So the setting for Thursday night's Punch Brothers concert was pretty crucial- The Living Room, a super intimate space where we sat at tables and ordered drinks from our super duper preggers waitress who was like resting the drink tray on her ginormous stomach whilst walking around. Extremely good acoustics there by the way.This was the best picture I could get with my stupid cell phone camera, but Sharlene has much better pictures & a video clip in her blog.
The program was a loose mix of their album stuff, classic bluegrass tunes, Radiohead & Weezer covers. Gabe Witcher (fiddle) sang D'Angelo's one mo'gin with Chris Thile (mandolin) on back up vocal - the performance was at once rousingly soulful and unbelievably hillarious at the same time. If I may dare say so, upon checking out the original album version of the song, I think the boys out-souled D'Angelo on this one.
I was a bit iffy on going to a 10pm concert on a school night and was thinking that I'd sneak out when the clock hit midnight, but it turned out to be one of the best concert going experiences of my life and totally worth staying out until 1:30 am. The boys gave an absolutely flawless performance on both their instruments and with their impressive & seasoned vocals. It's thrilling to see a group who so thoroughly embodies the consummate professionalism of classically trained instrumentalists and at the same time fearlessly tackle the improvisational passages with such passion and wit. I had a huge grin plastered on my face almost the entire time and at times I would notice a band member expressing the same surprise and joy during their fellow band members' improvised solos.
The boys are playing the same show again next Thursday before they go on tour. I will be attending again, because it really was that good.