By Cassidy Gruber
Published: March 15, 2010
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 No Spring Break road trip is complete without a few bumps along the way. Heavy traffic got the best of the Spring Break Forever Tour 2010, starring Jenny Owen Youngs, Bess Rogers, and Allison Weiss. The three songwriters and guitarists arrived to their March 12th show at Garfield Artworks an hour and half late, pausing briefly to apologize to the audience and collect hugs and cupcakes from the small crowd as they dragged their instruments and boxes of homemade tour merchandise from the car. Garfield Artworks, a small, single room venue with a seemingly haphazard décor and a stage that Rogers commented was “hollow,” and ideal for stomping-on-a-tambourine percussion, was the perfect place for these three singers who, throughout their sets, welcomed each other on stage to share instruments, harmonies, and inside jokes.
Weiss’ started off the show with a mixture of he-loves-me and he-loves-not laments. The least established and youngest of the group, Weiss seemed a little nervous, but still managed to display talent that could some day rival that of her fellow performers. And while her slightly juvenile and predictable lyrics show that she’s still growing out of a slightly self-conscious hipster teen, she showed promise in her guitar skills, and possesses a crowd-pleasing charm on-stage that could surely turn her into an indie darling.
Rogers was up next. On her studio recorded tracks, Rogers is usually accompanied by a full band, or at least a handful of other instruments. The Spring Break Forever Tour saw her stripped down to just a guitar, showcasing her melodic vocals. At one point, Rogers joked that there would be pyrotechnics and flashing lights later in her set. “You’ll be like, ‘What’s that?’ and it will be ROCK AND ROLL!” Rogers’ set never quite hit the head-banging, rock star proportions she might have hoped—and there was no light show—but for a tiny girl shrunk behind a guitar that sometimes seemed too big, Rogers’ strong voice and relatable lyrical ruminations on love managed a swell of emotion in her audience that you can only achieve in a bare-bones show.
But if Weiss and Rogers tended towards the apologetic hopefulness or indignant tragedy of young love, Youngs breached the subject with a more refined and sophisticated set of lyrics and chords. Youngs, who last year released the second of her full-length studio albums and is set to tour with Motion City Soundtrack later this spring, has a slight huskiness to her pleasant voice, and a mature and developed sense of instrumentation. Her lyrics were thoughtful, and each song seemed balanced and polished, even in the laid-back atmosphere of the show.
While waiting for Youngs and crew to arrive, one of my fellow concert-goers told a joke that—sparing you the slightly inappropriate punch-line—featured two people walking into the woods, but only one person walking out. I came out of Youngs’ performance feeling the same way. The poetic resonance of her lyrics and the haunting honesty of her voice is universal, but creates a poignant distance between yourself and your fellow listeners, and I found myself on the other side of her set feeling as if I had come out alone and introspective.
 Singing sweetly into the microphone, eyes closed, Youngs gave the impression that she was half-playing for some secret memory. In the most haunting of her tunes, “Voice on Tape,” Youngs sang the line “I don’t need you physically around,” with such a skilled tone of self-contradiction, that you couldn't help but feel the disembodied presence of the subject of her songs.
Youngs finished her set with the crowd favorite “Fuck Was I,” a simple song with a carnival-esque sway accompanying fresh lyrics. This track is perhaps Youngs’ best known song, as it was featured in an episode of the television show “Weeds.” I could have been satisfied with this as the last song of the night, but Rogers and Weiss joined Youngs for one last hurrah, "Spring Break Forever," an anthem for their trip and a salute to all the tipsy spring-breakers out there. At the end of the song, a list of typical spring break misdeeds (no pants, no shirt, etc.), the girls broke into giggles and a few last, emphatic guitar, bass, and ukulele riffs.
As the crowd filed out into the street, the three performers joined together at the front of the room for a small group hug and huddle. Pittsburgh was the third-to-last stop on this two week sprint, and even though you could sense the familiar fatigue of the road wearing them down, you couldn’t help but hope that these artists would take another Spring Break next year, and that maybe they would bring you along.
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