Family and Friends, Animal Years, John White
October 30, 2018 @ 7:00 PM - 11:00 PM • $12.5
Day of Show Tickets Will Be Available When Doors Open
Hailing from the musical mecca of Athens, Georgia and built on the idea that the sum is greater than the individual parts, Family And Friends has steadily gained a loyal following with their spirited live performances and “good music, good people” mantra since releasing their 2015 EP XOXO. Their new highly anticipated album Felix Culpa, produced by Chicago-turned-L.A. auteur Brad Wood and due out June 8th, is nothing less than an epic coming-of-age tale with a massive sound that amplifies their former indie-folk roots onto a technicolor, Cinemascope screen.
Whereas Family And Friends’ first EP focused heavily on love, and the second on nostalgia, Felix Culpa is caught somewhere between adolescence and adulthood and finds Family And Friends at a pivotal moment in their maturation both as artists and individuals. With a classic coming-of-age narrative, the album’s theme focuses on a precipice of life’s journey, as we begin the quest for existential meaning and come to terms with the fact that people, relationships, and seemingly universal truths are more complicated than we perhaps realize. Balancing scintillating textures with bright guitars and beautiful vocal harmonies, Family And Friends’ sharply observant lyrics are cloaked in the band’s contagiously upbeat instrumentation, leaving the listener with a sense of hope by album’s end.
Family And Friends’ collaborative concept extends well beyond the members of the band. With a live show that begs audiences to feel as much a part of the experience as the musicians onstage, their fiery performances have been turning casual viewers into full-on believers all over the southeast. The band’s infectious, dynamic anthems become even more intoxicating in a live setting, with epic builds that crash over the roar of two dueling drummers, who perform facing each other and feed off one another’s energy. A Family And Friends show is pure, unadulterated fun with a lightning bolt of enthusiasm and a familiarity that is immediately endearing and undeniably gratifying.
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The unpretentious attitude and hard-driving work ethic that define Animal Years were established early on, when Mike McFadden first began writing and performing his own songs in his mid-teens, releasing his first studio CD under his own name while still in high school in Baltimore. That inaugural effort won a good deal of attention, and even gained some local radio play. A second CD, released when McFadden was 18, was even better received by fans and local radio programmers, and soon his songs were being picked up for use in commercials from such advertisers as Coca-Cola and Pennzoil.
Animal Years’ timely relocation to New York proved to be a crucial turning point for the band. Having already established themselves in their adopted hometown and having won a legion of new friends and fans on the road, Animal Years plan to continue doing what they do best: making music and touching people.
Doors at 7PM / Music at 7:30PM
$12ADV / $15DOS
