Punch Covers.

Punch Brothers had never played Brooklyn before last night's show at Music Hall of Williamsburg,but I'd bet the crumpled six dollars in my wallet that they'll be making their way back to the borough real soon. Performing the entirety of their new album Antifogmatic and then some, Chris Thile, the frontman of the group, seemed beyond appreciative to be back home in New York with an elated audience, and made it known many times that he’d like to bring the whole lot of nameless bodies along to each show.

The boys definitely seem to be having more fun with the new material, and after two years of touring in support of an album centered around a forty-minute, four-moment suite, you can't blame 'em. But the highlight of the night wasn't when the band rambunctiously proclaimed their adoration for the sauce in "Rye Whiskey" or when Chris taught the crowd about sailing superstitions he uncovered during a fit of Googling — it came when they played the songs that were most different from their own.

Namely, by of Montreal.

I'm sure only like 7% of the audience knew what was going on, but man, did their bluegrassified version of “Gronlandic Edit” work. I've tried to normalize the idea of the mandolin prodigy being inspired by a guy who has more costumes than a circus performer and Patricia Field combined, but my brain gets fatigued from simply trying to imagine them in the same frame. Still, I hope Chris Thile and Kevin Barnes get together for things like tea or slices of pizza or dinner at one of their favorite neighborhood Thai restaurants and when the meal's over they hug and then Chris gets covered in glitter and then they both giggle and look at the camera with a huge smile and a thumbs up and then roll to credits. Oh, just imagine the buddy comedies that could ensue — the music-based plots! The ridiculous cartoon creatures! The glitter! Oh, so much glitter.

Despite being biased towards Barnes, the band's set-ending cover of Radiohead's "Kid A" was executed just as impressively, but remained far more haunting until it tumbled right into "Wayside Back in Time", a regular re-worked tune. It's one thing to excel at your own songs, but to take on everyone from Fiona Apple to Gillian Welch and make it work is a feat of its own, one which sets these five far apart from the rest.

(Well, if the rest were bluegrass musicians covering dance-pop songs.)

     

//

on the internet

on myspace