Boston Band Please 2003 Releases Their First Ever Single “Rainbow Roadhead”

Boston based emo band Please 2003 dropped their first ever single “Rainbow Roadhead” today, April 6, and we are very lucky to have come across them as quickly as we did.

Skillfully blending upbeat and catchy riffs with heart wrenching lyrics, Please 2003 reminds us once again that New England can perform the classic “Midwest Emo” sound just as well as anybody else.

Listening to “Rainbow Roadhead” feels both extremely familiar and comforting; the way it’s written as one stream of thought makes it easy to identify with, and the simplistic chorus that consists of mostly “woah oh woah oh” makes the song easy for listeners to latch onto.

The real star of the song, however, is the bridge that lead singer Jake Flaherty has deemed “the saddest bridge he had ever written” — following one last cheery chorus, Flaherty laments on how he’s been criticized for writing vague lyrics, and counteracts that by deeply discussing his own struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts (CW): “Down a bottle of pills to show how them I felt / Thinking I'll teach them by giving them the lesson / To love those around you before its too late…” after this brutal and honest section, Flaherty explains how throughout this experience he learned that before he can accept love externally, he had to do the work to love himself first, and finally finishing with “So how was that for / Pretty fucking vague? / I spelled it out just for you hope it's good enough” before leading into a pretty insane shred session, where each instrument gets a moment of spotlight before closing with a pretty insane guitar solo.

This bridge is the first of Please 2003 that we saw, originally coming across a video of the band performing it live at O’Briens Pub in Allston. I remember watching it over a few times, and really letting the full bridge sit with me. It isn’t often that a video of a band playing at O’Briens sets into your bones as deeply as this did for us, and I think that alone can attest to how important “Rainbow Roadhead” is.

Overall, The Agency considers ourselves incredibly lucky to have hopped on the Please 2003 train as quickly as we were able to. It’s very clear, even upon their first release, that they are doing a huge number of things right; in their lyrics, in the instrumentation and incredibly powerful drums throughout, and in their ability to create humor in something incredibly harrowing by naming it something like “Rainbow Roadhead”. We have become fast fans of the band, and think you will too.

LISTEN HERE