Vudu Sister at Myrtle: A Review of East Providence’s Antique Bar
Words: Judd Karn
December 8, 2023
After a fifteen-minute ride on the RIPTA, I found myself a two-minute walk from the music venue/antique shop/bar hybrid that is East Providence’s Myrtle. After strolling for a little I saw the aptly vintage signage displaying the location’s namesake, mounted on a quaint, newly updated century-old industrial building.
I walked into the bar-venue hybrid, which was plastered with antiques from various decades of yesteryear that, to my delightful surprise, were all for sale. I sat down on one of the many vintage couches scattered around the antique shop/bar/venue, taking in the tunes of Providence-based goth folk band Vudu Sister while admiring the chandeliers, wood beams, and air ducts coexisting on the ceiling (which resulted in some pretty stellar acoustics).
Although the venue is open from 4-12 am, Vudu Sister started at 7:30, playing a two-hour-long set with a ten-ish minute break around halfway through. The vocalist, who carries a smooth folky tone that defines the band’s genre, bantered between the lively yet calming tunes that the band (violinist, guitarist, and upright bassist) played, carrying through this set-long joke that the band traveled from Mars just to play for them. As for the band’s set itself, it fit the tone of the time-androgynous venue rather perfectly and felt simultaneously like ambiance to support the space and the center focus that necessitated attention.
The Myrtle hosts bands spanning a shockingly wide range: from soul to jazz to bluegrass to hip hop to alt-rock. Their website, givemyrtle.com, displays a calendar with the lineup for the month.