Little Joy @ Bowery Ballroom

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Wednesday, 24 June 2009 10:22

“This is awesome,” Little Joy’s Binki Shapiro proclaimed to a sold out crowd at the Bowery Ballroom Tuesday night. “This is our last show. We’ve got one in Mexico, but that doesn’t really count. Just kidding.” With a room as full as the drinks being poured at the bar she continued, “But seriously, this is our last show in America, and it’s great to be ending in New York.”

Rodrigo Amarante opened the show on stage solo, singing in Portuguese to a well responding crowd. Amarante was joined by Todd Dahlhoff and Matt Borg from the Dead Trees; Jack Dishel from Only Son; and Matt Romano, drummer from Albert Hammond Jr’s band. The crowd immediately began to rock with the band’s catchy groove.

The band rolled right into their third track where they were joined by Adam and Kyle of The Teenage Prayers. Red, blue, yellow and white lights above the stage flickered on and off the bouncing crowd. The joining saxophone and trumpet from the Prayers let out a full, rich sound that even got Shapiro stunned.

“I can’t believe I’m supposed to sing a song after that,” Shapiro said. “They are fucking awesome.” Shapiro—dressed in a flirty butterfly dress—took a swig from her beer bottle, set it back on the xylophone and began a spot-on vocal performance of “Unattainable” that did nothing less than rival the latter.

The best play of the night, however, was the band’s cover of “Midnight Voyage” originally by the Mamas and the Papas. Amarante removed his jacket and took over the keyboard. The crowd took to the beat right away and didn’t stop singing and dancing to the feel good version until it was over. The band closed their set with “Brand New Start,” bringing out a few special “fans” that included drummer from The Strokes and Little Joy co-founder Fabrizio Moretti, songstress Regina Spektor and others. What resulted was a full house sing-along both on and off the stage, ending just the right way for just the right show.

Words by:Matthew Anderson

Photo by: Maira Bittencourt