Austin – Los Angeles natives, PAPA, have spent the last year touring the globe in support of their excellent 2013 LP, “Tender Madness.” The band, headed by Darren Weiss and Daniel Presant, has a repertoire of upbeat pop songs driven by Weiss’ powerful drumming and deep Springsteenesque baritone. When you attend a PAPA show, they will make sure you are having a good time. From their carefully crafted jumpsuits that read PAPA across the back to Weiss actually pulling a girl who was seated up to the very front for their last few songs. She obeyed, and danced along with the rest of the crowd. That’s just the type of unselfish gents they are.
This band is unique right down to their stage set up. Even bands who blatantly display their drummer as lead singer, tend to stick the drummer somewhere in the back. Perhaps, they’ll raise the drummer on a platform. PAPA uses a non-traditional set up, placing Weiss directly in the front with his drum kit. This not only encourages the audience to keep rhythm along with the band and allows Weiss to be the great hype man he is, it makes it impossible not to catch the infectious energy and dance.
They insert various build-ups of instrumentals throughout the set like their album opener, “PAPA,” to raise excitement in the room. One fan was so excited he continuously screamed, “I love you” each time the room got quiet and Weiss couldn’t help but insert a snarky comment. The crowd favorite was “I Am the Lion King” featured on both their latest LP and first EP, A Good Woman is Hard to Find. The song includes an instrumental bridge towards the end where the drum rises, the guitar swells, and the keyboards are tapped in symphonic bliss.
It was during one of these instrumental breaks that Weiss quickly leaped off the stage, ran to a black leather couch, pulled a girl up off the couch and placed her right in front of the stage. Though she’d been sitting there looking uninterested for the entire set, she was suddenly up, dancing with the crowd through their final song and in to their fitting update to “Love is a Battlefield.” Isn’t it though?
Ilyse Kaplan
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