Boston setlist April 9

Video Penn Station April 9 2009 Paradise Rock Club Boston
1. The Big Surprise
2. Loves me Tenderly
3. New song
4. Whiskey
5. Murder by Mistletoe
6. White Limo
7. Lou the Welterweight
8. Cooperstown
9. Chicken wire
10. Where'd you get the liquor?
11. Godamn you Jim
12. Marie
13. Greatest Show on Earth
14. Frankies gun
15. Let me come home
16. St Stephen's end
17. Two hands
18. Farley song
19. Ruby Mae
20. Penn Station


Boston Herald review:

Gloomy, gleeful Felice Brothers doomed to rock
By Christopher Blagg
Saturday, April 11, 2009

Never has a band so obsessed with death, dying and decay sounded so joyful.

When the Felice Brothers took the stage at the Paradise on Thursday, a wonderfully maddening tension between doom and revelry was on full display.

With a just-released record, “Yonder Is the Clock,” in tow, the rowdy, five-piece, Americana outfit proved that when it comes to rock ’n’ roll, spirit and soul trump precision every time.

The Catskills-based band got the night moving by ripping into the rambunctious stomp of “Love Me Tenderly,” complete with raggedy harmonies, wheezing accordion and the broken-glass baritone of Ian Felice. The fiddle-fueled honky-tonk of “Whiskey in My Whiskey” proved an early favorite with burly, bearded singer and accordionist James Felice swigging liberally from a bottle. (The third actual brother in the band, drummer Simone, is on hiatus.)

An otherwise excellent first half was marred by the band’s frustrating overreliance on stodgy, lackluster ballads. After every uptempo barnstormer, a momentum-snuffing song, such as the duller than dull “Buried in Ice,” seemed to follow.

Fortunately the band cut down on slow songs as the night went on. Tunes such as the barrelhouse “The Greatest Show On Earth,” the frantic “Where’d You Get Your Liquor?” and the murder-themed “Frankie’s Gun” all teetered deliciously on the edge of chaos.

An extended encore included a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s gospel number “Two Hands” and the Brothers’ own “Penn Station,” another tune that marries morbid themes with cheerful music. The Felice Brothers may be obsessed with death, but when that fixation creates riveting performances like these, more power to ’em.

Indie singer-songwriter Willy Mason, who has toured with Death Cab for Cutie and Radiohead, opened with a solo acoustic set full of literate, anthemic folk rock. Tunes such as “If It’s the End” and “Hard Hand to Hold” were solid, but it was a lovely duet with his folk-singing mother, “Waiter at the Station,” that proved the set’s golden moment.

THE FELICE BROTHERS, with WILLY MASON

At the Paradise, Thursday.