The Feelies and friends at Rent Party in Maplewood, June 10.
The Feelies promised “special guests” at their two 40th anniversary shows taking place this weekend at Rent Party in Maplewood, and did not disappoint at the first show, Friday night, welcoming former bandmates as well as members of Yo La Tengo and Speed the Plough to the stage.
The band presented an unplugged set before their electric set, which was followed by 10 encores. To see the complete setlist, visit setlist.fm.
In an interview with NJArts.net, singer-songwriter-guitarist Glenn Mercer said that they picked Rent Party as the venue because they wanted the show to have a party feel.
“My main consideration was, we wanted to have a place where we had a room to have all our friends come, and make it more like a party,” he said. “An event like this could go by, and you didn’t really get a chance to reminisce with a lot of the people you haven’t seen in a long time. So I wanted to make sure that they had a room big enough for a dressing room where we could really make it more like a party.”
Tonight’s show sold out a long time ago, though some additional tickets were released this morning and may still be available at brownpapertickets.com.
Below is an assortment of videos from Friday’s show.
“Egyptian Reggae” (Jonathan Richman cover), acoustic
Most of Egyptian Reggae, with an emphasis on percussion. Posted by John Baumgartner on Friday, June 10, 2016
“Fa Cé-La,” with former Feelies members Vinny and Keith DeNunzio
“Time Is Right”
“Child of the Moon” (Rolling Stones cover), with Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo, and John and Toni Baumgartner of Speed the Plough
The Feelies at Rent Party - June 10, 2016The Feelies at Rent Party – Celebrating 40 Years! The Feelies Posted by Richard Pilkington on Saturday, June 11, 2016
Also, for a video that I am having trouble embedding, for some reason — of the band performing Television’s “See No Evil” with Kaplan and Hubley — click here.
