It was a rainy and blustery October night when Destroyer and Jennifer Castle played stunning sets at Underground Arts in Philadelphia.
Jennifer Castle played solo and opened up the show. The Toronto-based artist has been on the road with Destroyer for a good chunk of the tour. Her set-up on stage is bare, just her voice and her acoustic/electric guitar. Castle has been active as a musician for quite a bit and released her 7th studio album in 2024 called Camelot. Performing in dark blue light and backlit, the light shining behind her creating a kind of halo effect, she played her introspective and deceptively simple but deep songs. The audience respectfully fell to a near silence during the set. Towards the end, she switched to playing the piano, a highlight of the set. One of the shining moments was her performance of ‘Monarch Season’ from her 2020 album of the same name, and ended the set with ‘Blowing Kisses’ which appeared in the third season of the TV show ‘The Bear’.
After Jennifer Castle played, Destroyer, fronted by Dan Bejar, and his 7 piece band took the stage at precisely 9:15pm. Playing with two guitarists, a keyboardist, drummer, bass player, Dan on vocals, and a trumpet player, the sound was immense and full. Destroyer is also Canadian and was formed in 1995. A band like theirs knows how to command the stage, their confidence and comfort in the sound resonates through their performance. In late March of this year, the band released their fourteenth album, ‘Dan’s Boogie’. They opened with the song ‘The Same Thing As Nothing At All’ from the record. The setlist was a mix of songs from 7 of their albums, the band incredibly in sync with each other. For the song ‘Bologna’ they invited Jennifer Castle onstage and they sang it together, showcasing their partnership on this tour. They ended the set with “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” with a noise intro before the song started, from the acclaimed album ‘Kaputt’. They played a two song encore of ‘Travel Light’ and ‘June’. Bejar rarely spoke during the set but did say ‘Thanks for braving the Nor’easter’ and then dedicated the song to it. It was a beautiful night to brave the storm.
Photos by Jay Leiby
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