Sam and Louise Sullivan wow packed Free At Noon crowd with the Historic New Jersey crew

We here at WXPN are all in on Sam and Louise Sullivan, the breakout brother-sister duo who we named our October Artist To Watch, and the extended members of the Historic New Jersey Recordings family.

Lucky for you (and us), the siblings and their band treated a packed Ardmore Music Hall crowd to a stellar Free At Noon set on a gorgeous day in the Philly area.

Their third album, Love & Devotion, dropped in July, and they focused a chunk of the set on those tracks, but opened with their 2024 single “I Got A Light.”

Next up was “Down on Love,” the lead—and most popular—track from the record. Sam and Louise put on a clinic in this performance, showing just how great of a musical duo they are. That was all bolstered by their band, comprising Jem Seidel on drums, Eric Hartman on bass, Historic New Jersey Recordings founder Kevin Basko on lead guitar and backing vocals, and Emily Moales (better known as Star Moles) on keys.

Louise scooped up her fiddle for “Sweet Enough,” the title track of their second album. Including the fiddle in their set almost served as a reminder to the audience that these two come from a folk-focused family and background.

It should be noted that the siblings seemingly serve two roles on stage: Louise a bit of the reposed straight woman and Sam animated the cutup. As they led into “Irish Goodbye” from the new album, Sam joked about how in modern times exes like to stay in touch.

“Big mistake,” he said, getting a laugh from the crowd, who were already very giving to the band, offering up applause and cheers throughout their songs.

They threw it back to Sweet Enough and played “Avalon,” their poppy, romp-y tribute to making the journey down the shore. They kept with Sweet Enough and served the crowd “Hang a Right” before playing “Love & Devotion.”

The duo earlier in their set mentioned much of their lyrics touch on tenets of love, with “Love & Devotion” being about being loyal “no matter if your beloved is correct or not.” Sam, being the jokester he is, said he was sure some people in attendance knew what they were talking about, earning more laughs.

Basko took a nice solo on the song, and Sam got down on his knees at the end to drive the outro home.

Their set closed with “Birthday Forever” from Sweet Enough. Sam, who had been playing rhythm guitar throughout the set, forsook his instrument leaving him free to get even more expressive on stage alongside Louise.

Seidel hammered out a mini drum solo and gave the crowd false ending with some pregnant pauses, which led into another solo from Basko.

If you missed Friday’s show you’ll have to wait to catch Sam and Louise locally. If you’re willing to travel, you can catch them at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC on Nov. 5 or in Somerville, Massachusetts on Nov. 11, as they’re supporting Hamilton Leithauser and Rostam on both dates.