concert review: 070 shake sets the mood for a wintery night in Boston.
january, 29th 2025 • the house of blues • boston, massachusetts
full gallery can be found here
070 Shake (pronounced ‘oh seven oh shake’), is an American musician from North Bergen, New Jersey who often wrote poetry before delving into a music career. Her stage names comes from New Jersey’s 070 Zip Codes and is apart of the 070 music collective that consists of multiple artists and producers including Shake, Ralph River, Treee Safari, Phi, Malick, Beheard, Bhee, Hack, and Rays Beats.
She began her career in the later part of 2015 and by 2016 had thousands of streams on SoundCloud, an extremely useful platform for artists especially in the rap and edm fields. Due to her SoundCloud success Miami-based promoter YesJulz discovered her and the GOOD Music label discovered Shake through her. Shake’s music caught the attention of Pusha T (the label’s president) and signed her in 2016. In October and November of that same here 070 Shake opened up for The 1975 during the American leg of their tour. In 2022 she supported Kid Cudi on his To the Moon Tour and in 2023 supported Coldplay on their Music of the Spheres World Tour.
Some major songs she was featured on that not a lot of people realize is her include “Ghost Town” and “Violent Crimes” from Kanye West’s album Ye as well as “Escapism” by Raye, which went viral and charted internationally, becoming 070 Shake’s first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. She has released three studio albums titled Modus Vivideni (2020), You Can’t Kill Me (2022), and Petrichor (2024) and an EP titled Glitter in March of 2018. Her most recent release Petrichor dropped in November of last year and features single “Winter Baby/New Jersey Blues.”
070 Shake’s musical style is pretty unique and sometimes hard to categorize into one specific genre but pulls elements from pop, alternative, ambient and hip-hop. Some of her inspirations include Michael Jackson, Lauryn Hill, Paramore and even emo icons My Chemical Romance.
She started her set with “Sin,” the first track off of Petrichor, with a very moody and dramatic backdrop on the stage. A white piece of curtain was hanging from the middle of the stage, a large stage light backlighting the curtain. She performed the first bit of her set behind the curtain, a dark and strong silhouette was projected on the curtain. “Sin” starts off with a slow and delicate piano intro and is a song that really shows her vocal ability. The intro of the song reminds me a lot of R&B, especially with melodic harmonies that come in the background that emulate the feeling of a church choir. Roughly halfway through the song a killer guitar riff comes in quickly paired with drum beats in a way that makes it feel like the song itself is engulfing you. It’s an eerily beautiful song and a wonderful way to start a set.
The second song she performed was “Elephant,” which is actually the second song off of Petrichor and transitions extremely well with “Sin.” Mainly due to the guitar tone and drumming beats, the instrumental portion of this song when the music drops seriously reminds me of 80’s Darkwave music. “Elephant” was followed up by “Pieces of You,” the third song off of Petrichor. The song starts with a haunting breath-like chant that you could feel in your chest while at the show. It’s one of those experiences where you can literally feel the music inside of you and it feels like you’re living the music and not just observing it. The chorus of this song is a wonderful juxtaposition to the rest of the song; a light and melodic chorus that showcases her delicate vocals that’s paired with a beautiful piano melody.
070 Shake has a powerful way of layering different styles of music in one song and still makes it sound coherent and strong and not just messy. Things that some artists wouldn’t even considering mixing she does and she does it flawlessly, creating a mood and feeling with her music. Whenever I listen to 070 Shake’s discography I feel like I become immersed into a whole entire new world that she has somehow created with the music she makes. It’s a rare feeling, one that I don’t find often with artists, but with her discography I always enter a new world. I didn’t know much of her music before this concert, but after the show I genuinely could not stop thinking about her song “What’s Wrong With Me” off of Petrichor, specifically the chorus and the instrumental part that follows the chorus. I walked home from the concert that night with that song on loop the whole time and I eagerly anticipate the next time I get to see her in concert again.
