Boys in all their stomping, we-don’t-need-microphones-chanting wipe the sweat off their face exposing the belly splendor. The Mae Shi embodies the essence of every boy you cat-call on the street. Cakaw! Cakaw! Tight shirt, ripped shorts, poetic love-cry. Each one of us is a bird or squirrel hopping branch to branch, passing fancies, adding layers to the representation of the unattainable Other in our dreams. Put that to song and you get the Mae Shi. Another thing that invokes the boy-crazy buzz is when one member puts his arm around another and the first tells him what notes to hit on his bass, and the second smiles excitedly, hitting the wrong fret while his buddy taps the string. Can we please vomit puppies all over this camaraderie? Alas, either Spaceland may not be the best venue for this band, or it was an overly shy audience. They loved the show, head-nodding appreciatively. But in their eyes you could see every time one of the guys crawled or chasséd around them on the ground floor, they prayed: Please, please don’t call attention to me or make me interact or groove with you. I heart you, you are awesome, I love this white gym-class parachute waving over our heads, but I’m burying myself in the concrete right now.

– Daiana Feuer