What a Funkin’ Great Night: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong AND The Fritz
The Orpheum in Ybor City (Tampa) was on total funk overload last Friday (February 8th) with The Fritz and Pigeons Playing Ping Pong continued their string of sellout shows with whole ton of funk, evidenced by the fact that the place was still packed when PPPP finished their encore late in the night.
The Fritz, Asheville’s funk ambassadors, lit the place up with an all-too-short 55-minute set, going stratospheric immediately with “Stuck in Between” from the band’s brilliant 2017 album Natural Mind. The sound was a bit bass-heavy and rumbly, but nonetheless the band persevered. Front man Jamar Woods, a superb singer and keyboard wizard, kept us enthralled with his emotive vocals and matching gestures, amply demonstrated on “Oppenheim” from Bootstrap.
Woods had a nice keyboard intro that suddenly exploded into one of the most amazing versions of “Life During Wartime,” with his clavinet and Jamie Hendrickson’s incredible guitar antics bouncing over the freight-train rhythm of Jake O’Connor (bass), Mike Tillis (drums), and Mikey Spice (percussion).
Hendrickson went into full-on James Brown funk guitar mode on “Another Way,” blistering solos. Woods also soloed on clavinet, and O’Connor and Tillis had some great interplay as well. “Please” was a great electric piano feature for Woods.
Finally, they closed with a tune from last fall’s EP Echo titled “Nothing to Find.” This song hit with the force of a locomotive, almost Jamiroquai-like. Woods danced all over the organ before Mikey Spice had a great percussion feature. Woods returned on organ, then Hendrickson again shredding while O’Connor blew us all away.
This was no “opening act.” The crowd erupted in applause and shouts.
[FRITZ: Stuck in Between, Oppenheim, Life During Wartime, Another Way, Please, Nothing to Find]
It’s easy to focus on Scrambled Greg Ormont when Pigeons Playing Ping Pong invade the stage, but PPPP has so much going on every second of the show. This was Jeremy Schon’s night, a brilliant performance on guitar from start to finish. (He and Hendrickson are two of the very best on the jam scene.) He absolutely killed on the band’s long opening instrumental “Funk E,” AND he was wearing his very best Great Outdoors Jam t-shirt from their 2016 appearance here! The rhythm section — Ben Carrey on bass and Alex Petropulos on drums — stepped up big time on “Walk Outside.”
After “Pop Off,” Ormont invited Chris Sgammato on stage to play alto saxophone on “Julia” from their 2014 album Psychology. Sgammato has collaborated with them before. That song has a distinct islands lilt to it, and it led to an amazing long jam. Ormont then told us that the next song was “specific for Tampa,” as they played “Lightning” (Tampa claims to be the lightning capital of, well, something). This one kicked ass, making a wicked transition into Carrey’s deep bass, then Petropulos stepping up, then Schon again.
And it is a given that Ormont — more properly Scrambled Greg — mugged and made those eyes and danced and laughed and sang and played guitar and was his usual magical self! And he did a grand job singing “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” (yes, that one!). They shut down set one with smokin’ bass on an instrumental jam.
So set one was very good. How would set two be?
Apparently, they were just warming up with the first set. The second was simply spectacular, start to finish. And again, with Schon and Scrambled Greg on stage, you might miss the great antics of Ben Carrey on stage. His straight-legged movements are a scream, he plays the bass in Jimmy Page “rock is cock” mode (you could look it up), and he is a beast musically.
After several songs, Scrambled Greg launched into a monologue about Cuban sandwiches (Ybor City is the undisputed home of that delight), and then he riotously worked that into “Penguins.” Schon has a fascinating synth effect on his guitar (perhaps it’s a MOOG guitar) and killed another solo before a series of transitions, one of which was a badass Darth Vader jam. Carrey was just stupid on bass.
“Poseidon” led to a great sing-along with Carrey on lead vocal and an enormous jam that again transitioned through several tunes. Finally, Carrey and Petropulos had a great duo intro that led inexorably into the band’s anthemic “F.U.” But of course that wasn’t final, as the still-packed house demanded a return to the stage, and they sent us home with “Zydek.”
There are many outstanding funk proponents across the country; we got to hear two of the very best together. What a fabulous night!
[PPPP 1: Funk E, Walk Outside, Pop Off, Julia, Lightning, Don’t Stop, Avalanche > Offshoot; 2: Overrun, Fun in Funk > Doc, Penguins > Funkijam > gm > White Night, Poseidon > Sunny Day, Dawn a New Day, Ocean Flows > High as Five, F.U. > Yo Soy Fiesta; E: Zydek]
