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Punch Brothers at Palace Theatre
Punch Brothers Setlist
Madison Cunningham Setlist
Punch Brothers Tour Dates
08/19/2018 Woodland Park Zoo Seattle, WA
08/21/2018 Mondavi PAC Jackson Hall Davis, CA 08/22/2018 Fox Theater Oakland, CA 08/23/2018 Weill Hall Rohnert Park, CA 08/24/2018 Theatre Los Angeles, CA 08/25/2018 Observatory North Park San Diego, CA 09/06/2018 The Anthem Washington, DC 09/07/2018 Symphony Center Chicago, IL 09/08/2018 Blanche M. Touhill PAC St. Louis, MO 09/09/2018 Kauffman Center Kansas City, MO 09/11/2018 Manship Theatre Baton Rouge, LA 09/12/2018 The Civic Theatre New Orleans, LA 09/13/2018 Bass Concert Hall Austin, TX 09/14/2018 Majestic Theatre Dallas, TX 09/15/2018 Tower Theatre Oklahoma City, OK 09/17/2018 Red Rocks Amphitheatre Morrison, CO 11/16/2018 London Arena London, UK Madison Cunningham Tour Dates
Aug 21 Davis, CA Mondavi Center
Aug 22 Oakland, CA Fox Theater Aug 23 Rohnert Park, CA Weill Hall Aug 24 Los Angeles, CA Ace Hotel Aug 25 San Diego, CA The Observatory Sep 6 Washington, DC The Anthem Sep 7 Chicago, IL Chicago Symphony Center Sep 8 Saint Louis, MO Touhill Performing Arts Sep 9 Kansas City, MO Kauffman Center Sep 11 Baton Rouge, LA Manship Theatre Sep 12 New Orleans, LA The Civic Theatre Sep 13 Austin, TX Bass Concert Hall Sep 14 Dallas, TX Majestic Theatre Sep 15 Oklahoma City, OK Tower Theatre Read More
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It’s a musical shore leave and the tiki bar is open!--
Celebrating their chart-topping new album, All Ashore (Nonesuch Records) progressive bluegrass five-piece Punch Brothers played a celebratory set at the Palace Theatre in downtown St. Paul, sort of a second hometown to mandolin/vocalist Chris Thile.
Opening the show was rising singer-songwriter and Orange County, CA native Madison Cunningham, who at just twenty-one, is already gaining comparisons between her and a young Joni Mitchell. Despite her young age, Cunningham acted confidently to engage the audience and already had some experience with the headliners, having been Thile’s duet partner on the St. Paul-based MPR radio program, “Live from Here”, and is in the midst of finishing her Verve Records full-length LP..
The good and the bad thing about the recently restored venue, is that sound travels (maybe too well), as conversations from the other side of the room can be heard, but also that music travels around the walls well too. To an opening artist playing solo, this can be a challenge, but to the attentive, you often reap the rewards of an artist to watch.
Cunningham was demure in introducing herself a couple songs in with a polite “nice to meet you”, and surprised a bit later on by someone in the crowd that recognized one of her songs, “I’ll buy you a drink!” she joked, which prompted another to cheer, “...there’s two!”, she said.
‘I Close My Eyes’ was written as a letter to her younger self, and with lyrics like “Dancing in patches of sunlight, time was an hourless friend, oh how I wish to be that girl again”, Cunningham already establishes herself as a formidable writer with keen insight beyond her years. ‘Something to Believe In’ (not a Poison cover) closed her brief set; and if this is any indication, Cunningham is exactly the type of performer to believe in going forward.
After the break, lights rose to reveal a starry night backdrop against the profiles of ships’ masts and tiki-style high tables with abundant drinks on each, on left and right as Punch Brothers took to the stage for their two-hour headlining set, with half the band even sporting floral leis around their necks, to complete the island theme.
The quintet of mandolinist Chris Thile, guitarist Chris Eldridge, bassist Paul Kowert, banjoist Noam Pikelny and violinist Gabe Witcher developed the new fifth album as a meditation on current day committed relationships in light of the unsettled climate, political and otherwise, and the record’s nine song movement is meant to flow together as one complete piece. Live, it mostly did as well- the band played all but one of the songs but in a couple separated segments, interjecting a few older favorites along the way.
After opening with 2012’s ‘Movement and Location’ and previous album’s ‘My Oh My’, All Ashore’s title track helped introduced the new songs. With each musician a master of their own instrument, it was hard to decide who to watch, though they spent a good amount of the set somewhat huddled together, make it easier to take in the overall picture.
After a stirring ‘The Angel of Doubt’, Thile introduced their first of two instrumental tributes to tiki cocktails, ‘Three Dots and a Dash’; which in addition to being a rum-based cocktail, is also the Morse code for the letter “V”, which Thile said reminded him of both Churchill and Nixon’s hand gestures and also a V for Voldemort, associating him with the current resident of the highest office in the land. “Protest tiki instrumentals are all the rage right now” a band colleague chimed in.
Their gorgeous cover of a 2010 Josh Ritter song may have seemed a little unexpected, but fit perfectly into the musical theme of the night, the story of a ship named the Annabelle Lee sailing for new tropical climes. And how else to follow that up? - with an interpretation of an 1890 French piano suite (of course!), as the quintet showed their extreme musical range in covering classical artist Claude Debussy.
After rave applause for 2015’s ‘Julep’, Thile introduced the second tiki cocktail tribute, ‘Jungle Bird’ first asking who in the audience had ever tried the drink, to minimal response. “In your silence, we hear opportunity” guitarist Eldridge deadpanned, Thile then asking him when he last had one of the drinks, “...it’s been hours!” replying above the crowd’s laughter.
Like the new record, the main set ended with the final three movements, with ‘Like It’s Going Out of Style’ a quieter, pensive piece with ending lyrics, “So forge ahead, knowing you just have to miss me when I'm gone and love, I'm always gonna come back around”
True to that song’s lyric, the band did come back around for a beginning two-song encore which dispelled any elitist claims of only loving complex cocktails, by starting with an ode to beer on ‘The Hops of Guldenburg’ then ramping up to the harder stuff with 2010’s ‘Rye Whiskey’, which had the crowd clapping along and singing verses back to the stage.
The band returned one last time for a set-closing ‘Familiarity’; a spanning, self-described “thesis statement” of their previous album, a song that reconciles itself with the benefits and perils of modern technology as its melodies and movements morph within the song itself, from Americana to country-classical to chamber pop, in the course of its ten-minute length.
The crowd roared with the song’s final “amens” lyrically, sung seamlessly by the five, and Punch Brothers bowed and said good night for one final time. The musical shore leave might have been over, but drinks could still be had, and the memories of such a precisely performed, musically diverse concert, will remain in most of these concert goer’s memories, for quite some time.
(click on any photo below to enlarge and see full image)
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