Palma Violets @ Johnny Brenda’s.
Palma Violets singer/bass player Chilli Jesson and drummer Will Doyle both took to the stage at Johnny Brenda’s last night sporting Nick Cave T-shirts and that kind of set the tone for the evening.
The band came out swinging, blasting through a raucous version of “Secrets of America,” sounding more hard rocking, post punk-ish (a la Nick Cave) than the album version, which sounds more like a Brit pub sing-along.
The four lads from Lambeth in London belted out tracks from their debut album, 180, which made them musical phenoms in the UK, as well as from their brand new album, Danger in the Club, which dropped earlier this month. The new album is just as much fun as their first, with even harder riffs and more subtle sarcasm laced throughout. They sound a little more anthemic but they retain that garage punk sound.
For a band that has essentially been touring for the last two years, they were amazingly energetic last night. Jesson and singer/guitarist Sam Fryer bounced around the stage as Doyle viciously pounded on the drums (keyboardist Peter Mayhew was much more sedated, sitting the entire time, though his lively playing was much more powerful than on the recorded version).
The theatric Jesson repeatedly conversed with the crowd, inviting everyone to dance a few times. He crowd-surfed briefly, shook hands with fans and collapsed into the beaded wall at one point.
Palma Violets continues touring across North America for a few months and then travels around the UK for festival season. Presumably, they’ll wind up here again soon and that’s awesome. Because they put on a fantastic live show.
Creepoid’s Coming Back to Philly.
We just got word that Creepoid will be back in Philly at the end of the month, doing a record release show at Johnny Brenda’s on June 26. They’ll be joined by Ecstatic Vision, who will also be celebrating a new record release, and Sick Feeling. Tickets go on sale Friday.
JB’s also announced today that Mikal Cronin will perform on 9/27 with The Cairo Gang. See here for tickets.
Text by Tim Mulhern. Images by Tim O’Donnell.
There is no question that Philadelphia loves Hop Along.
Saturday night’s triumphant headlining show at Union Transfer was just another confirmation of this city’s admiration and respect for the four-piece group.
Clique and Thin Lips joined Hop Along to celebrate the band’s most recent effort, Painted Shut, their Saddle Creek Records debut that released on May 4.
Clique has barely graduated from Philadelphia’s basement scene but appeared comfortable on the much bigger Union Transfer stage. The band only played their first show in September at the now-closed Golden Tea House but is quickly gaining momentum in Philadelphia.
The group’s tight, well-crafted set featured tracks from their self-titled release, which is receiving a physical release from Broken World Media later this summer. The band brought out Philly favorite Shannen Moser to sing on their closing two songs.
Clique is scheduled to perform at Glocca Morra’s last show at the First Unitarian Church on May 30 and is hitting the road with Old Gray in late June.
Thin Lips hit the stage next and made quick work of energizing the growing crowd. The group is touring with Hop Along and frequently shares bills with the band. On New Year’s Eve, the two groups helped ring in 2015 with a show at Johnny Brenda’s.
The band’s set drew heavily from their EP Divorce Year, which was released through Seagreen Records on May 1.
Frontwoman Chirssy Tashjian’s powerful vocals combined with the band’s brand of spunky up-tempo punk appropriately prepped the audience for Hop Along’s set.
On stage, Hop Along vocalist and guitarist Frances Quinlan spoke candidly to the audience about the stress she felt leading up to the band’s set. The last time the band headlined a hometown show was the New Year’s Eve party at Johnny Brenda’s. Since signing with Saddle Creek Records, they have received increased recognition and attention.
Her performance alongside her bandmates—guitarist Joe Reinhart, bassist Tyler Long and drummer and brother Mark Quinlan—did not show any signs of restraint, and the audience’s overwhelming support was, perhaps, the reassurance she needed that she and her band were doing a good job.
As the audience sang along to nearly every word – even to the newest tracks – the group tore through the entirety of Painted Shut with older cuts mixed in evenly throughout.
The first thing listeners hear on Painted Shut’s opening track “The Knock” is Quinlan singing, which is appropriate because Quinlan’s voice – at times hoarse with passion and at other times soft and reserved – stole the show Saturday night.
The stories told throughout Painted Shut receive an added layer of urgency when sung by Quinlan. Her acute ability to control the power of her voice made her performance even more commendable.
Quinlan’s bandmates provided a solid instrumental foundation throughout the set. Long anchored the low end while Mark Quinlan helped keep the band together behind the drum kit. Influences from Reinhart’s work in Algernon Cadwallader were heard subtly sprinkled throughout his lead parts in tracks like “Horseshoe Crabs.”
Hop Along ended the celebratory show in the same way Painted Shut ends: the re-recorded and re-released “Sister Cities.”
As the show came to a close, you could almost sense the relief felt by Quinlan and her bandmates.
Hop Along had made their city proud.
Text and images by Erin Marhefka.
The Full Circle Tour made it’s way to the Electric Factory last Thursday for an insanity filled night. California natives Of Mice & Men and Volumes, along with Texans Crown the Empire, took the stage in front of an eclectic mix of older and young fans. The house was nearly packed before Volumes took the stage.
Volumes are a nu-metal whirlwind with two lead vocalists) and eerie backtracks that set them apart from post nu-metal bands. Within the first song, a huge mosh pit broke out in the middle of the crowd as they started up the night. The fans were constantly moving, jumping, crowd surfing and moshing during the entire set, thanks to Volume’s classic hyper metal sound and crazy fun energy. Though their music is on the heavier side, the feeling is kept light and airy. Vocalists Michael Barr and Gus Farias were constantly egging on the crowd to throw their hands up, crowd surf, and break out their lighters and even their phone flashlights during “Edge Of The Earth,” the second-to-last song and crowd favorite.
Next up were Crown The Empire, also sporting two lead vocalists but with a different twist. Andrew Valesquez and David Emarillo both did their fair share of screaming and clean vocals, while harmonizing to a T. Guitarist Benn Suede was also spinning and jumping constantly which also kept the energy on stage alive. Fan favorites like “The Fallout,” “Voices” and “Makeshift Chemistry” were played on their nine song setlist. Emarillo claimed that “tonight will be the best night of your lives,” and they easily lived up to that expectation.
Of Mice & Men closed the show, starting their set off with “Public Service Announcement,” the first track off of their new album Restoring Force. The second the lights dimmed and the backtrack began to play, the crowd went insane. The noise was unruly as vocalist Austin Carlile was the first to enter the stage.
Carlile engaged with the fans, reaching out and smiling to the ones up front. Of Mice & Men played many of their hits, such as “Let Live,” “Another You” and “Second & Sebring.” They dedicated “This Ones For You” to the fans that night.
Many fans even sported tattoos of the classic ampersand on their wrists and hands (the ones that were noticeable). This is a band that is known for ‘saving lives,’ as many people have put it. Because of that, this was a special night for the fans who fall under that category and saw them for the first time. Some of the younger fans had happy tears, the excitement building on them during the first song. Even the people in the back were moving, dancing and jumping around. There was a constant flow of energy that made this venue bounce.
San Fermin @ Union Transfer.
Text and images by Grace Dickinson.
San Fermin kicked off what will be a lengthy U.S. tour for their newest and 2nd album, Jackrabbit, at Union Transfer on Thursday night. The eight-piece band was one of few words but they brought more than enough instruments to make up for the lack of onstage banter.
Given Philadelphia was their first stop, they also showed up with a notable amount of energy. Excluding the drummer, it wasn’t rare to see all band members jumping harmoniously to the height of the light bulbs that lined the stage, trumpet, sax and violin players included.
At one point, the trumpet player jumped off the stage and strode through the crowd, keeping his instrument tipped toward the ceiling. He powerfully moved into a solo while the crowd watched, wide-eyed. Needless to say, it’s a moment the audience is likely to remember.
Ellis Ludwig-Leone, the keyboardist who situated himself almost inconspicuously to stage-left, is the mastermind behind all of San Fermin’s music. Starting as a composer of one, he quickly built a troop that is now growing a modest, yet steady success. After the Brooklyn band’s first album, they toured with well-known bands such as The National, St. Vincent, Arctic Monkeys, and The Head and the Heart.
The band’s poppy, orchestral-toned, indie rock is catching attention all on its own. At SXSW in March, San Fermin was noted as a band to watch out for after a unanimously well-received performance.
Their fan base will continue to grow as they make their way west, ending the tour in Austin in October.
Les Rivera: The Ultimate Bilingual Entertainer.
As part of our partnership with Philly Beer Scene magazine, we’re documenting Philly’s relationships between music and beer. For a recent issue of Philly Beer Scene, G.W. Miller III caught up with Les Rivera, a sort-of rapper, freelance videographer, sometime bartender, former professional dancer and all-around entertainer.
Few people could ever look more at home on a stage than Les Rivera. When he’s performing as El Malito, supported by his futuristic band – the 33rd Century, he swivels his hips, stomps around, converses with the audience and sometimes takes his clothes off.
His rapping follows the old school, storytelling style, with poignant messages about social issues and popular culture delivered in party-fashion in Spanish and English.
“I don’t even call it rapping,” says the modest Rivera. “I respect the art form too much.”
But after a song or two filled with his infectious energy, the band’s pounding rhythms and the choreographed dance moves, it’s guaranteed that the audience will be dancing right along with him. And many people wind up singing along with the refrain while waving their hands in the air.
This is just the latest incarnation of Rivera the performer. Before creating El Malito and the 33rd Century four years ago, Rivera had been a part of three different indie rock bands. Before that, he did the singer-songwriter thing, often singing Beatles and Johnny Cash songs in Spanish.
“I wasn’t doing what I should be doing,” he recalls.
So he started rapping.
Born in Puerto Rico and raised in West Chester, Rivera had dreamed of becoming a doctor when he was a child. He was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania but the high tuition caused him to instead enroll at La Salle University.
Music and performance, however, was always a part of his life. During his freshman year, he began dancing professionally and quickly dropped out of college to tour the world with the Rennie Harris Puremovement dance company. He performed with the innovative hip-hop troupe for about 15 years.
Along the way, Rivera picked up film director Robert Rodriguez’s book, “Rebel Without a Crew” and he started making films. When he’s not performing, Rivera now does freelance video production. He recently spent seven weeks in Atlanta with the Brian Sanders dance/theater company, JUNK, as they competed on the truTV performance show “Fake Off.”
El Malito shows are multimedia experiences, with Rivera’s surreal, almost cartoonish videos flashed on screens while the band belts out their power anthems.
Now 40 and expecting his first child, Rivera is working on new music, incorporating the emerging sound – called “mahragan” – that he experienced while living in Egypt for a few months last year. Mahragan combines DJ production, steady beats, distorted voices and hints at traditional Middle Eastern sounds.
“It’s music that arose because of the revolution,” he says. “It’s like the way hip-hop was here in the beginning. They talk about their troubles, using music to express themselves.”
A former Ruba Club bartender, Rivera currently resides in Fishtown, close to Bottle Bar East, where he picks up his Belgian beers. He returns to Puerto Rico as much as possible, where he finds himself chilling on the beach with a Medalla Premium Light in his hand.
“It’s not good beer,” Rivera says. “It’s terrible. But there’s something about it that when you’re on the beach, it’s so perfect.”
Greg Altman: Balancing Bands and Booking.
As part of our partnership with Philly Beer Scene magazine, we’re documenting Philly’s relationships between music and beer. For a recent issue of Philly Beer Scene, G.W. Miller III caught up with Greg Altman, who books shows at Bourbon & Branch as well as performs with Vacationer, Ratkicker and a few other projects.
When Greg Altman was in the sixth grade, he discovered punk music, specifically the West Coast sounds from bands like Pennywise, Strung Out and Sublime. So he picked up a guitar and began learning to play.
By the time he was 13, the Newtown, Bucks County native became a fixture at the local DIY shows at Sacred Grounds, an all-ages venue inside the Friends Meetinghouse in Fallsington. By the time he was 15, he was on stage performing.
“We would make weird fliers and post them all around school,” Altman recalls. “The teachers would tear them down. That was our introduction to live music.”
He graduated from Council Rock High School North in 2004 and came to Philadelphia to attend Drexel University. But the success of his high school band – Like Lions – enticed him to drop out and hit the road.
“Why wait four years to see if you can do something?” Altman remembers thinking. “College will always be there.”
Like Lions opened for My Chemical Romance and toured with Copeland and The Starting Line. Altman became friendly with The Starting Line’s front man, Kenny Vasoli, and the two stayed in touch.
Altman returned to college but got detoured again when he began working with friends who had a studio in Prospect Park called PlayWork Productions. He helped produce for Four Year Strong, A Loss For Words and many other acts.
“For two years, I was in a windowless room for 12 hours per day,” Altman recalls. “As one band was pulling out after recording for six straight days, another band was loading in.”
That burned him out from music. So, he took some time away and went to work at The Continental Mid-town restaurant.
In 2011, Vasoli reached out to him to join his new project, Vacationer, a chillwave band whose music makes you pine for summers down the shore. The band has toured nearly non-stop since their debut LP dropped in 2012. Their second album was released last June.
Since January, Altman, now 28, has spent all his time in Philly setting up the venue space and throwing shows upstairs at Bourbon & Branch. He’s the venue manager at the Northern Liberties restaurant that features 80 varieties of whiskey, 16 beers on tap and a lot of specialty cocktails.
“I’m proud of what we’ve done in a very short time,” says Altman, who works with a team to book shows and draw crowds to the 100-person club. “The space has a classy DIY, boutique vibe.”
The club has become a go-to place to find local talent. Mo Lowda & The Humble, Night Panther, Ron Gallo and others have done month-long residencies at the club.
Altman winds up answering emails and solving problems at the club even while he’s on tour (or playing in his side project, the metal band Ratkicker). He’s OK with that.
“Playing shows is more fun,” he says. “But it’s really hard to just be in a band and not have another job. This job is pretty great.”
Jason Miller: “If You Have Better Taste in Beer, You Tend to Have Better Taste in Music.”
As part of our partnership with Philly Beer Scene magazine, we’re documenting Philly’s relationships between music and beer. For a recent issue of Philly Beer Scene, G.W. Miller III caught up with Jason Miller (no relation), the Philadelphia rep for Bella Vista Beer Distributor, a massive record collector, part-time DJ and beat maker.
Take one look at Jason Miller’s Graduate Hospital area apartment and you can learn a lot about the 29-year old originally from South Jersey.
There are vinyl records everywhere – in crates and boxes, on shelves, sitting on tables and resting on the floor. Scattered around the room is a world of beer paraphernalia – marketing posters, draft lines, empty cans and a few cases that once held bottles but now hold music. There are a few turntables, lots of speakers and several pairs of immaculate Fila sneakers.
“If you have better taste in beer,” Miller says, “you tend to have better taste in music.”
Miller is the Philadelphia County sales rep for Bella Vista Beer Distributor, where he’s worked for the past five years. He started with the company in the retail shop, running the register.
“I was content not making much money,” Miller recalls, “as long as I was surrounded by beer.”
Within a year, however, he was meeting with clients around the city, pushing craft beers to new audiences.
Along the way, he’s developed a few relationships that have fostered his side project – music. He’s DJed at The Trestle Inn and 12 Steps Down. And he and his musical business partner, Napoleon Suarez, have held events at Bottle Bar East, bridging craft beers and hip hop beats.
“Hip hop producers don’t have an outlet in the city,” Miller says. “We’re trying to inspire these entrepreneurs to just do it.”
Miller, who started playing bass guitar when he was 15, began making beats on his Sony PlayStation in the late 90s after the MTV Music Generator software was introduced. Instantly, he was hooked.
A few years later, he got serious, bought a Korg ElecTribe SX-1 synthesizer and started collecting wax. He now has more than 5,000 records.
The idea was to create beats for MCs to rap over. But he just kept making more and more beats. He tried rapping over his own music, performing under the moniker of The Dutchman, but it didn’t last.
“I can’t rap,” Miller says. “That’s just not for me. I don’t like to write. I don’t like to be on the mic. I just like to make beats.”
After nearly 15 years of making beats, he’s ready to drop his first album, called Old Man Winter. It’s in response to Suarez’s instrumental album that dropped last summer, called Boy of Summer.
In 2011, Suarez created CrateStream, an online outlet where producers can show off their sounds.
The next wave of that site is Craft Beats, which is an online resource for beat makers. Right now, it’s mostly an extension of CrateStream. But Miller and Suarez hope to soon post interviews with producers, offer instructional videos, possibly sell gear and otherwise provide producers with all the resources they need to make beats.
“My tastes exceed my capabilities,” jokes Suarez. “Now we’re trying to help people to get to the next level.”
For now, it’s just a side project. Miller has other plans for his long-term future.
“I want to own a brewery someday,” he says. “And I want to own a record label.”
Text and images by Lee Miller.
Vamps came through Philadelphia last week, opening at the Electric Factory for Sixx:A.M., which takes its name from Nikki Sixx, the band’s bassist and co-founder of Mötley Crüe.
In Japan, Vamps is a best selling super group of successful music veterans, fronted by Hyde and K.A.Z. Each of their four albums has charted in the top five on the Oricon album sales chart.
Outside of Vamps, lead vocalist Hyde has fronted L’arc~en~Ciel since 1991. That band is currently on a streak with more than 35 consecutive singles charting in the top 10. In 2012, they became the first Japanese artists to headline Madison Square Garden.
Guitarist K.A.Z. was a member of Hideto Matsumoto’s backing band, Spread Beaver, at the time of Matsumoto’s untimely death, cementing K.A.Z. into the fabric of Japanese rock history. The one album he contributed to sold more than a million copies in Japan alone.
Even though he’s considered a support member (Hyde and K.A.Z. are the only official members), bassist Ju-Ken has recorded on multiple platinum selling albums and toured with multiple Japanese industry stars.
Earlier this year, Vamps held their own festival in Japan and they hosted Sixx:A.M. and Nothing More.
Vamps have toured America on their own before but, by their own admission, they generally only reach the established Japanese rock market that exists State-side.
Through this 12 date tour with with Sixx:A.M. (plus several festival dates and and one solo show at NYC’s Best Buy Theater), they are hoping to kickstart a serious run at the American market. Vamps has been releasing most of their music on iTunes internationally since 2008. They didn’t make an official overseas release debut until 2013’s Sex Blood Rock n’ Roll.
While they are currently promoting their second official international album release, Bloodsuckers, the duo’s first song of the night, “World’s End,” was the only track off the new album that they would play at the Electric Factory. They also went for brownie points from Nikki Sixx’s fans by covering Mötley Crüe’s “Live Wire.” But it was as much of an homage as an appeal to the crowd, as Hyde has cited Mötley Crüe as one of his major influences.
Considering that Vamps was a later addition to the tour (they weren’t named in the initial tour announcement) and that they are now competing for Google search results with British teen band The Vamps, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think that most of the audience had no idea what to expect.
With decades of experience under their belts, Vamps knows how to work a crowd. No one was stationary on stage, not even the keyboard player. Ju-Ken and K.A.Z. ran back and forth to stage right and left making sure that the hardcore contingent in the front row got ample time with each of them.
And it was was a hardcore contingent – a couple dozen people decked out on Vamps gear and Japanese punk fashion who had been waiting in front of the Electric Factory for hours to make sure they got the front row.
Ju-Ken, Hyde and K.A.Z. each had a black wood box painted with the band emblem in front of their mic stands and they stood on them during points of songs so they could be seen more prominently.
Glam rock never really died in Japan. It evolved. Grunge never really took hold there. Vamps definitely reflects that and, considering this, they really couldn’t have picked much better of a contemporary western band to tour with than Sixx:A.M.
Following Vamps, Finland’s Apocalyptica continued the international evening. Apocalyptica is no stranger to touring with Japanese acts – they’ve co-headlined on tour with experimental metal unit Dir En Grey.
Last year, the band added American Franky Perez to their group. The vocalist and multi-instrumentalist had a lengthy body of work before joining Apocalyptica, including Scars on Broadway, singing for Slash, working with Dave Kushner, doing a show as vocalist for The Doors, several solo releases and more.
Apocalyptica started as a Metallica cover band and versions of existing songs featured heavily into this set. At Electric Factory, they covered “Inquisition Symphony” by Sepultura, “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica, and a version of the classic Norwegian orchestral piece “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” written by Edvard Grieg.
Simply walking onto a stage in a standard concert setting with three cellos has plenty of built-in flair and drama obviously, but these guys are strong metal showmen on their own. They weren’t stationary as one might assume a cello player would be. They moved about, interacting with other. Headbanging and windmills were part of the equation as well.
Mikko Siren was a madman on drums, stealing the show when the spot lights were directed at him. He thrashed around with exaggerated and showy movements, including at some points playing the drums while standing up.
Sixx:A.M entered the stage to the spoken word version of “X-Mas In Hell,” the heroin and suicide laced into to the entire project. It was an impressive stage set, complete with risers for two female backup singers and huge batteries of lights to the right and left of the drum set.
The band started by creating a soundtrack to Nikki Sixx’s autobiographical “The Heroin Diaries,” which details a very difficult period in the rocker’s life from 1986 to 1987 .
The first album the band released in 2007, The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack, consisted of 13 songs that represented each of the 13 months in the book. Their second album, This Is Gonna Hurt, was also based on a book of the same name.
With their new album, Modern Vintage, they have, at least for now, left behind the book/album format, leaving them to create independent content.
Visually, the show at the Electric Factory was clearly in the vein of a glam rock show. Lyrically, however, most of their songs had a show-tune quality. Some might call the lyrics heavy-handed but since the entire project started as a musical presentation of a story, this context makes sense.
Sixx isn’t just trying to artistically describe the feelings of something. He’s telling a specific story. Maybe that’s a little odd because he’s not the vocalist but it works well enough and has been fairly well received.
On stage the band members worked well together. They had platforms on stage to stand on for the benefit of those that weren’t lucky enough to be up front. They also had small platforms set up in the security pit below stage-level that they hopped down on for the benefit of people up front.
When they jumped down into the pit, the crowd ate it up. People whipped out their smartphones to record.
Despite the heavy subject matter, the guys were playful on stage and gave an air that they were really enjoying themselves, roughhousing and pushing each other around playfully at times mid-song.
“Its no secret that we’re a fucked up bunch up here,” singer James Michael said between songs. “But I’m guessing you’re all a little fucked up too.”
The crowd roared in response.
They played 17 songs through the evening, including a cover of The Cars’ “Drive.”
Philly was the second to last night of the tour. One day after the last show, Nikki Sixx revealed they have already been working on a follow-up album and a 2016 world tour. So this project has really moved on from just being accompaniment to his books and into a full fledged band. Now that Mötley Crüe has closed the book on their career (or so they say), this project will have his full attention.
Joe Pug and Field Report @ Boot & Saddle.
Text by Kyle Bagenstose. Images by Grace Dickinson.
If you were at the Joe Pug and Field Report show at the Boot & Saddle on Wednesday and suddenly became terrified with confusion that you had somehow been transported into some kindly Midwestern living room, breath easy. I did too.
Such is the vibe cultivated when folk artists like Field Report’s Christopher Porterfield banter back and forth with a room full of fans in between songs, and then captivate them with the simple strumming and plucking of an acoustic guitar and songs about picking up the pieces. Such is the feeling when a man like Joe Pug, who was a carpenter before he was ever a touring musician, spends minutes expressing his love for the city’s grittiness, before putting his heart on display in songs equal parts poignant and poetic.
Or more simply put, such is the experience felt during a folk show done right.
Porterfield, touring solo, first warmed up the crowd with a collection of songs that reeked of redemption: Those moments when the soul can saddle no more weight, and shucks it all off to pursue new beginnings. These stories of realizations in rest stops and lost loves let go were delivered powerfully through Porterfield’s mid-range vocals, the grittiness of which increased passionately during the peaks of the songs.
However, a downer Porterfield was not, joking back and forth with the crowd between songs and thanking them for the city’s gift wrapping of Michael Carter Williams to the artist’s hometown Milwaukee Bucks. But politeness quickly returned: Porterfield actually took requests from the audience and signed off the set saying, “I thank you for your time and attention.”
(Seriously, I’ve never been in a Midwestern living room but I imagine this is how they talk.)
The set of Joe Pug, a Maryland native by way of North Carolina-Chicago-Austin, held a similar dynamic, amplified to the third power. The highly-acclaimed lyricist took to the stage, acoustic guitar in hand, with a backing trio consisting of an upright bassist, electric guitarist and drummer. The foursome immediately launched into the set, rousing the crowd from its acoustic sleepiness with a three straight songs, culminating in the powerful and harmonica-heavy “Nation of Heat.”
Almost two years ago, Pug delivered a much more subdued performance at Johnny Brenda’s in which he barely spoke in between sets. This time around, he was damn near trying out stand-up material. In between songs, Pug, in order, joked about I-495 (turning it into an ad-lib during the opening chords of the next song), pretended to be a shill for the natural gas industry, claimed he had been signed as the official musician of Build-A-Bear and eventually, revealed what might actually be inspiring his new joviality – that he would be getting married this summer.
The humorous highs of the set were matched equally by the music. After the raucous opening, Pug’s fellow band members slowly left the stage between songs, one-by-one, until only Pug occupied the stage mid-set. It was then he delivered a ballad, “Pair of Shadows,” from his newly released EP Windfall, which he explained he had written for his bride-to-be. Pug looked near the point of tears by the song’s conclusion, drawing enthusiastic applause from a crowd that quickly had hushed.
From there the set regathered steam and the jokes returned, with Pug laughing that the small, intimate room did not allow for traditional encore festivities (“We’d just be standing out in the crowd with you, clapping and chanting encore until we felt like getting back on stage,” Pug quipped.) Instead, the band launched straight into the catchy “Speak Plainly Diana,” eliciting mid-song dancing from the packed house, followed by appreciative show-ending applause.
JUMP: The Philly Music Project 