BRISTON MARONEY/PEACH PIT
Briston Maroney/Peach Pit, The Met, Philadelphia, PA 5/20/25.
The Peach Pit and Briston Maroney co-headline combo is a dream show announcement. Right when I got to the venue the show was packed from front to back and all the way up. Briston’s stage set up was super interesting with googly eyed creatures all around and outdoor camping set up as well. He came out to “Real Good Swimmer” a new song with some really cool guitar riffs. When he went into “Paradise” the whole crowd erupted and sang along to the whole thing and continued that same energy through “Small Talk” as well. He continued to mix new songs and old hits while dazzling the crowd with heavy guitar solos shaking his hair around with his other band members. A cool moment in the show was when they had a fireplace prop light up and crackle and he sang acoustic songs around the fire. He closed out with his most famous song “Freaking Out On The Interstate” a song from 2018 that has blown up in the indie rock scene the last few years. The crowd was now ready for Peach Pit an indie band from Vancouver known for putting on unbelievable live performances. This night was no different the band came out to a heavy cover of the start of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and the hair shaking and crazy guitar solos began. They took the cover into their song “Magpie” a newer song from the title song off of their 2024 album. Throughout the show it’s hard not to watch guitarist Christopher Vanderkooy because of his funny moves that are always very photogenic. They dipped back into some older hits with “Drop the Guillotine” and “Black Licorice” and both singer Neil Smith and Christopher came down to the front of the stage and Neil shook his hair and jumped around as Chris ripped his guitar kicking his feet up into the air. In between Neil said he couldn’t wait to come back to Philadelphia because he was dreaming of Cheesesteaks which made the audience explode in cheer. The rest of the night was filled with hits and they finished their set with “Private Presley”. The amazing Philly crowd willed Neil back out who went into a story about how he met Chris and founded the band and how the first song he ever played him was “Peach Pit” and then he played it for the crowd. He mixed in a whistle solo and told everyone “now you see why I needed Chris” where there would typically be a guitar solo. The rest of the band came back out and they played my all time favorite Peach Pit song of “Tommy’s Party” an incredible a 6 minute ballad of a friend’s party. They thanked the crowd and passed out all of their setlists.
Shot and Written by Jonah van Bemmelen.
