Postcards from the Pit: The Felice Brothers / Yellowbirds / Mail the Horse, Mercury Lounge, 12/31/12

And now, at long last, the promised pictures from the Felice Brothers’ New Years Eve show.

Starting from the beginning, with Mail the Horse:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Yellowbirds were up next; they’re also from Brooklyn, and were an odd little burst of power-pop in the middle of a twangy, fuzzed-out evening:
 

 

 

 
And then, The Felice Brothers, who played a bunch of crowd favorites (ones I can remember: Frankie’s Gun, Cumberland Gap, Whiskey in my Whiskey, White Limousine, Run, Chicken, Run), surprised us with an appearance by Simone Felice, poured us into the New Year with Take This Bread, ceded their stage to a member of the audience for a (successful!) marriage proposal, and at the end shut the place down with back-to-back covers of Carry That Weight by The Beatles and Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.

Carry That Weight I sang along with out of . . . habit, for lack of a better term. It’s the Beatles, I’m not that keen on them but it’s a communal thing to do, rolling with the crowd-swell for the chorus, acknowledging that 2012 was rough and 2013 may not be much better but no matter what is going on outside, we’re warm, indoors, some of us are not feeling any pain, and we have been able to come together with our band and sing with them.

Smells Like Teen Spirit was electrifying and cathartic. And communal, too, but in a different way. Most of the people there, or at least standing around me, were old enough to actually remember Nirvana when Nirvana was new. And we pretty much all got up on our toes and howled Here we are now / Entertain us / I feel stupid / and contagious and it felt like an exhortation to take the new year by the throat.