#9 Greatest Felice Brothers Song- "the Devil is Real"

The first Felice Brothers concert that i attended, i was only familiar with the songs, before the show, and didn't know specifically who sang each tune. About halfway through a raucous set, with Ian Felice handling most of the vocals, the stage was littered with empty whiskey bottles, pots and pans, a tin cover to a trash can, and a sheet of aluminum roofing and had already seen the drum kit lose a cymbal stand into the crowd a couple times. Out of this wreckage emerged the drummer, who had already proved to be quite truculent behind the kit. He had goaded, teased, and joked with audience members, between songs and gave constant props to his brothers.
At This particular moment he stepped to the microphone at the front of the stage as his brother Ian, so readily slunked into the shadows, and the drummer, Simone Felice, proclaimed "This is for the powers that be!"
His eyes snuck back into the back of his skull as he began with a short spoken word poem, and then sang "The Devil is Real", a song so very different than the ones that they had been playing all night. Some argue that great songs, are really built around one great line, and for me the line in this one was "Bonnie, the birthmark at the base of your ass, it's shaped like the gallows and the shadow they cast"

It was powerful, and it added such a dynamic element to the live show of the band.
But also acted as a mission statement for the band at that particular moment in their history. For them, i think, it was a warning to the wide open world, that they were coming for it all. This is a time when their ambition seemed almost limitless. It was very charming, and completely believable.

a video clip