Brooklyn – After a successful stint as a great opening band, Philadelphia’s Modern Baseball broke the mold and headlined their own tour with Knuckle Puck, Foxing, Crying, and Somos. With Walter Mitty and Hostage Calm providing extra support as additional openers, the bands toured from East to West and then back again. They played Chain Reaction, The Fillmore, The TLA, Gramercy Theatre and finally the Music Hall of Williamsburg this past Monday night.
The Brooklyn offshoot of the The Bowery Presents was packed with teenagers and twentysomethings in graphic t-shirts and hoodies. Every other audience member was wearing either a snapback or a pull string backpack. The opening bands, especially Knuckle Puck, got the audience moshing, stage diving and slam dancing around in an almost violent fashion. In between songs Knuckle Puck’s vocalist Joe Taylor checked on the crowd surfers and the crowd, asking things like, “Is everyone ok/safe/good?” He was probably also gauging how the audience liked the band’s set, but it was reassuring to see the band look out for their fans in that fashion.
Modern Baseball have a slower, calmer sound, but the crowd was just as rowdy during their set. When the band opened with “Fine, Great” there was such a surge towards the stage that it created a riptide-like pull on the floor. Unless you were standing in the back or the sides of the room, the whirlpool of people would suck you in and spit you out wherever standing room formed. You wouldn’t think the steady plod of most Modern Baseball songs would spark such a response, but in a live setting the sound has much more energy. Add to this the fact that everyone knew the words to all the songs and wore some form of Modern Baseball merch, and it seemed like a perfect showing for the last night of the tour. It was just the right mix of die-hard fans and people unafraid of dancing in public.
The band went on to steadily play almost the entirety of You’re Gonna Miss It All, which was released by Run For Cover Records earlier this year. They are a relatively young band, so the amount of material they can pull from to build a live set isn’t overwhelming. They barely touched their 2012 album Sports (on Lame-O Records). Their even older (2012/2011) EPs Couples Therapy and The Nameless Ranger weren’t even featured. Instead the band played crowd favorites “Broken Cash Machine” and “Apartment.” The pop culture references, subtle snark and introspection of Modern Baseball’s earlier work, like “The Weekend,” carried over to the newer tracks, like “Going to Bed Now” and “Pothole.” The band has found a winning formula in their mentions of hoodies, Twitter, and beer. Still playing those same 20 or so songs over and over again all year must get tiring. The band’s guitarist/vocalist Jake Ewald, in thanking the audience, talked about Modern Baseball’s recent spike in popularity. The band has had a good year and spent something like 180 days on tour. To this the 16+ audience noted “that’s more than a school year!” then cheered wildly.
Ewald shared the vocalist spot and bantering duties with guitarist Brendan Lukens and bassist Ian Farmer. Ewald took the lead for songs like “Tears Over Beers” from Sports as well as “Pothole” and “Two Good Things.” Lukens sang the lead for “The Old Gospel Choir,” “Charlie Black” and “Rock Bottom.” Farmer, despite having center stage, didn’t really have the lead on anything, but backed up the others beautifully. Ewald and Lukens have fairly different singing voices, but they meld together nicely. There is a clear chemistry between the bandmates. When Farmer’s bass failed, Ewald and Lukens fell very comfortably into a mini-jam session, managing to keep up the energy as a new bass was brought on stage. The two wandered into the opening chords of Rusted Root’s “Send Me on My Way” and the audience loved it.
The song would reappear in between songs during the course of the set. Lukens deemed it the “joke of the night.” At one point the band attempted to actually play it through, adding Farmer and drummer Sean Huber to the mix, but didn’t get past repeating “send me on my way…” It was one of the little unpredictable hitches of live shows that turn out to be the most memorable part of the evening. The other surprises were planned, like when Dan Lambton of the band Real Friends joined in on vocals. How and why Lambton was backstage during the entire show remains a mystery, but the two bands had toured together earlier this year supporting The Wonder Years, so it’s within the realm of possibility that they’re just friends supporting each other (let’s hope for that.) The other and perhaps most shocking plot twist was the band’s cover of The Killers’ song “When You Were Young.” The Killers’ Brandon Flowers has such a powerful, but delicate voice. Somehow Modern Baseball’s motley crew of vocalists rose to the occasion and carried it off nicely.
They ended the set with their single and perhaps their best-known song, “Your Graduation.” Lambton and the rest of the friends/crew joined the band on stage, dancing and diving into the audience. Huber left the drum set and took center stage for a verse of “Your Graduation.” Between the stage divers, audience members and various others that then flooded the stage, it was chaos and the perfect way to end the set and end the tour. The final chords rang out and the band left the stage without an encore.
If you missed Modern Baseball on tour, they’re returning to the area in May for the Skate and Surf Festival.
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Zoe Marquedant
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