The Felice Brothers bring a storytelling-rich set to the XPNFest Marina Stage

The Felice Brothers are a WXPN Artists to Watch going back to September 2008, and they made their return to Wiggins Park Saturday afternoon with a set of rootsy Americana, leaning heavily on their excellent 2021 record From Dreams To Dust. 

Much to the delight of the jam-packed Marina Stage The Felice Brothers opened the set with XPN-favorite “Jazz On The Autobahn,” a ballad of mutually assured self-destruction that had more than a few fans singing along word for word. The Felice Brothers follow in a long lineage of folk-rock storytellers, spinning yarns among clever bits of lyricism. For real, these guys really find a way to stuff a novel’s worth of words into a single song. Some of my personal favorite lines include, “I mix more medications than mixed martial arts fans live in basements,” from “Blow Him Apart”…or from “Valium,” the hilariously depressing line, “My happiness is touch-and-go, kinda like this motel’s HBO.” All of which made the moment when they were forced to abandon a song because they had forgotten their own lyrics totally understandable, charming even.

Hailing from Upstate New York, there’s more than a little Big Pink to be found in their sonic palette; rough, homespun, and equal parts heart and wry smile. Though they did branch out a bit from traditional Americana, even incorporating an accordion to create an almost klezmer-adjacent effect, especially on “Aerosol Ball” from 2016’s Life in the Dark. All of which served to make their performance an ideal late-afternoon treat on day two of the XPoNential Music Festival.