The applause had barely settled when the band launched into the opening chords of what would become a near-complete run-through of their then-unreleased record, playing to a room that felt less like a broadcast session and less like a concert, and more like a front porch gathering between people who already trusted each other. KEXP, the radio station that helped break the band before most of the world had caught on, was the reason they were there. And the crowd, standing close enough to feel the room breathe, was the reason they stayed.
The station that played it twice in a row for a whole week
Before the title track off their new record, the band paused to name the person responsible. ‘John Richards, this is for you,’ the frontman said from the stage, ‘thank you for playing this twice in a row for a whole week straight, putting us on the map.’ The room broke into applause. It was the kind of moment that explains why a touring band drives out of its way to play a radio station set: loyalty paid forward, in public, in front of the people who listened first.
The KEXP session leaned heavily on new material. The band mentioned they were playing roughly half the new record that night, with plans to perform the full album once it was officially out. One song, ‘Angela,’ had gone out to the public just that day. Another, ‘Gun Song,’ came from the same record. The title track, ‘Cleopatra,’ anchored the middle of the set with its wide, unhurried phrasing and a lyric that circles back to choices and time in the way the best folk-adjacent songs tend to do.
The kitchen recording they fought to keep
One of the quieter moments carried the most weight. Before slowing the tempo down for a song recorded in the band’s kitchen in Denver, the frontman described what it took to get that version onto the final record. ‘When we put it on the record, no one really wanted the kitchen version,’ he said, ‘but we said yes, we’re gonna put it on there.’ The label went with it. He credited that outcome to having people around who, even if few in number, were willing to hear the band out. ‘You should demand things that you believe in,’ he told the room. The song, played stripped and unhurried, was its own argument for why they pushed.
The set also included a tribute to Simon Felice, producer of the band’s previous album and a member of the Felice Brothers, delivered through a cover of ‘The Ballad of Luther Welterweight.’ The frontman introduced it by name, urging anyone in the room who hadn’t heard the Felice Brothers to go find them.
A hat worn through withdrawal
Before one of the slower songs, the frontman gestured at the hat on his head and admitted he had been trying to stop wearing it as a kind of security blanket. ‘I went through withdrawal,’ he said, ‘so I put it back on.’ The crowd laughed. He shrugged and played the song anyway.
The closing stretch stretched long, with the band thanking the audience for supporting a station that ‘plays real music’ and promising three more nights in the area soon. The last song faded under waves of applause that kept returning even as the instruments went quiet.
The kitchen recording, the one nobody originally wanted, still stood somewhere in the middle of the setlist, holding its ground.
