Purity Ring turned the 9:30 Club into a phosphorescent dreamscape on Oct. 29, bathing the room in fog, strobes, and the duo’s signature candy-dark synths.
Katherine Gaines was there to photograph the show for this Snapshots photo essay.
ChatGPT wrote this article to accompany original photographs by Katherine Gaines.
For a date on their Place of My Own Tour, Megan James and Corin Roddick leaned into the contrast that’s always powered their music: nursery-rhyme lilt over sub-bass thunder. From the jump, James’ gauzy vocal cut cleanly through Roddick’s clockwork percussion and glassy pads, an interplay that felt as precise as it was otherworldly.
Across the 80-minute set, Purity Ring threaded new material with staples that first packed this room a decade ago. Early highlight “Obedear” drew an immediate singalong, its lullaby melody riding a low-end swell that rattled the balcony. “Amenamy” and “Lofticries” kept the Shrines faithful swooning, while “Push Pull” and “Repetition” from Another Eternity gave James space to stretch into bigger, brighter hooks without breaking the spell. Recent favorites such as “many lives,” “red the sunrise,” and the shivering memorial “glacier ::in memory of rs::” showcased the sleeker, steel-toned textures of the current era, slipping seamlessly amid the classics.
Watch Purity Ring perform “Obedear” live for KCRW on YouTube:
Visually, the duo stayed minimal but cinematic: A thicket of light bars pulsed in sympathetic patterns to Roddick’s kick drums, while James — draped and luminous — moved like a human metronome, every gesture landing on a snare crack or synth bloom. The production never crowded the songs; if anything, it threw their negative space into relief, making the whispered refrains feel conspiratorial, like secrets passed from the lip of the stage to the rail.
Mid-set, James dropped her voice to a hush for a brittle, heart-in-throat passage before Roddick detonated the room again with a drop that felt engineered for the 9:30’s famously punchy PA. The night’s warmest reception clustered around the bookends: the glass-chime twinkle of “part ii” early on and the late-show one-two of “Fineshrine” and “Belispeak,” reminders of how indelible Purity Ring’s early run remains for this crowd.
Opener yuniVERSE primed the room with fluorescent, hyperpop-tinted beats — an on-brand prelude to Purity Ring’s neon noir. By the time house lights rose, the club felt suspended somewhere between a sugar rush and a séance: glittering melodies, heavy shadows, and the sense that Purity Ring’s spell works best exactly here — inside a packed room, hearts syncing to the same sub-bass throb.
Here are some photos of Purity Ring performing live at 9:30 Club on Oct. 29, 2025. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Katherine Gaines.
