The Districts and The Dove and the Wolf covered Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra
Philly rockers The Districts settled in for the weekend at Johnny Brenda’s to kick off a late fall tour of intimate venues. The whole run of shows sold out very quickly, and last night’s gig in particular was filled with immense amounts of awesome. Not the least of which were six songs from the new record we’re hoping to hear from The Districts in 2017.
Song titles included “Violet,” “Rattling of the Heart,” “Night Time Girls,” “Point,” “Ordinary Day” and “If Before I Wake,” and we’ll have more on them when our Jeremy Zimmerman reviews night one of the series later this week. Suffice it to say, the songs are varied, big and bold, and frontman Rob Grote’s voice soars in a way we haven’t heard from him before…very exciting stuff.
For today, we’ll focus on another bit of awesome from the weekend: collabs and covers. During The Districts’ set, openers The Dove and The Wolf joined them onstage for an amped-up take on Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra’s 1967 hit “Some Velvet Morning.” We imagine our boss Bruce Warren, who goes by the Twitter handle @somevelvetblog, is duly stoked — watch it below.
During The Dove and The Wolf’s opening set, they premiered their sweet rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” from 1967’s Songs of Leonard Cohen. The band recently recorded a studio version of the song, and it will be on an Amazon Playlist that comes out in February, for Valentine’s Day — watch the live version of it below, and keep an ear out for the studio version…we’ll be sure to tell you when it hits our radar.
Last night also featured the skittish, scattered amplified rock and roll of Tangiers. The dudes managed to break both guitar and bass strings within the first song — I didn’t know breaking bass strings was possible, and I imagine it’s painful — and their set almost ended early, but Rob Grote and Connor Jacobus lent them some Rickenbackers from The Districts’ arsenal. “Yo, Tangiers just upgraded so hard,” said bassist Breshon Martzall.
Check out a few photos from everybody’s set below.
In the realm of collabs from Friday, Kississippi‘s Zoë Allaire Reynolds debuted a new song, backed by The Districts, which you can watch below, care of Philly concert videographer Markit Aneight. Reynold’s trademark dreampop melodies are present, elevated to the stratosphere by The Districts’ energized playing.
One final note on the proceedings – if you are going to this evening’s sold out show with Mumblr, make sure you head over to the merch stand and say hello to Philly photographer Caitlin McCann. She’s selling her photo zine CAKE – a document of life on the road with The Districts and Sun Club – and donating the proceeds to the Standing Rock Medic + Healer Council.