At Brighton Music Hall, Boston’s avant-punk legends capped Mark Kates’s label anniversary with a surprisingly potent four-song set and a tribute to the late Jeff “Monoman” Conolly.
Hope and expectations ran high at Brighton Music Hall on Friday. All three members of Boston’s legendary Mission of Burma were performing with their separate projects to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Fenway Recordings, the label and artist-management outlet run by Mark Kates. Would Burma, essentially retired for the past decade, reunite onstage for their longtime manager — or at least make cameos with one another’s bands?
A recent precedent made one wonder whether the odds had increased or decreased. Mission of Burma had played a few songs at a March fundraiser at the Middle East for Lyres frontman Jeff “Monoman” Conolly as he battled cancer. Conolly then bounded out to join Burma for a howling take on the Stooges’ “1970.”
The answer became evident after Friday’s scheduled sets, when Clint Conley, Roger Clark Miller, and Peter Prescott began reshuffling stage equipment for their Mission of Burma set. Conley put aside the guitar he had just played with his early-aughts group Consonant and picked up his original bass. Prescott, who had manned guitar and electronics with his new trio Minibeast, repositioned himself at the drum kit…