I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 6, 2025] Piebald

When this show was announced I was excited about Wax Jaw and The Get Up Kids, but I didn’t know anything about Piebald.  It’s a little puzzling that I didn’t know them because they’re from the mid 90s Boston music scene.

The lineup said they were going to go on at 6, but their setup seemed to take a while and they didn’t go on until 6:30.  This was good for the break between them and Get Up Kids, but it meant that Wax Jaw was about an hour between bands.  But Piebald seemed in very good spirits.

I was unfamiliar with them.  And I guess I was the only one because wow, there were a group of guys up front who knew every word and who were dancing around.  Indeed the crowd was really into their set.  And so was I.  One guy was really really into it, almost embarrassingly so, but they admitted that he used to play cowbell for them so he was practically part of the band.

I enjoyed their sound right from the start–I loved that there were lots of YEAHS and HEYS sung very loudly by all three singers (Aaron Stuart, guitar and Andrew Bonner, bass).

And the content of the lyrics was really good too.

Still We Let It Choke Us and  The Monkey Versus the Robot were about having bad jobs.  Like this from Monkey:

We got a job to do and this is it
We have the best job ever
Yeah, we really got lucky
We’re nobody’s robot
We’re nobody’s monkey

It’s been almost twenty years since they released a record, but singer Travis Shettel announced that they had two new songs that they wanted to play for us.  They were fast and rocked hard.  I’m looking forward to hearing the whole album.

I enjoyed that they had someone (a guy who was later selling their merch) come out on stage and started hurling beach balls out into the crowd.  He also stood on stage and got everyone to clap along.  And then later he played the cowbell.  He was so much fun and at the merch booth he said Piebald was his favorite band of all time.

I loved the introduction to If Marcus Garvey Dies, Then Marcus Garvey Lives which Travis said was all about how you don’t learn anything important in school–how had he never heard of Marcus Garvey?

The new song Fun Destroyer was simple but really fun.  The final three songs were huge crowd favorites.  And I only wished I knew the songs better.  But I am fairly certain I’ll be listening to them a lot more going forward.

⊗ New record (2025)
♥ We Are the Only Friends We Have (2002)
≡ If It Weren’t for Venetian Blinds It Would Be Curtains for Us All (1999)
£ When Life Hans You Lemons (1997)