The Sea and Cake quietly released one of the years best albums, Any Day (out now via Thrill Jockey) which is their first since 2012 with little to no fanfare. The band haven’t played New York in a little while, so when we found out they were headlining at The Hall at Elsewhere, we knew exactly where we’d be on May 16th. Opening the night up was fellow Chicagoan, James Elkington who performed solo acoustic.
One of my favorite songs from The Sea and Cake is “Four Corners” off of 2003’s One Bedroom, so getting to hear the band open up their set with that was a dream come true. I honestly couldn’t have picked a better song to open the set up with and jumping right into Any Day album opener “Cover The Mountain” was the perfect 1-2 punch to kick things off. The set mostly consisted mostly of songs off of their latest release but also featured some old favorites which is always good to see. While they played mostly music with little to no banter, one of the times frontman Sam Prekop spoke was to admit to the crowd that “Here’s an oldie – I can’t believe I’d ever say such a thing,” before jumping into “Afternoon Speaker” off of 2000’s Oui which got some laughs from the fans.
The sprawling 19-song set covered almost everything you’d want to hear from the band while still leaving some room for more (which is always good). Let’s just hope the gap between shows in New York City isn’t a long as the last as the band is always welcome to come back and play another show.
For more photos of James Elkington along with the setlist and full gallery of The Sea and Cake, continue below:
James Elkington:
The Sea and Cake:
Sea and Cake Setlist:
1. Four Corners
2. Cover the Mountain
3. Starling
4. Afternoon Speaker
5. Midtown
6. Circle
7. Harps
8. Into Rain
9. Day Moon
10. New Patterns
11. An Echo In
12. The Staircase
13. Any Day
14. On a Letter
15. I Should Care
16. These Falling Arms
Encore:
17. The Argument
18. Coconut
19. Parasol
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