlusOrMinus