Review: Hiss Golden Messenger at The Orange Peel
“Never miss a Sunday show” is a phrase tossed around live music circles, a reference to bands saving their best stuff for the finale of a weekend run.
Hiss Golden Messenger’s recent stop at The Orange Peel proved fans should also “never miss a tour-ending show.” The Durham-based group wrapped up the first leg of gigs in support of its new album, Jump for Joy, in what frontman M.C. Taylor called one of “our favorite venues in the country.”
Back in August, Taylor performed solo less than a mile away at Citizen Vinyl, where Jump for Joy was pressed. He teed up that stripped-down acoustic set as an appetizer to The Orange Peel’s main course.
“I expect to see you all there on Nov. 11,” he told the shoulder-to-shoulder Sunday afternoon crowd. “If not, I’ll need a doctor’s note.”
Most got the memo, it seemed. Taylor and his four-piece backing band treated the near-sold-out Saturday night audience at The Peel with a catalog-spanning set, easing into things with the dub-inspired B-side “Passing Clouds,” and “Call Him Daylight” from the debut Hiss LP, Bad Debt. Keyboardist Sam Fribush and lead guitarist Chris Boerner heated up during “I’ve Got a Name for the Newborn Child,” starting an across-the-stage conversation of piano, Wurlitzer, B3, and Telecaster solos that tumbled into singalong-inspiring covers of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” and Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken,” and continued for the rest of the night.
The band sounded confident and relaxed, dialed in after several weeks on the road and clearly at ease in front of a home-state crowd. Over the last decade-plus, the Hiss Golden Messenger ensemble has featured a rotating collective of players — including Asheville’s Ryan Gustafson (Dead Tongues) and former local Michael Libramento — but the current lineup has seemingly manifested Taylor’s groove-centric vision for how he wants to render his literary Americana. With Jump for Joy, the band intentionally set out to capture the energy of its live show.
Taylor switched to acoustic guitar mid-set for a trio of his breezier, strummy-er tunes — “Jenny of the Roses,” “I Need a Teacher,” and “Heart Like a Levee” — before sandwiching the chorus of The Grateful Dead’s “Franklin’s Tower” into verses of fan-favorite “Lucia.” Then, 15 songs in, the band played the first Jump for Joy selection of the evening, the New Orleans-inspired title track buoyed by drummer Nick Falk’s “Hey Pocky Way” shuffle. The main set closed with the record’s bouncy first singles — “Nu-Grape” and “Shinbone” — and was followed by an encore that closed, appropriately, with “Saturday’s Song.”
When Saturday comes, I'll be feeling no pain
When Saturday comes not knowing my name
I might get a little crazy
Oh, I've got my baby waiting at home for me
The celebratory anthem was a fitting finale to the show and run for one of North Carolina’s most beloved bands.
