Cover photo credit to Sam Hendel.
This past Tuesday, Spacey Jane and joe p played to a sold-out crowd at The Basement East in Nashville, TN, and I was lucky enough to have been part of that crowd. The energy was unreal - not a single person was there just to be a body in a room. Everyone actively participated in the magic, and it was so, so lovely.
joe p has a presence which can honestly only be described as raucous. I was impressed - he was all over the Beast's stage, from one end to the other in a blink, and somehow still had breath to chat with the crowd in between songs, cracking jokes, giving the audience anecdotes about some of the tunes he played, and even teaching everyone the chorus to "Color TV."
A few of these songs were from joe's Deal Casino days, repurposed for his solo shows. It was wild to hear some of these songs live again for the first time since 2018.
A viral sensation a few months back, "Off My Mind" has one of the most iconic first lines of a verse I've heard: "I still put my hand around the headrest in my Honda Accord," which the entire crowd had their phones in the air to capture.
The headliner has an energy completely opposite to joe p's - where joe is boisterous, rowdy (pleasantly though), Spacey Jane are a controlled kind of chaos. Atmospheric. joe p got the energy up, and Spacey Jane kept it going. And you could tell that this crowd had been waiting a long time to see this band live. This was their first North American tour, and they didn't come to play.
A four-piece from Perth, Western Australia, Spacey Jane seem like they were built to play their music in front of an audience. They have a specific vivacity about themselves that only comes from loving what you do for a living, and it seemed like every song they played was a crowd favorite. I loved watching everyone around me grab their friends and dance around, singing every word like they were all etched into their hearts.
Their tour together wrapped up in Atlanta on Wednesday, but keep an eye out for any new dates they announce - both of these artists put on a show you won't want to miss. For our UK and Europe friends - Spacey Jane will be out your way in the spring!
You can find joe p on:
And you can find Spacey Jane on: