Punch Brothers continue their US tour with stops outside DC, and in Charleston, West Virginia, for a live Mountain Stage performance. The Washington Post calls their music "dazzling." Last week, Steve Martin awarded banjoist Noam Pikelny the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass and performed with the band on The Late Show with David Letterman. Punch Brothers also performed at WFUV in New York. Watch videos of it all here.
Punch Brothers continue their US tour with stops at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC, tonight, and the Culture Center Theater in Charleston, West Virginia, for a live performance event of Mountain Stage on Saturday. For more tour information, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
Washingtonian magazine says the only certainty in a Punch Brothers set, besides the band's instrumentation, is "that you’ll be surprised by whatever you hear." The magazine's Elliot Kort spoke with guitarist Chris Eldridge, a native of the Washington area, about the band's history and their latest Nonesuch album, Antifogmatic. You can read the interview at washingtonian.com.
The Washington Post describes the band's music as "dazzling." Reviewer Geoffrey Himes says: "This is a remarkably skillful band that can hold its own against any bluegrass outfit, almost any jazz combo and chamber music group. On its second album as Punch Brothers, the quintet ... is as impressive weaving its counterpointed vocal harmonies as it is playing new variations on instrumental motifs."
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Last week, the band was a few hundred miles north of DC to perform with actor, comedian, writer, and banjo player extraordinaire Steve Martin on The Late Show with David Letterman in New York City.
Martin was the show's first guest and dedicated some of his couch time with Letterman praising Punch Brothers banjoist Noam Pikelny and presenting him with the first-ever Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, which included a bronze award sculpture, designed by Eric Fischl, and an unrestricted check for $50,000. The two banjo players perform a special rendition of "Dueling Banjos" before Martin resorts to some less-than-gentlemanly behavior. You can watch the segment here:
Later on in the show, the entire band joins Martin on the Late Show stage to perform "Rye Whiskey," off of Antifogmatic. You can watch that performance here:
While they were in New York, Punch Brothers also swung by the studios of New York public radio station WFUV, 90.7 FM, to talk with Rita Houston, the station's music director, and perform. The band will be performing in the sixth annual Holiday Cheer for WFUV at The Concert Hall at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on December 6. Here is their performance, in beautiful black-and-white, of the Antifogmatic song "Alex" at WFUV's Studio-A:
To pick up a copy of Antifogmatic on vinyl, CD, or in the three-disc deluxe edition, head to the Nonesuch Store, where orders include high-quality, 320 kbps of the original album at checkout.
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