Friday, May 10, 2024, found Hot Water Music bringing their triumphant 30-year anniversary to a stop at Boston’s 1000-capacity Royale theatre. Coincidentally, it also marked album release day for Vows, the band’s dynamic 10th studio album. The confluence of those events created a pretty great Venn diagram sweet spot that found the genre-defining five-piece sounding just as vital and authentic as ever. I understand that it’s not exactly an earth-shattering revelation to disclose that Hot Water Music has been one of my favorite bands over the course of the last two decades – I am a mid-40s bearded white guy after all. Still, it’s important to note the influence that the band has had not only as a guiding light in this quadrant of the music world, but on my own personal life ...