Joe Pug
Dead Horses
The Hideout
September 12th
Joe Pug / all 📷 : Tina Mead
Dead Horses hail from Milwaukee. The heart of the band is Sarah Vos, and her pulse is upright bass player, Daniel Wolff. The jazzy dance breakdown Wolff brought to the song, "Birds Can Write the Chorus" was so surprising in contrast to the rest of their music, I almost laughed at the joy of it. Vos had full mastery of the mic as she sang, "Brother." Singing just off-center or backing way off to give the feeling of a much bigger space, she used her voice to its full volume without blowing out the feed. Vos and Wolff looked at each other while deep in the music, feeling the beat and melody with every pore to create one of those special moments of live performance.
Joe Pug sold out two nights at the Hideout. The feeling of love in the air was nearly palpable, soo it was no surprise that we got the uncontrollable excitement of recognizing the first few chords of a song. Pug had Geoffrey Muller on bass and Matthew Wright on keys for support. The trio played “Bright Beginnings” totally acoustic. It was a thrill to see Wright use the upright piano that lives on The Hideout stage. He gave us a solo that was "pretty dece," in Pug's opinion. Generally, the audience kept it pretty quiet, obviously here to hear Pug's voice, but on this tune we sang along, tentatively at first. Pug cracked a luminous smile, and we sang all the louder.
Pug took a few songs mid-set to play solo where we noticed a looseness take over his performance. He had freedom to lose himself in the music. When the full band came back, we were hit with all the fullness and beauty they brought to the music. "Speak Plainly Diana" inspired another full-throated singalong. With closer, “Deep Dark Wells,” the blissful feelings floated around. It seemed much too good to ever end, butoverflowing with love, we couldn't complain.
