One of the greatest joys of running a venue is that, if you stick with it long enough, you get to watch bands grow up right in front of your face. Like distant relatives, so many pop in and out of your life every couple of months, showing you in a 30-minute snapshot the maturation (or lack thereof) that has been occurring in their lives day by day. But perhaps the greatest joy is when you see that same band you've grown to respect get the respect they deserve when they're all grown up. Reflecting on the last day of 2013, it seems there was no better band this year at Shea to serve as a metaphor for that than Speedy Ortiz.

Whenever an artist releases a breakout album, cynics tend to cling to the fact that they were lucky, as if they had miraculously discovered the answer key 5 minutes before a test. People always want to know what "the secret" was, and the secret is usually that few things happen by accident.

Long before they enjoyed some heavy accolades as a result of their red hot '13, they were busy coming up the same way that rock bands get good in the text books: playing show after show and grinding it day in-and-out with their heads down. Like any great athlete that makes it so difficult to root against them. As teammates they also stood united, continuously repping their fellow "Mass-holes" along the way (see: Grass Is Green, Kal Marks, "Fat History Month) like the rap crew that New England never had. Throughout their relatively brief existence, they've consistently shown that it's their method as a band as much as their music that commands respect. Respect is in many ways their fundamental ingredient - respect for the DIY cliches, respect for their peers, respect for the gods of indie who made their life choices a remote possibility, and the respect for the past (often unpleasant) experiences that shaped the songs themselves.

Whether or not it's attributed to her close ties with academia, there is something about Sadie's delivery that makes you feel like you're stoned in grad school, listening in on a master class. Though not totally unlike the blistering chops display of fellow shredding screaming female Marissa Paternoster, her virtuosity exists in a different realm - a seemingly endless one of complex-yet-catchy streams of consciousness, jammed with so many ideas that it's almost as if the songs can't write themselves fast enough.

In hindsight, hardly any of this was immediately obvious upon their debut (as a duo) back in November 2011, but as the months progressed, every stop at Shea showed the band and its new music making such consistent, almost formulaic improvement. And although the vast majority of this set is culled from highlights of an April live previewing of songs from their terrific, list-making Major Arcana album (released this past July) earlier cuts from the fan-favorite Sports EP point to a band, slightly rougher around the edges, that's getting better every day. From this most recent performance dating all the way back to their first song from their first set here more than two years ago, this is a history of a band's growth on one stage in the years leading up to the release of their FIRST full-length - a prequel to a band that likely still has their best days to come. Speedy Ortiz: A Retro(re)spective… -AR