Mikyvis Chronicles

Time Touched: Kids with attitudes, and this time they brought their friends.

By Sid Caeser, IAP

Tonight, the Boston region was once again invaded by the band known as Time Touched, despite our City administration's attempts to prevent it. For those who missed the first round, the band took offense to the Arena security trying to prevent one of their younger members from participating in the concert. This tour has been branded the "Banned in Boston (or so they think!)" tour; and they somehow managed to let most of the Metro know how they felt about the ban.

For those of you who only heard the concert from the remote loudspeakers spread around Boston, you missed a real treat. From the moment the lightning struck the stage to signal the beginning of the concert to the signature 'launching of the cones', Time Touched's fifteen members kept the audience engaged and on their feet. To add to the excitement, the band Platinum Habits added their own polished skills to the mix. At times, the six-member band was assisted by the Time Touched brass and/or strings sections, but for half of the concert they performed music that I have seen other professional bands nosedive on when they tried it. The most amazing part was how the members of Platinum Habits moved between instruments fluidly, their skill showcased through multiple genres.

The two bands obviously have spent a lot of time together, as instead of breaks to switch bands they calmly wandered in mid-song, sometimes with one band starting the song and the other finishing. Other times, the song would finish with both bands, and then the band that started it would take a break.

Platinum Habits definitely performed well above their ages; my guess is most of them are around fourteen, with one member who appears thirteen. Compared to Time Touched, who has members ranging from fourteen all the way down to five, they almost appeared adult. Considering that all of them are many years from being able to even vote, their set consisted of a carefully crafted selection which led the audience to reconsider long-standing traditions which have led to discrimination or turning a blind eye to unfavorable events around them.

A new addition to Time Touched is their main lead vocalist. The brothers introduced him for the first time here, and he is nothing but amazing. The boy goes by Fife on stage, and they went to extraordinary lengths to make the apparent nine-year-old look like an alien. Once he started singing, the common consensus was that it does not matter where he's from, he's amazing. The kid has a vocal range that I have never seen, hitting notes so high that it caused local stray dogs to head to the nearest hospital to stop the bleeding from their ears. Yet if he needed to hit low, the seats rumbled loose from the floor.

As happened last time, Time Touched entertained the audience with the antics of their two main lead guitarists. The combination of a lefty six-year-old and a right handed thirteen-year-old worked just as well as during their first tour. The two boys were all over the stage one minute, and holding mock guitar gunfights the next.

The finale of the concert's third encore was amazing. Both bands took the stage, every single member on an instrument or vocals. As the song wound up to it's hard-hitting ending, the Time-Touched guitarist duo once again pushed their amplifiers over the limits, launching the speaker cones out into the audience as souvenirs.

From this reviewer's standpoint, the next time I hear that either band is playing, I'm going to be there; preferably in the front row. Both bands have set the bar high, and the current crop of touring artists will be hard-pressed to match their energy and showmanship.