Punch Brothers have launched the second leg of their North American tour. Having kicked things off with a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor at New York’s Town Hall, the band recorded a show for NPR's Mountain Stage and set out from there for headlining shows in Pittsburgh and Lexington. The Lexington Herald Leader notes the band's "virtuosity and stylistic cunning" and finds them at their "most exciting and inventive" yet. Punch Brothers' upcoming performances include stops in Knoxville, Nashville, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC, and a set at MerleFest.
Punch Brothers have launched the second leg of their North American tour featuring music from their new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?, released earlier this year on Nonesuch Records. The band kicked things off in style with a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor at New York’s Town Hall on Saturday (pictured at left), performing three songs of the new album—"New York City," "Patchwork Girlfriend," and "Flippen"—and teaming up with fellow guests Renée Fleming, Aoife O'Donovan, and Heather Masse for a number of songs. The show is now archived online at priariehome.org. The band then headed to Morgantown, West Virginia, to perform a show for future broadcast on NPR's Mountain Stage, along with Joan Osborne and Leftover Salmon. The tour set out from there with headlining shows at the Rex Theater in Pittsburgh on Monday and the Kentucky Theater in Lexington last night, both with Jesca Hoop opening, as she will through the end of the month.
"By now, the virtuosity and stylistic cunning of Punch Brothers have so radically redefined the possibilities of conventional string instrumentation that one almost forgets that bluegrass roots still sits at the heart of every sound the ensemble makes," says Lexington Herald Leader contributing music writer Walter Tunis in his review of last night's show, which "was easily the most exciting and inventive of its many Lexington area performances." In addition to some key cover tunes that have become an integral part of the band's repertoire—including Radiohead's "Kid A," which they perform on Who's Feeling Young Now? and The Cars' "Just What I Needed," which you can watch them take on here—they explored "original material that soared through all manner of progressive references, from rockish percussive riffs to fanciful swing-on-string runs that could best be described as psychedelic acoustic vaudeville."
The set closed with another much-loved cover: The Band's "Ophelia." Punch Brothers dedicated the tune to The Band's Levon Helm, who, his family has reported, is in "the final stages" of cancer.
Read Tunis's complete review of the concert in his blog The Musical Box. Read Tunis's article on the band in the Herald Leader, featuring an interview with Punch Brothers guitarist Chris Eldridge, at kentucky.com.
Punch Brothers' upcoming performances include stops in Knoxville, Nashville, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC, before a set at MerleFest in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The tour also makes a stop in Austin, where the band will tape an episode of Austin City Limits at Moody Theater on May 1 for future broadcast on PBS—raffle for free tickets will be announced on ACL's site shortly—and play a sold-out show at Antone's on May 2. The tour wraps up with a sold out LA Bluegrass Situation show at Largo in Los Angeles on May 4. Several summer festival dates follow. For details and ticket links, go to nonesuch.com/on-tour.
To pick up a copy of Who's Feeling Young Now?, head to the Nonesuch Store, where CD and vinyl orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s at checkout. The album is also available to purchase there as MP3s and FLAC lossless files.
- Log in to post comments