When you see a band take the stage with a baritone sax, you know they didn’t come to play around. Seattle charmers The Dip — WXPN’s Artist to Watch for the month of May — draw on sounds and styles from across the pop music spectrum, the groove-baby-groove Motown energy of set opener “Crickets,” the Tex-Mex bolero soul swing of “Appolonia,” the midtempo Elton-esque rock of “Real Contender.”
What ties them together is singer-guitarist Tom Eddy suave voice and frontperson charisma, and a sense of positive energy. The Dip are NON-COMM’s greatest party band of 2022, because they sound like five different parties. “We’ve had some good times in Philadelphia, and this is another one,” said Eddy as they led into the slow New Orleans march of “Paddle To The Stars,” while the one-two punch of “Sleep”‘s Memphis horns and the closing “Sure Don’t Miss You” brought the energy back up to a peak.
The Dip returns to Philadelphia on September 16th at the XPoNential Music Festival; tickets and info can be found at XPNFest.org, and the you can stream their NON-COMM set below.