I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 19, 2026] Sherrie

I like going to PhiaMOCA, it’s so casual and it’s such a great space to meet and chat with a band.  For whatever reason, I was early for this show.  When I walked in (probably at 7:30) Sherrie was still doing a sound check.  It was pretty weird and slightly awkward.  But it was hot out and cool inside, so I did some NY Times puzzles and listened to the band get ready for the show.

Sherrie is a band from Philadelphia.  When I saw that they were opening for Mint Field, I went to their bandcamp site and saw that they had three songs out.  I hadn’t realized until writing this that each of these songs came out at a rate of one a year, and that none of the songs were released in the last five years.

I can’t find out much about the band.  The lead singer is Rae and there’s a guy who has been with Sherrie since the beginning, whose name is Drew.  Their Instagram page has a few things up before COVID and then nothing until 2024.  Ah, and then I see that their first gig was at Ortlieb’s in March 2024–they were a two piece.  Then they played Johnny Brenda’s in April of this year as a five piece.  For this show they were a four piece.

Sherrie describes their music as dream pop, but it feels more like bedroom pop to me–remarkably spare, although it is sweet.  There’s not a lot of movement from the band–except for the last song when the Rae walked over to the keyboard that someone else was playing and pushed a button to change the sound of the keys.  She stayed for a bit and then turned it off again.

They never really sounded very full–they got louder a few times and sometimes Rae’s voice soared–but it felt like something was missing.  It was all pretty low-key.  Sometime the guitar was almost inaudible (but I told their guitarist how cool the guitar looked).  I liked the fullness of Fern.  At Johnny Brenda’s they had a bassist and maybe that would have made the sound fuller. I didn’t really like the synth sound they chose for the songs–very 80s tinny sounding.  Maybe that was the problem.

I was intrigued by Two Car Garage “some people want to get a two car garage” (repeated a lot over gentle synths).   Fascinating.

But it sounds like they’re just getting the band going so I’m sure I’ll see more of them.

SETLIST

Same (2021)
Bring [Bringing Us Down?]
Fern
Car [Two Car Garage?]
Willow (2020)
Ha

Dream Kingdom (2019) is on the bandcamp site and was on the setlist but was not played.  The rest of the songs are unreleased