DEER TICK: FROM DIVE BAR TO ROCK CLUB

In 2009, friends of mine, Pete and Lindsay—AKA Free Breakfast, hosted a music night every Monday at First Capital Dispensing Company—AKA The Cap. Sometimes, they would play by themselves; other times, friends would join in; and other times, they brought bands in from out of town to play.

Back then, Monday nights were my favorite. I hosted a radio show on the York College radio station from 6-9 PM and then headed to The Cap to catch Free Breakfast. The Cap is a tiny neighborhood bar that looks and feels exactly how you picture a bar like that should. Dimly lit, cigarette smoke fills the room and all the people you want to see. It truly is one of the best bars I have ever been to.

February 23rd of that year, the show at The Cap was special. It is still talked about in York today. That night, we were all introduced to Deer Tick. Traveling from Rhode Island to SXSW, Pete got them to make a stop and play the small bar we call York’s living room in front of maybe 50 people.

Deer Tick poster at First Capital Dispensing Co. York, PA

This past Friday night, they stopped in Philly to play for 1200 people at Union Transfer.

It was a show that I had been looking forward to since June when I bought tickets for my friend Shayne and me. We planned a guy’s night in the City of Brotherly Love. Our girlfriends joked about having a lady’s night in Philly the same night, but we said, “No, this is a guy’s night.”

On the afternoon of the show, the four of us got onto the train and headed to Philly. We checked into the hotel and headed out for drinks before the show. At the venue, I pulled up the tickets on my phone and scanned in Shayne and his girlfriend, Allison. Then, I couldn’t find the tickets for Amber and me. Eventually, after searching through emails, looking through multiple apps, and two password resets, we were in.

We grabbed some drinks from the bar, found our spot, and waited for the show to begin.

Opening the night was Abby Hamilton. Her genre-bending Appalachian-folk-rock was the perfect set to warm the crowd up for Deer Tick.

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Deer Tick started their set with “Forgiving Ties,” sung by guitarist and vocalist Ian O’Neil, from their latest album, Emotional Contracts. For the next hour and forty-five minutes, the band proved why some call them today’s best live rock band.

The energy exuded from all four told us all that they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Drummer Dennis Ryan seemed to smile through the entire set, even while singing his two songs—”Clownin Around” off of Divine Providence and Running From Love from Emotional Contracts. O’Neil, who looks and sounds like a mix of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, was in the zone all night. At one point, Shayne told me, “Yo, Ian is killing it tonight.” Not to be outdone, founding member John McCauley contorted his body like Neo dodging bullets and also gave the audience a lesson on playing the guitar in open G tuning. Bassist Chris Ryan, Dennis’ half-brother, held down the low ends with his funky basslines.

For Amber and Allison, this was their first Deer Tick show. Amber and I saw them in New York City at the record release for Emotional Contracts in June, but that was a five-song acoustic set, not a full-on, pugged-in, raucous Deer Tick show. And they loved it! Seeing the amount of fun they had and hearing them tell Shayne and I how much they enjoyed the show gave me the warm and fuzzies. Deer Tick gained two more fans that night.

They played songs from nearly each of the eight studio albums released since 2007, including “Ashamed” and “Baltimore Blues No. 1” from their debut album War Elephant. The former received the loudest ovation of the night and the crowd sang every word at the top of their lungs.

Instead of doing the whole stale walk off the stage and coming back for an encore, the guys took a short break to announce the winner of a signed drumhead with a drawing of the Philly Phanatic that Dennis drew. Then, ended the show with an 11-minute version of “The Real Thing.”

I will remember this show as special, just like when I saw Deer Tick at The Cap in 2009. This time, because Amber and Allison crashed our guy’s night.