Recently, I was approached about shooting a band I had never heard before. The band is called Maruja. They’re from the UK and have been playing some incendiary gigs back home. In fact, Alt Press said the shows were “unruly live shows akin to an exorcism.” That got my attention. So, I decided to go about this one differently. I didn’t listen to any of their music beforehand. I wanted my first impression to be the show at Union Stage. And that first impression was that I was definitely one of the oldest people in the building.
The opening band, Hungry Bug, was a clue to what I was in for at Union Stage on March 25. The trio stepped onto the stage in white jumpsuits. The opening salvo was a blast of feedback right before exploding into their impressively noisy set of experimental punk. It was high energy and the DC-based band definitely made a bunch of fans.
When Maruja sauntered on stage with singer Harry Wilkinson wearing a cape that looked like it was formerly a carpet, I still wasn’t sure what to expect. They opened the set by playing “The Invisible Man,” which starts off very quiet, almost psychedelic, but grows in its bombast as the song progresses. Check out the video here.
Watch the official music video for “The Invisible Man” by Maruja on YouTube:
With each song, the band went deeper into their trance. A various points of the show, bassist Matt Buonaccorsi lost his mind. For one song, he bent himself backwards into an arch to face the crowd upside down. During another, his eyes rolled back into head for the duration of the song.
Sax player Joe Carroll spent much of the evening standing on monitors and blowing his alto sax into the faces of the crowd, who seemed to love it. When he and Harry weren’t in the crowds’ faces, they were surfing them. The band took the energy from Hungry Bug and built on it to a fever pitch.
Maruja played for about an hour and by the end of it, everyone was spent. I walked back to my car smiling and ready to pick up their entire catalog. There’s something special about a band earning fans through live shows. Maruja did that with me. I recommend checking them out when they come back to town because they’ll do it for you, too.
Setlist
- The Invisible Man
- Break The Tension
- Zeitgeist
- Look Down On Us
- One Hand Behind The Devil
- Thunder
- Kakistocracy
- Resisting Resistance
Here are some photos of Maruja performing at Union Stage on March 25, 2025. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Marc Shea.
