Josh Ritter returns to WXPN for his fifth Free at Noon

There’s a reason Josh Ritter keeps coming back to Philadelphia. On Friday afternoon at World Cafe Live, the singer-songwriter joined WXPN’s “five timers club” for his fifth Free at Noon appearance, playing to a sold-out room.

“I’ve been coming here for 25 years,” Ritter told the crowd. He recorded his 2001 album Golden Age of Radio here in Philly, back when he says he couldn’t even afford to pay his band. “I went to thrift stores and got an accordion and gave it to my bass player in payment,” he said. “He still plays with me, which is… humans can forgive.”

The set pulled from across Ritter’s catalog, opening with “Honeydew (No Light)” from his new album I Believe in You, My Honeydew before moving into older material like “Me & Jiggs” and “Only a River.” Before playing “Dreams,” he told the audience, “I gave myself some tough ones for today just to see what happens.” He joked about folk singers having an annual quota of star songs and nautical disaster songs “It’s like taxes, you know” before playing “Truth Is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding),” a song about stargazing and lost love.

Before closing with “The Throne,” Ritter paused to open up a bit. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a hero,” he said. “They make it seem like the world is too big for any of us to change anything. But little tiny things are heroic. Things that nobody sees are heroic. We can’t all be Liam Neeson, he’s so busy. Don’t forget about how powerful you are.” He played “Kathleen” for the encore.