Maybe the setlist is the right setlist for the right night at the right venue. From the band’s opening chord of “Shoe Boot,” “Electric Runaway,” to “S.O.B.,” a thick vibration filled the air. The band and audience, both grateful for their evening together, feed off of each other’s infectious energy to create an unforgettable live experience and to make this perfect night happen. Your quintessential Philadelphia locals fly their Eagles’ colors across their various accouterments, in lockstep with one another singing, jumping, dancing & shouting moved by the music and lost in the joy, arm, and arm, together once more. Young hipsters display their Vaudevillian-twizzled mustaches, while baby boomers are in their khaki shorts and hard rock fans with Queen and AC/DC screen-printed shirts. The one thing that was obvious to everyone was that the experience you get listening to Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats on a recording is lesser than the memory you walk away with seeing them live. At the center of it all, Rateliff is commanding the whole crowd with the fervor of a Sunday preacher and the inviting warmth of the local yokel at your corner bar.
Like Joe Cocker, Bruce Springsteen and so many other working-class artists that came before them, Rateliff delivered a high-energy experience, telling stories of addiction, lost love, and finding one’s place in a difficult world, all the while doing so with a spirit that moved everyone in earshot. Rateliff fronts the band with a voice that can both soothe the soul, perfectly pitched and gentle to the ear, and then, all at once, can seamlessly shift gears to bellow a howl that pulls on your heartstrings and drops collective jaws.Īt the Levitt Pavilion Steel Stacks, with the backdrop of the Bethlehem Steel Factory lit up like an American ruins tourist attraction, this band masterfully began to give Bethlehem back its identity. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, a Colorado-born neo-blues rock band, sprinkles in a potpourri of everything from outlaw rock, rockabilly, gospel, R&B, and vintage soul into their music. I thought it was fitting that my first show in the real world would be there…and “there” is where I would witness Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats. Since the permanent closing of the factory, the town has struggled to make its comeback and find its identity. This town was once a pillar of American Industrialism, as Bethlehem Steel was once responsible for many of the skyscrapers and bridges that adorn our country. My first stop was a town on the outskirts of Philadelphia called Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. But, what would this new world look like? How would it feel to come together once more? These were questions that demanded answers and so I embarked on a road trip to my first live show in more months than I care to count. Fans began to tweet sentiments of excitement while bands hit the road.
Everyone and everything, regardless of how close, seemed so distant.īut the winter of our discontent appeared to be at an end, as news of music venues resuming shows began to circulate around the internet. The Covid-19 pandemic put a moratorium on those wondrous interactions at concerts as the world sheltered in place, separated from each other, to stop the spread of the Coronavirus.įor over a year we battled with the uncertainty of tomorrow, while those that make music for a living suffered a hard blow to their livelihood.
Regardless of the state of the world, we music lovers always had THAT…until we didn’t. For a moment in time, the schisms of the day are abandoned as you are shoulder-to-shoulder with venerable strangers, singing and dancing in unison sharing in a moment where the music moves you collectively and fills you with sheer joy. At concerts, however, the lines are seemingly blurred.
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