Concept show artwork created by PTF guitarist Dave Brunyak.
In the hustle and bustle of Saratoga Springs, sits a treasured concert venue known as Putnam Den–not only to its show dwellers but to the talent that plays its stage as well. Gurus of blending together a trifecta of Pink Floyd, Talking Heads and Phish, Pink Talking Fish plan to put a fresh spin on their faithful covers during next Saturday night’s gig, which they just so happened to save for the Den.
Only preformed once prior in 2016, the hybrid fusion group will unleash their concept show, Dark Side of Gamehendge, on November 19. What exactly is that, you ask? Well, in simplest terms, its two sets of genius. The entire night will be a blanket tribute to Pink Floyd’s prominent and timeless album, Dark Side of the Moon, which still finds its way onto the charts today, as well as Phish’s rock opera, Gamehendge. The two sets combine tunes from each album while Talking Heads favorites will be peppered throughout.
PTF closed out their winter tour in North Carolina with the first and only performance of Dark Side of Gamehendge and referred to it as “quite the journey” on their Facebook page. Judging by the show’s artwork, crafted by PTF’s own Dave Brunyak, let’s take bets if the second journey will bring us to anywhere close land far, far away. See we shall. Doors open at 8pm and Primate Fiasco takes the stage at 9pm followed by Pink Talking Fish shortly after.
Q & A with PTF Guitarist Dave Brunyak:
Alyssa Ladzinski: You’ve only performed this concept show once before while closing out a tour earlier in 2016, what made you want to bring this show back?
Dave Brunyak: There’s something symbiotic about combining Pink Floyd’s iconic “Dark Side of the Moon” with Phish’s grand oeuvre “Gamehendge.” Both catalogs share elements of the battle between light and darkness and good versus evil. Quests for knowledge, desire for peace, and the race against time are themes universally present in the music. One informs the other and, by linking the two tales together, they both gain significant emotional gravity. For instance, in my head I see the Famous Mockingbird flying through the sky as the lyrics “Breathe, breathe in the air” set the opening scene. Below him, Colonel Forbin has just stepped into yesterday and is immediately on the run. Rutherford the Brave is under the same sun in a relative way, but he’s older and shorter of breath. King Wilson likely owns a football team and his insatiable greed for power is the root of all evil in Gamehendge, so they say. The Helping Friendly Book is what the fighting’s all about and the lizards are just ordinary men. The deeper you look, the more connections you find.
AL: The Den is a venue you frequent, what made you want to bring the concept show to Putnam Den specifically out of all shows on the fall tour?
DB: The Putnam Den has been a staple for us in recent years and may be our most frequented venue to date. I think we’ve done a pretty good job making our performances as diverse and entertaining as possible with each visit. That being said, we have to keep pushing the envelope to maintain that cutting edge. Also, Saratoga Springs has an active nightlife scene and people there are lucky to have great choices in entertainment every night. Bringing back “Dark Side of Gamehendge” for only it’s second exploit is another attempt to raise the bar in a community that demands (and deserves) our finest work.
AL: What do you hope to do differently this time around to set the show apart from the first time you played it in NC?
DB: Well, given the nature of what we’re doing, two-thirds of the songs in the show are predetermined. Choosing the Talking Heads tunes that support the narrative will create the concrete diversity from our first attempt. Executing the composed sections with precision is always a priority, but improvising harmoniously and meaningfully during the jams will inevitably be what makes this performance stand out on it’s own.
AL: If you had to choose one song off of Dark Side and Gamehendge as your favorite to play, what would it be?
DB: Tough one. Let’s use the deserted island analogy. If I were stranded with a lovely bunch of coconuts and a guitar that would only play two songs, I would choose those two songs to be “The Lizards” from Gamehendge and “Time” from Dark Side of the Moon. Both are pieces with broad movements in texture and they both have those epic guitar moments. Ask me tomorrow and I may have a different answer!
AL: How long did it take you to throw together the Star Wars inspired artwork for the show?
DB: This one came together very naturally. Take the two words “dark side” out of context and I bet you 99/100 people infer a Star Wars reference. Cloaking the blend of the two albums in a Star Wars theme really brought the whole thing together visually. It took most of one workday to craft the artwork.
AL: I gotta say, I sure hope someone dresses up as a Jedi or a Sith, or at least throws in a Chewbacca or R2D2 loop somewhere. Can we expect any Star Wars treats?
AL: Do you plan on introducing innovative concept shows to fans in the future?
DB: Absolutely. We’re due to bring back a Talking Heads-centric concept show. “A Live One” was the album that really blew me away when I first started listening to Phish, so I’ve been bugging the guys to get that ready. Our NYE concept “PTF in the Mirror” incorporating Michael Jackson songs is going to rage in Boston! The concept shows are caveats we’ve employed to bring diversity to the schedule and keep things fresh and we’ve benefited from that.
AL: As a band that covers three huge music phenomenons, what other avenues do you hope to explore to make your live shows different as your careers move forward?
DB: The possibilities are endless! There is still so much ground to cover in the Pink Floyd/Talking Heads/Phish worlds, we could spend the rest of our career digging for gold in those catalogues. Like you said, they are phenomenons, so gold is not hard to find! Right now, I’m working on surrendering to the flow and trusting that, wherever we’re destined to be, we will get there.
Grammy nominated Cape Cod rockers Highly Suspect are set to play a show at Upstate Concert Hall this Saturday, November 12 for the first time. Doors are open at 7:00 p.m with show at 8:00 p.m. Slothrust is slated to open the show.
Along with the upcoming show, Highly Suspect is releasing their sophomore effort The Boy Who Died Wolf on November 18 via 300 Entertainment. The band will undoubtedly play a few songs from that album.
This is a band on the rise so it would be best to purchase tickets for this show sooner rather than later.
Frank Turner – who headlined Upstate Concert Hall on Wednesday Nov. 2 with support from Arkells and Will Varley – radiates passion and authenticity both in his on stage performance and work behind the scenes. Turner, who has six albums under his belt with 2015’s most recent release Positive Songs for Negative People, hovers the genre line between punk and folk. Defying categorization, he has amassed a fan following who packed Upstate Concert Hall to near capacity, the largest Turner has seen for one of his performances at the venue.
Fans of Turner perhaps most identify with his honesty and tendency to not deter from difficult themes, even when those topics are self-deprecating. Turner was open about discussing authenticity, empathy, and his experience writing The Road Beneath My Feet.
Lisa Christopher: You tour pretty incessantly. Can I know what show number this one is?
Frank Turner: Tonight is 1,972.
LC: How do you keep all the different numbers and shows straight in all the shows from The Road Beneath My Feet?
FT: I just have a list. It’s on my website; it’s publicly accessible. That’s the thing, people think I’m sort of, more, sort of like “rain man” about it than I actually am. I write the set number on the set list every day, and I just write it down, and I just check when the number of the previous one was.
LC: Was it difficult transitioning from song writing to memoir writing with The Road Beneath My Feet?
FT: Yeah, definitely, that was a classic case of hubris for me. I sort of got, I was part reluctant about writing a book, full stop, at the beginning simply because I think people who write autobiographies when they’re young, I think that’s lame. But we talked about stuff like, Henry Rollin’s tour memoirs, which have been a big deal to me growing up. I know he’s in town today, actually. Get in the Van was like a bible for me as a kid. The publisher and I sort of came up with an approach that made sense. And then I was like, well I’ve written sort of three-page magazine articles plenty of times so this is kind of going to be like writing –
LC: A bunch of them all in a row?
FT: Yeah, and that’s obviously completely wrong. And there’s quite a serious intellectual effort to support the internal architecture of a 300-page book, you know?
LC: Absolutely.
FT: It was quite rough at times where I wasn’t sure if I would pull it off. It was immensely satisfying when I did. It’s always satisfying to finish a record, but I’ve done it a few times now. This was the first time I’ve finished a book. When I got a hard back copy it was great because you can gift it to your friends for Christmas, or indeed your enemies.
LC: Inflict it upon them.
FT: Yeah, you can hit people with it, it’s quite a solid thing. It felt pretty good.
LC: I noticed there’s kind of a big change and transition in the tone from Tape Deck Heart to your current album. Is it hard to include songs from both albums in a complete set?
FT: No, I don’t think so. The set list thing – I try to do something different every time I make a record because I sort of write autobiographically and I tend to write chronologically as well. You know, the mood of a record generally reflects my mood as an individual at the time. Part of the reason I find comparing the records I’ve made impossible – I think most artists do anyway – but it’s like asking me to compare my second record with my sixth record. It’s a slightly meaningless comparison to me because it’s like asking me to compare myself at twenty-five to myself at thirty-two. It’s just like…what?
[singlepic id=6167 w= h= float=none]
LC: So much has changed.
FT: Right, it’s so kind of time specific to me. So definitely, I think that Tape Deck Heart and Positive Songs are kind of flip slides of a coin. Tape Deck Heart is about things sort of falling apart and Positive Songs isn’t so much about them coming back together, it’s about kind of, dragging yourself out of the burning wreckage.
LC: I feel like the theme of recovery is kind of a theme among all of them.
FT: Yeah, it sort of is about dusting yourself off after falling off your bike, and trying to straighten out the handle bars. I mean, in terms of set list, I spend a really tragically large part of my adult life thinking about the set list. We generally have a kind of working architecture that lasts for about three months or so before we flip it up. There’s so much you have to do, I try to play something off every record I’ve done, I try to not put two songs in the same key next to each other unless you’re deliberately running from one into the other. There are transitions and technical issues…there’s just a million different things. You want to tell a story, you want to start strong, you want to bring people down…it’s endless. The consideration of which record and which mood is part of it, but those are two attributes of many things that come into consideration.
LC: In the same vein as that, your live shows are always so energetic and engaging. You always engage the audience. Your lyrics are so honest and personal, and I wonder, is it hard sometimes to juxtapose those song concepts into such an energetic set?
FT: Yes and no. There’s a degree of performance…I mean I am a performer among other things. I’m a singer and a songwriter and a musician but I’m also a performer. There’s something with the repetition of performance and the realities of a tour, where it sort of softens the emotional content of some songs, you know what I mean? And you have kind of an emotional…I am shying away from the word detachment. I don’t want to say that I feel detached when I play those songs, but you can’t go through the experience of everything that goes into writing a song every single time that you play it. So, there’s that. And there’s also, I think one of the most central concerns as a writer is empathy. And for me, there’s something fascinating and enormously rewarding about singing a song about your deepest darkest secrets and screw ups and having a room full of people sing it back again. At the very least there’s something interesting about that. So I don’t think that the two are philosophically opposed.
LC: That’s a good point.
FT: It sort of surprised me – sorry I’m rambling, I talk way too much – but one of things that sort of pleasantly surprises me, I always try to write honestly and about flaws and that kind of thing. But particularly with Tape Deck Heart, as well as many other things that went into that record – England Keep My Bones is quite a bombastic record thematically, and certainly in the UK it was kind of my break through record. I was definitely like, much more main stream after that record came out. And at that moment in time it kind of struck me as perversely interesting to then go inwards rather than outwards as to my subject matter, and I sort of tried to write the most broken down record about failure and my own failure that I could. Just because that seems – I’m kind of a contrarian at heart I think. It seemed kind of interesting to me. And then it was yet more popular – which was like oh my god what’s happening! But yeah, it’s weird singing the song “Plain Sailing Weather” in front of a room of people, because that’s a song that isn’t generous to myself, you know.
LC: But I think it’s authentic and a lot of people can relate to that as a ubiquitous human experience.
FT: Yeah, that was kind of the intention so I’m glad the plan worked.
LC: How was working with Butch Walker?
FT: He was great. Butch is an amazing guy. He smells better than any man I’ve ever met.
LC: What does he smell like? Just curious now!
FT: He smells like, just like, goodness and adulthood and manhood. No, I don’t know. He’s just, anyway. He just sort of – I kind of got myself in a bind where I’d come up with a methodology to go with the songs I was writing and my record label were not convinced that it was a good idea. And I sort of fought tooth and nail for that but I needed an ally, and in the end Butch was my ally. I mean part because he’s a major league producer but also just like – I sort of contacted him not through management or whatever, I just got his e-mail address and dropped him a line – we met up for a beer and just instantly clicked. And one of the first things he said is that everything he thinks about song writing and production can be found on the first two Weezer records. And I said, I could not agree more strongly with that statement. So yeah, so we clicked straight away. And when I started explaining this methodology – which had to do with making things quickly and raw with a kind of pop heart to it – he just kind of started finishing my sentences before – we’d known each other for twenty minutes, you know. He’s a great soul and I’d love to work with him again.
LC: Is there anyone you haven’t worked with as yet who you liked to?
FT: Oh yeah – loads. On the production side of things, yeah. I’m fascinated by Rick Rubin. I have mixed feelings about Rick Rubin
as a producer but I think that’s kind of the point. Part of me is really interested in the idea of going off and making a record with something out of really left field…I’m really into Bjork and indeed electronica. Do something really deconstructionist –
LC: That would be interesting.
FT: Yeah, you know, it’s certainly – I think that being outside my comfort zone at this point in my career is extremely important and it’s certainly what I try to do.
LC: Are there any topics that you wouldn’t write about? So much that you write about seems so personal.
FT: Um, you know, I try to quite hard for the answer to that question to be no. My boundaries are more to do with stuff like…like consideration for other people, you know what I mean? There’s a song, which I’m not going to name because that’s kind of the point I’m trying to make, but there is a song I wrote about a situation with a friend of mine that it was an overstepping of the bounds in kind of revealing or just discussing – it didn’t name her in any way but – she was pretty pissed when the song came out. Retrospectively, I understand why completely and I feel pretty bad about it. So, you know what I mean, if like I choose to hang my dirty laundry out in public that’s my business but it’s not up to me to do that for other people.
LC: Right, choice and consent.
FT: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the counter argument to everything I’ve just said is Tape Deck Heart because I wrote quite in depth about a relationship which involves another person and I’m not sure I have a ready argument for that topic that I’ve just introduced. But, other than don’t date song writers.
LC: Or you’ll be written about?
FT: Yeah.
LC: I have one more question that is kind of silly. I’ve seen you in other places where you’ve Googled an anecdote of places you’re at and shared what you’ve found. Have you Googled Clifton Park yet and what did you find?
FT: That’s a good question, it’s not something I do every single time and it’s funny because – that shit works better in the states than it does in other places in the world. I think partly because American cities and towns have a sort of tradition of civic pride where they’re trying to distinguish themselves so it’s like you get a place that’s like, we have the biggest coke can in the continental united states! And it’s just like…what? But Clifton Park is sort of, we’ve played here before, and I think last time I cheated and googled Albany instead.
LC: I think more will come up if you Google Albany.
FT: But you sort of just reminded me to do that tonight.
Harbron is a New York City and Hudson Valley resident who spent his career photographing the early careers of rock icons such as Blondie, Elvis Costello and The Police as well as the later careers of The Who, Genesis, The Grateful Dead and KISS.
Attendees will get a rare opportunity to explore more than 70 of Habron’s concert and portrait photographs of influential musicians from the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition also includes some of his concert posters, memorabilia, and souvenirs, as well as guitars from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Guests are encouraged to wear concert attire.
Tickets for Rock the Museum are available at the Albany Institute of History and Art’s website.
Saturday, November 5th at the Putnam Den had the Capital Region feeling pretty grateful. Luckily enough, there isn’t a lack of Grateful Dead cover bands or jam-centered music in town. That doesn’t mean, however, that the New Paltz natives, Skeleton Keys, can’t draw a decent crowd to lend a listening ear to career-spanning tunes pulled directly from the Dead’s catalogue.
The night showcased the harmonious talents of Skeleton Keys, complete with Alex Mazur of fellow Dead aficionados, Gratefully Yours. Chances are you’ve probably seen them, or some variation of them previously at the Den or The Hollow in downtown Albany. The keyboard-based, electronic exploration took listeners through two sets of music that lasted into the late hours of Sunday morning. Things kicked off a bit late but instantly let loose the second the six-piece stepped on stage with keyboard wizard sit-ins. Just last Wednesday, the same venue saw a room packed with Dopapod faithful’s adorned in Dead and Phish gear, eager to see what their joint tour with Pigeons Playing Ping Pong would bring.
A video posted by NYS Music (@nystatemusic) on Nov 5, 2016 at 8:19pm PDT
You can say once you’ve seen one Dead cover band show, you’ve seen them all. To an extent that could be true, but Skeleton Keys made sure to spice up the night with set breaks and solos in all the right spots. Two percussionists, one manning a drum kit and the other on hand drums, two keys players, one bassist and a vivacious singer took den-goers through an authentic rendition of 1976’s Steal Your Face tune, “Sugaree.” The second song of the night found its way into an extended jam that ended with a captivating hand-drum solo.
On November 5, 1979, the Grateful Dead brought fourth the famed matchup of “China Cat Sunflower” into “I Know You Rider” during their show at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Fast-forward to 2016, and the Skeleton Keys pulled out another approved combination. As things wrapped up, Mazur led the group into what seemed like a tease of “Fire on the Mountain.” After being played in full, the Shakedown Street hit then segued into “Scarlet Begonias” which found most people up on their feet with a drink in hand.
The Saratogian nightlife staple will host a number of stimulating shows in the coming months. On Nov. 19, returning favorites Pink Talking Fish will take on a performance of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon juxtaposed with Phish’s rock-opera “Gamehendge,” all while sprinkling Talking Heads songs in between. A special Thanksgiving Throwdown will take place with Eastbound Jesus on Nov. 23 and the Capital Region’s own Formula 5 will throw down with Tauk on Dec. 8!
For a band that gets little to no radio play in the Capital Region front man Neil Fallon and the other members of Clutch had a sold out Upstate Concert Hall on its feet singing every word to every song Saturday night.
There was no light show and no gimmicks. Clutch is a straight forward kick you in the teeth rock band and that is just what they did as they ripped through their seventeen-song set. They opened the show with the crowd favorite “Burning Beard” and didn’t stop until the last song, “X-Ray Visions,” off their latest release Psychic Warfare.
Neil Fallon tells just as much of a story with his vocals as he does with his movement, like a king holding court with spastic movements and commanding vocals, he owns the stage every second he is on it. Fallon’s vocals as well as the rest of the band are just as crisp and clean live as they are on their recordings. You must see Clutch live to appreciate their genius.
Show openers Kyng are a solid three piece from Los Angeles who really got the crowd going. They tore through their eight-song set from their three albums. The crowd at UCH really responded to the band and they showed their appreciation by hanging out at their merch booth for much of the night.
After Kyng left the stage Zakk Sabbath, Zakk Wylde’s Black Sabbath tribute band, invaded UCH and played the music of the gods. I believe that there was just as much anticipation for this band as there was for Clutch. They tore through six classic Sabbath songs with the highlight of the night for me anyway was when they completely tore up “War Pigs.” If there was anyone to front a Sabbath tribute band the lead Berserker himself is more than capable to wear the crown that Ozzy possesses.
Kyng setlist: Burn the Serum, Trails in Veins, Pushing & Pulling, Pristine Warning, Self Medicated Man, Breathe in the Water, Electric Halo, Falling Down
Zakk Sabbath Setlist: Children of the Grave, Snowblind, Supernaut, War Pigs, Into the Void, Fairies Wear Boots
Clutch Setlist: Burning Beard, Decapitation Blues, Crucial Velocity, Noble Savage, The House That Peterbilt, Sucker for the Witch, The Face, A Quick Death in Texas, The Soapmakers, Firebirds!, Cyborg Bette, Power Player, Passive Restraints, Cypress Grove, X-Ray Visions, Encore: Spacegrass, The Wolf Man Kindly Requests…
Dopapod and Pigeons Playing Ping Pong brought their tour through Upstate New York Wednesday, October 26th, arriving at the Putnam Den to a packed house prepared for a night of dancing, spectacular lighting and more than 3 hours of flowing funk and prog rock.
Highlights from Pigeons Playing Ping Pong’s set include the ending trio of “Spacejam > The Hop > F.U.,” while Dopapod had a monster trio of their own: “Present Ghosts > Priorities -> Vol. 3 #86” and “Onionhead” with “Like a Ball” sandwiched in between.
Stay tuned for a NYS Music in Motion interview with Dopapod next week.
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong Setlist: Too Long, Julia, Fun In Funk, Burning Up My Time > Funk E Zekiel^ > Burning Up My Time > Offshoot, Whoopie, The Liquid > Upfunk, Spacejam > The Hop > F.U.
Notes:^ Unfinished
Dopapod setlist: Psycho FABA intro>FABA*, Present Ghosts > Priorities -> Vol. 3 #86, Trickery, Super Bowl > Onionhead^ -> Like a Ball > Onionhead% > Nuggy Jawson
E: Nerds#
*contained Psycho Nature teases
^contained teases of Run Like Hell, YYZ, Thunderstruck, and Like a Ball
%contained Nuggy Jawson tease
$contained NBC teases; the band also went into the outro of Pink Floyd’s “Sheep”
#Greg Ormont from Pigeons Playing Ping Pong sat in on Tequila Girl banter
Attila’s Chris Fronzak said that Attila has been around for 12 years and will be for 100 more.
With their performance from the Chaos Tour On Oct. 20, at Upstate Concert Hall in Clifton Park, this can easily be true. Metalcore band Attila packed the venue alongside Chelsea Grin, Emmure and Sylar for a night of raw heavy music.
Openers Sylar from Queens, NY gave a heavy start to the night to let fans know what they were in for. Although the activity from the crowd for their set was minimal, frontman Jayden Panesso didn’t stop building intensity from the audience. The musicians themselves utilized the space on stage to make sure every part of the venue got a taste of their sound.
Following Sylar was the five-piece metalcore band Emmure. As soon as they stepped foot on stage, you could feel the atmosphere in the venue change. Fans were opening circle pits, mosh pits and created such havoc that an ambulance with paramedics came towards the end of their set to help the injured fans.
With fans screaming and moving all over the venue, Emmure was immediately called on stage for an encore after their set despite being the second band on the lineup.
Chelsea Grin, who accidentally set off fire alarms during their set, had one of the most engaging performances of the evening. Vocalist Alex Koehler made sure to get in contact with every fan that crowd surfed to the front and got off stage and against the barricade of the audience twice to share his mic with fans.
With every song performed by Chelsea Grin, the intensity in the venue became stronger and stronger. More fans were acting out and jumping on top of other fans to sing lyrics with Koehler. With fans filled with excitement, headliners Attila came on stage to end the night with what would leave fans in awe.
Although some find Attila’s lyrics distasteful, Attila came out performing “Public Apology,” a single from their new album Chaos, out Nov. 4, to set the pace for their show. Front man Fronzak immediately wanted to show fans what Attila are about by making it clear he had no care in the world about what happened during their show.
“There are no rules at an Attila concert,” said Fronzak.
Whether you like Attila’s music or not, it is impossible to deny their absolute love for their fan base. Fronzak immediately went out of his way to make every fan feel special by utilizing the space of the entire stage. Fronzak was sharing the mic with fans and promoting activity by inviting every fan to crowd surf to the front and give him a high five.
Trying to excite fans, Attila left the stage momentarily only to come back moments later with Fronzak shooting fog from a fog gun across the audience.
Besides the band’s incredible fan interaction, they had stellar stage performance to complement it. The general performance by everyone in Attila was entertaining. You could tell every musician was loving what they were performing and only became more excited by seeing the reactions from their fans.
Out of most of the bands in the metalcore scene, Attila stand out as going above and beyond to show how much they love the fans of their music.
Following the trend of making fans feel important, Fronzak made a fan’s dream come true of singing on stage with Attila. Before performing their popular song “Payback,” Fronzak called for the best metal vocalist in the audience to come on stage. Becoming what he called “tryouts for Attila,” three men took the stage to compete to perform “Payback” on stage.
With the crowd cheering for their favorite vocalist, a fan got to live out his dream of performing, “Payback” in full, with his favorite band.
To appeal to his fans, Fronzak made clear the messages in his music. “We never claimed to be perfect. We know we’re f-ck up’s, that’s why we make music about it.”
Smiles stretched across the faces of fans of all ages who came out to rage with Attila. With the amount of fan interaction, it was impossible for any fan to leave the venue without feeling like an important part of the Chaos Tour.
With this type of attitude and energy for their live performances, it is easy to say Attila will have many years of tours ahead of them. If you are looking for a night of heavy music with a feeling of exuberance, make sure not to miss the Chaos Tour.
“Weird” Al Yankovic brought his Mandatory Fun tour into a packed Proctors Theatre on Saturday September 17. Weird Al has toured since the 1980’s and this is the first time he had ever performed in Schenectady and he did not disappoint.
The crowd was alive and buzzing with anticipation before the show. Many in the audience wore different costumes that represented different stages of Al’s career. From the Devo inspired one piece suits to full on Amish clothes, the atmosphere combined a concert and Comic-Con.
The show started with a video intro and went into Al walking through the concourse while singing the opening number “Tacky” walking through the crowd to the stage. The show continued for the next two plus hours with Al and his band performing at 100 miles an hour rolling through thirty years of hit songs. The show itself featured video clips and more costume changes than a Vegas drag queen show.
One of the more unique points in the show was an “Unplugged” session where he performed a variety of songs in the classic “MTV Unplugged” setting of him and his band sitting on stools surrounded by candles while acoustically playing songs including “Eat It.”
He ended the show by bringing storm troopers, Darth Vader and R2-D2 on stage while he performed his Star Wars inspired hits “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda.” For a band that has been out on the road performing for over 30 years, I would dare to say they would give any “young” band a real run for their money.
Setlist: Intro (Fun Zone / Intro Clips), Tacky, Lame Claim to Fame, Now That’s What I Call Polka! (Wrecking Ball/Pumped Up Kicks/Best Song Ever/Gangnam Style/Call Me Maybe/Scream & Shout/Somebody that I used to know/The One You Won’t Forget/I’m Sexy & I Know It/Thrift Shop/Get Lucky), Perform This Way, Dare to Be Stupid, Fat, First World Problems, Foil, Smells Like Nirvana, Party in the CIA / It’s All About the Pentiums / Handy / Bedrock Anthem / Another One Rides the Bus / Ode to a Superhero / Gump / Inactive / eBay, Canadian Idiot, Wanna B Ur Lovr, Eat It / I Lost on Jeopardy / I Love Rocky Road / Like a Surgeon (TV Shows / Rock & Roll Jeopardy), White & Nerdy, Word Crimes, Amish Paradise
Encore: Cheer / Piano Solo, We All Have Cell Phones, The Saga Begins, Yoda (with Yoda Chant)
Mister F brings lespecial to town this Friday, October 21 to The Hollow Bar and Kitchen in Albany. Featuring performances of brand new material and some very special guest collaborations between the bands, Mister F is stoked to be back on their home turf before heading out into the Midwest for a tour with McLovins next week. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 day of show.
Having recently returned from Luna Light Festival in Maryland, Mister F welcomed Holly Bowling to the stage to play keytar on “Answer the Dog.” Keyboardist Scott Hannay shared the story on the sit-in: “We had talked a number of times in the past about having her throw down on my keytar, but the timing just hadn’t yet worked out. She reached out to me shortly before we pulled into Luna Light festival this past Saturday and we made it happen. She’s a natural on that thing. Someone get that girl a keytar!”
Harbron is a New York City and Hudson Valley resident who spent his career photographing the early careers of rock icons such as 
Stay tuned for a NYS Music in Motion interview with Dopapod next week.
The crowd was alive and buzzing with anticipation before the show. Many in the audience wore different costumes that represented different stages of Al’s career. From the Devo inspired one piece suits to full on Amish clothes, the atmosphere combined a concert and Comic-Con.