[photos by Kurt Christensen]

The Tommy Brull Foundation and Deer Tick have grown together over the years since the band’s appearance at the Foundation’s first fundraising concert under the “Shine A Light” moniker in 2011. The Brull Foundation has more than a decade long record of providing funding and leadership for a variety of inspired causes, all motivated by the work of the late Tommy Brull, who dedicated so many of his days to working with the disabled at Camp Anchor in Lido Beach. Last weekend’s event was organized to fund a special needs playground in Rockville Centre and the concert having sold out well in advance, the Foundation again achieved its goal. So that by the date of the show, it was time to celebrate.

Deer Tick themselves also have a decade’s worth of work under their belts. And with time, the band itself has changed in personnel and approach, including the recent departure of keyboardist Robert Crowell. While the quartet still enjoys a good time, Deer Tick’s most recent double album release (Deer Tick Vol 1 and Vol 2) represents the most contemplative material of its catalog with issues such as sobriety, marriage, and fatherhood elevating the focus of the band’s lyrics. And not surprisingly given the surnames of all four members of the band, Deer Tick seems to have rediscovered its Irish roots, which on this night included a Pogues cover and a traditional Irish reel in the closing segment of Ian O’Neill’s “Hope Is Big”. We were also fortunate to hear John McCauley jamming on “Dirty Old Town” on the mandolin backstage before the show. The show however was all inclusive, and the setlist was a fine retrospective of the band’s entire career including four numbers from as far back as 2007’s War Elephant and moving forward to a good half dozen tracks from Vol 1 and Vol 2. In between there were interactions with the exuberant crowd, interplay between the band members, acknowledgements of the Brulls, and a lengthy and well-performed classic Deer Tick show. All things considered, this night may have been the ultimate performance of Deer Tick’s four Brull shows, and the good news is that its almost certainly not the last pairing of these two excellent groups of people.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards set up at the stage lip and mixed with a soundboard feed. The sound quality combines the liveliness of the sound at the stage fortified by instrumentation and vocals in the board feed. The final result is a superb recording. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Set [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Set (minus banter):

Deer Tick
2018-06-09
The Junction
Long Beach NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + On-Stage Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:35:10]
01 Don’t Hurt
02 Dream in the Ditch
03 [banter – fire alarms]
04 Clownin’ Around
05 The Bump
06 Easy
07 S.M.F.
08 Cocktail
09 Card House
10 Hope Is Big
11 Twenty Miles
12 Baltimore Blues No. 1
13 Art Isn’t Real
14 Dancing In The Dark [Springsteen]
15 The Rock
16 Wants Needs
17 White City [Pogues]
18 Look How Clean I Am
19 These Old Shoes [Chris Paddock]
20 Mange
21 [encore break]
22 Jumpstarting
23 Sleepwalk [Santo and Johnny]
24 Ashamed
25 You Are So Beautiful [Billy Preston]

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