[ATTENDED: August 8, 2026] Kevin Devine
I’ve been a fan of Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band for several years now. Last December, I went o see him one week after a hip replacement because it was at a brewery fifteen minutes from my house. Tonight’s show was at a record store in Milltown, NJ. I had seen Ted Leo there last year and they have a great setup for in-store artists. And this time, there were seats!
Kevin is a delightful, funny performer. He jokes with the audience and at his own expense. He has a great powerful voice, although most of his songs, when solo, are rather soft.
He played an acoustic guitar for the whole set which had several songs from his soon to be released album (next year sometime).
He opened with a song he played last time a new song that may or may not be on the new album. Then he played one that is definitely on it (they just finished mixing it). Then, as he said, he’d play some songs from throughout the years and then take Q&A and requests.
It’s not surprising that the set was similar to the solo show at Flounder eight months ago, but he had a few news songs and he took requests which meant a lot of new (to me) stuff.
He basically opened with the same few songs as last time (although we missed the very first few songs, so it was like hearing them for the first time.)
After the newer songs he went really deep for Go Haunt Someone Else (2006) and Yr Damned Ol’ Dad (2005). After playing a song from Brother’s Blood, he talked about Bad Books and then ran through a quick version of Andy Hull is Garbage. This is now the second or third time I’ve heard this and it makes me laugh every time. So Kevin and Andy work together in Bad Books (Andy is in Manchester Orchestra as well) and it’s hard to follow the order, but Kevin says he wrote the “garbage” song but Kevin says that Andy says he wrote it about Kevin first. So, I gather they each play their own version in their live sets from time to time. (more…)
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