by Anthony Burnett
On Friday, August 14th, Will Wood performed at the Royale on Tremont St. to begin his Self-ish tour, titled after his 2016 album. Opening was Human Zoo, a NYC based band who have collaborated with Will Wood on multiple occasions.
The Royale was a perfect fit for the show, where a sold-out crowd packed into the 1,200 capacity space. Will Wood concerts will bring out some of the most unique outfits from his fans; typically airing on the side of alt, goth, and punk with references to rats and the bizarre eyeballs seen on the Self-ish album cover and in some of Wood’s previous concert outfits.
Human Zoo opened with “Aphrodite, Your Electric Sexiness,” a song off their 2019 album A Mindless Meditation, which received an upgrade in 2024 featuring Will Wood on piano. The crowd was into it from the start, many having initially discovered the band through the Will Wood feature. Human Zoo’s style is difficult to pinpoint, blending elements of rock, jazz, and funk mixed with electronics. The remaining songs all came from their 2022 album Wealth & Hellness. After “Living in a Motel,” the lead singer, Spencer Daniele, began talking about chicken and eventually chicken nuggets, being the segway into their next song, “Farm to Label.”
Human Zoo ended their act with their first ever collaboration with Will Wood, “Wealth & Hellness.” The short song encompasses multiple different themes; starting with a gentle surf guitar played by Daniele and relaxing percussion, followed by a soft sung interlude. The tempo then picks up, leading into the Will Wood feature which is emulated by the use of saxophones and oom-pah basslines. This gives way to a slow build up into a climax featuring cinematic-like trumpets. The song changes once more with a funky drum beat, piano and brass while the lyrics make references to global warming and government corruption.
Human Zoo is made up of Spencer Daniele on lead voice & guitar, Zack Olsson on back-up voice and keyboards, Joey Papa on drums, Alex Mendelson on guitar, and Wyatt Rydlewski on bass.
After a short break Will Wood made his first appearance, accompanied by Matt Berger on saxophone, Mike Bottiglieri on guitar, Vater Boris on bass, and Mario Conte on drums. Will Wood was originally known as Will Wood & The Tapeworms, before dropping the tapeworms around 2020. Similar to Human Zoo, Will Wood’s style is hard to describe. Mixed with the differing sound across his four main albums, he draws upon jazz, rock, golden oldies, folk, and even some metal influences.
The concert began with “Laplace’s Angel” from the 2020 album The Normal Album, a satirical take on 1950s suburbia. The group followed up with the most popular songs from the 2022 album In Case I Make It, “Against the Kitchen Floor” and “The Main Character.” Will has a tendency to make comments between songs, sometimes even stopping in the middle to comment on something (most common while he performs solo). Before “The Main Character” he took the time to dispel the rumor that the song was about himself after reading an analysis someone posted on social media. The song plays host to numerous idioms and references to pop-culture, built around the perspective of an egotistic protagonist. One lyric states: “Daleks in high collars monologue and I outsmart them with a ray-gun and a tweet.” Wood chose to replace the mention of the old social media app by saying “ray-gun and an x,” which many in the audience picked up on.
Backtracking to his debut album Everything is a Lot, the group played “The First Step” and “Jimmy Mushrooms’ Last Drink: Bedtime in Wayne, NJ.” The latter being more of a deeper cut in his discography. After switching to ukulele and joking about his lack of knowledge regarding human anatomy, he jumped into “Outliars and Hyppocrates: a fun fact about apples.” The multiple high energy songs gave way to a short explanation that the band had been trying to curate a less exhausting setlist; mixing the calmer songs throughout as to give them a break. After wiping the sweat from his face, he then began, “anyways here’s Chemical Overreaction” (as may be evident from the title, “Chemical Overreaction/Compound Fracture” is far from relaxing). To finish off the first set, The Normal Album’s opener “Suburbia Overture” was played to the crowd’s excitement.
The fact that Will Wood was doing a tour based around the album Self-ish was surprising to many people. The artist had stated on multiple occasions his distaste for the album, which deals with themes of drug addiction and mental illness. The album itself is much heavier too, making for an exhausting show for the performers to put on. After a few minutes, the band returned, having undergone a slight costume change. Wood wearing a colorful shirt based on the album cover, with a third eye now painted on his forehead. The rest of the band wore almost all black, contrasting from the frontman.
The album begins with “Self-” a song for only voice and piano, but the rest of the band jumped in at the beginning of “2012.” A mosh pit broke out soon after, the heavier sound being the primary catalyst. “Cotard’s Solution” followed, starting with a relaxing piano and voice parts that slowly builds, before reaching a climax that is referenced later in the album on “Dr. Sunshine is Dead.” After a couple seconds of silence, which were drawn out even more during the concert, an immediate tempo shift and almost screaming from the singer welcomes the second part of the song. Berger showed off his saxophone chops with this high energy song as the crowd went wild. The album wasn’t played in exact order, as “The Song With Five Names” and “Hand Me My Shovel, I’m Going In!” came up next. These songs included, among other shenanigans, Wood “playing” the piano with his right foot, slamming the upper keys to the beat.
The audience at the Royale was then treated to an unreleased song, while the title is still unknown, it was received well, and sounded a lot like the other songs on Self-ish. “Mr. Capgrass” followed, in which Bottiglieri was on point with his guitar playing. Finally came “Dr. Sunshine is Dead,” the most popular song from the album; thanks in part to a 2019 YouTube video in which over forty artists animated a music video for the song. The concert ended with “- ish,” with Wood performing the song by himself like he did with “Self-” while the rest of the band stood off to the side. If the audience wasn’t already standing the group would have easily gotten a standing ovation, the crowd staying put anyways while asking for one more song. Unfortunately, no encore happened, but everyone who was there can agree the show was outstanding.
Human Zoo and Will Wood continue the tour across the east coast and midwest for the rest of the month of August.
Human Zoo’s website is: https://www.humanzoo.band/ where you can find tour information, videos, merch, and other content.
Will Wood’s website is https://www.willwood.net/ which has links to his patreon, merch, and other content including the video game Elau which he wrote the music for.
Human Zoo Setlist
● Aphrodite, Your Electric Sexiness
● Serial Killer
● Farm to Label
● Living in a Motel
● Wealth & Hellness
Will Wood Setlist
Set 1
● Laplace’s Angel (Hurt People? Hurt People!)
● Against the Kitchen Floor
● The Main Character
● The First Step
● Jimmy Mushrooms’ Last Drink: Bedtime in Wayne, NJ
● Outliars and Hyppocrates: a fun fact about apples
● Chemical Overreaction/Compound Fracture
● Suburbia Overture/Greetings from Mary Bell Township!/(Vampire) Culture/Love Me, Normally
Set 2
● Self-
● 2012
● Cotard’s Solution (Anatta/Dukkha/Anicca)
● The Song with Five Names, a.k.a. Soapbox Tao, a.k.a. Checkmate Atheists! a.k.a. Neospace Government, a.k.a. You Can Never Know
● Hand Me My Shovel, I’m Going In!
● <Unknown Track>
● Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity: Tulpamancer’s
Prosopagnosia/Pareidolia (As Direct Result of Trauma to the Fusiform Gyrus)
● Dr. Sunshine is Dead
● -ish
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