On stage for a set lasting two hours the two New Yorkers and their band including Franic Rozycki from Wave Pictures entertain to such a level that it just leaves you marvelling at the level at which a gig can put a smile on your face.
Full of Fun 75 year old Stampfel may look his age but has the same energy as his younger compatriot Jeffrey Lewis as the band ripped through a set of band, solo, previous band and cover songs almost non-stop.
Peter on a Chinese copy banjo (better than the original $6,000 version) and Electric violin also had a great recollection of 1940/50's American TV & Radio jingles which were performed lot much hilarity during the evening.
Peter Stampfel
Jeffrey is an amazing artist as well as musician and he entertained us with an art book movie as the band played the soundtrack behind with lot of smiles and laughter. The storyline went along the lines of a dodgy video, a woman and a parrot. I'll leave it there.
A song called What Would Pussy Riot Do (WWPRD) about the state of the music business nearly brought the house down. Songs from back albums, well back in Peter's case and new songs from the new record were all enhanced by covers like a fantastic version of Hawkwind's Orgone Accumulator.
This also led to a story of an Orgone energy device in Peter's apartment in the 60's and a helpful member of the audience explained Hawkwind's take on the subject. Indeed, most impressive was that the guy was so young and would not have been around in the 70's himself!
The band set finished in a haze of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird before Peter and his banjo closed a memorable evening solo.
