Jukebox the Ghost swung through Tampa on their way to SXSW last Saturday night, introducing the crowd to some cuts off the new album while still finding time to play fan favorites. Safe Travels, produced by Peter Katis (Interpol, The National), is due for a June 12 release and the material they debuted finds them headed diverging from the pure piano pop of past records into a bit of an electro direction. [Text by Marci, photos by Chris.]
While the show went off without a hitch, something incredibly bizarre happened during the encore. After the band finished their cover of Donna Summers’ “I Love You Always Forever,” a woman in the front started asking for stuff off the stage. After reminding her that she’d already acquired a drumstick and telling her she couldn’t just have more of their stuff, they launched into the much-love “Victoria.” Suddenly, the woman lumbered onto the stage and crawled, on hands and knees, to the drums, where she plopped down and began tossing percussion gear into the crowd. While they played the song. A large part of me wanted them to stop and start over, but I have to respect the way they handled it. Ben Thornewill shook his head incredulously, Tommy Siegel asked nicely for someone to please return the maraca, and Jesse Kristin didn’t skip a beat (pun intended).
Joining Jukebox on the tour were Speak and The Elwins. I didn’t get to catch much of Canada’s Elwins, but Speak, from Austin, had a very cool synth-y electro sound that made their cover of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me” totally perfect.
Setlist
Good Day
Half Crazy
Somebody (new)
Oh, Emily (new)
Summer Sun
Hold It In
Say When (new)
Don’t Let Me Fall Behind (new)
So Let Us Create
Empire
The Sun (Interlude)
The Stars
I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Whitney Houston cover)
Never Gonna Give You Up (Rick Astley cover)
Schizophrenia
Encore
I Love You Always Forever (Donna Lewis cover)
Victoria
Static to the Heart
This article appears in Mar 15-21, 2012.
