Bec Lauder & The Noise return home to NYC, Night Club 101
Monday evenings in New York are strange. Many workers head home still recovering from the weekend, or choosing to rest and save their energy for the week ahead. But if you wander into the small venues of the Lower East Side, like Nightclub 101, you’ll find a younger crowd crammed between its narrow walls: a mix of college students, creatives, and twentysomethings choosing vibes over routine.
Tonight’s show was a free event hosted by @rocknite.ny, featuring local artists Bec Lauder & The Noise and Tea Eater. Start time ran later than planned, but no one seemed to be in a rush. (There was a third performer, Sid Simons, but had to catch one of the last trains home to Connecticut.)
TEA EATER
Brooklyn-based band Tea Eater opened the evening from within the crowd, dressed in futuristic hoodies, circus-striped pants, and cage-like skirts — joined by what appeared to be a friendly poodle creature (Uh, I mean… is this a furry?!)
Scattered across the stage were yellow inflatable tubes, sketched with permanent marker to resemble oversized sticks of butter. If I hadn’t caught a glimpse of the setlist, I would’ve been lost. But with song titles like “Little White Dog,” “Cosmic Coconut,” and of course, “Butter,” it all started to make sense.
So where do you even file a band like this? Let’s go with post-apocalyptic art-punk groove — it fits better than anything else. Turns out, while writing this review, I learned they’ve opened for Thee Oh Sees and played festivals across Europe, which honestly tracks with this band’s vibe.
The crowd ate it up. Tea Eater delivered one of the strangest, most oddly enjoyable sets I’ve seen in over the fifty or so shows I have photographed this year. If you’re going to bring the weird, you might as well send it! Words will only go so far to describe the set, so my images will have to do the rest!
BEC LAUDER & THE NOISE
Once the props and poodle disappeared, reality came rushing back to the crowd. Manhattan’s own Bec Lauder & The Noise filled Night Club 101 with something heavier, and notably more human. This three-piece rock band didn’t need theatrics to grab the attention of the room, just their confident presence.
The band had spent the prior week supporting Cage the Elephant and quickly recovered the night from its late start with a focused, no-nonsense soundcheck. Riding the momentum of their album The Vessel, released mid-September, the band delivered a powerful set. Behind the camera, I often notice the unspoken chemistry between bandmates. It’s the small things — a glance, a nod, a shared movement — that show how genuine that connection is.
What made this performance special was the sense that the band has outgrown the small stage. After playing more than a hundred shows over the past couple of years and releasing an addictive debut LP, they’re clearly ready for the next chapter. Still, they delivered a phenomenal performance to a 300-cap room just a day after playing to a sold-out crowd of 6,000.
Later in the week, they paired up with Brooklyn psych-rock band Skorts for an all-ages Halloween show at Tompkins Square Park. (Btw, congrats to Skorts on their debut album, released the same day!)
With 2025 winding down, it’ll be exciting to see where the new year takes Bec Lauder & The Noise — a band that feels ready for much bigger rooms, but hasn’t lost touch with the scene that helped shape them.
BEC LAUDER & THE NOISE SETLIST
Night Club 101, New York City, New York (10/27/2025)
Like You Wanna
Mars
Bent Up
Give It
You Want It All
Oasis
Nobody Cares
Tease Me
