Discover A Lovelier You

The Pernice Brothers @ North Star Bar Philadelphia, PA 8/12/05
The 1st band was some really quiet and really boring folksy/country-ish act, so after a few songs, me and the super cool boo who I spent the weekend with went into the other room to shoot some pool, which was much more fun than watching them or Royal Gun, who I caught a few songs of towards the end of their set. They're accompanying the Pernice Brothers for their entire current tour and their guitarist and keyboardist are filling in for the absent Thom Monahan and Laura Stein (Joe Pernice's wife). Maybe they should just call it Joe Pernice and Whoever's Able to Play with Him instead of The Pernice Brothers, especially since Bob Pernice hasn't been in the band in years anyway, but that would be too long. Anyhow, this was my 3rd time seeing Joe & co and I thought that they were great. It reminded me a lot of the 1st time I saw them, which was at Maxwells a few years ago and less of their Mercury Lounge show that I saw back in January of 2004, which was a bit tentative and awkward (perhaps because they knew it was being recorded; some of the songs they played that night ended up being on the Nobody's Listening/Nobody's Watching CD/DVD). Anyway, they were very loose (not in the sense that they weren't tight as a band, but in the sense that they seemed to be having fun up there and they were comfortable as well) and in top form, though the club was only half full. They played a variety of the songs from their excellent and for some reason very underrated new album Discover A Lovelier You as well as selections from their excellent back catalog. For the encore, they played "Flaming Wreck" (from the the excellent The World Won't End) and then Joe played an acoustic song (I think it's from the Big Tobacco album) and they finished with "One Foot in the Grave" from the almost-as-excellent Yours, Mine and Ours. Also, after their set, I was able to obtain a setlist right in front of me, but admittedly, I did have a bit of help in that department. :-)