Ghost Light’s brief existence has already stirred quite a bit of commotion in the jam band scene. With its all-star cast—including notables like pianist Holly Bowling, Brother’s Past/American Babies/Joe Russo’s Almost Dead guitarist and vocalist Tommy Hamilton, and ex-Dopapod drummer Scotty Zwang—the band played a very intimate show at Chicago’s City Winery on Wednesday night. With bottles of wine and scented candles replacing what are normally beer cans and sticky venue floors, the interesting environment for a Ghost Light concert did not go unnoticed by frontman Hamilton. “I think this is our first seated show,” he exclaimed with a big grin as he took the stage. Despite all the rocking that ensued from the band, the majority of the crowd remained seated throughout the night.

The band slowly meandered their way through a spacy introduction before settling on original “Isosceles” as an opener. Despite the few months of Ghost Light’s existence, the band sounded very tight. With the majority of the first set taken up with free-form jamming—clearly an emphasis for the band—the band rounded out the first set by drawing from the Brothers Past catalog with a well-segued take out of “Isosceles” and into “Boy”.

It was clear that the whole band was having a lot of fun during the entire show, as evidenced by their frequent ear-to-ear grins. Raina Mullen offered up truly strong vocals and, despite some fans being unfamiliar, bassist Steve Lyons locked down the low-end and showed off some serious chops. Hamilton did a masterful job of leading the musicians from song to song, jam to jam, and note to note. Perhaps his best move was consistently being able to stop all musicians on a dime and bring a jam to utter silence.

The versatility of the group was also prominently displayed, with everyone sharing on lead or backing vocals with the exception of Bowling.  Even drummer Scotty Zwang sang lead vocals on a cover of Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels.” Unlike the popular 80s version, this one was stretched out, testing the limits of where you can take a pop tune. It was a real fun segment. The highlight of the show had to be the set-ending “Winter War Games.” The American Babies’ number was familiar to everyone in the audience, and much like “Head Over Heels”, it had plenty of improvisation. What really got the crowd rocking was how Hamilton and the band masterfully incorporated the famous guitar riff from “War Pigs” into the song. What started off as brief teases eventually transformed into the full wrath of the power chords, which eventually led to an Umphrey’s-style mash-up between the two songs. The band then rocked an encore, which was the only point during the show that the entire audience was on their feet.

With only three more stops on their spring tour, Ghost Light will be hitting the festival circuit reasonably hard this summer, with notable stops at High Music, Peach, and Lockn’. They’ve announced that they will be releasing their first full-length album later in the year. With their trajectory only going up, this begs the question: how much longer will they be playing in these tiny and intimate venues? If last night’s show is any indication, the answer is not much longer.

You can check out photos from Ghost Light’s stop in Chicago last night below, courtesy of Ojeda Photography.

Setlist: Ghost Light | City Winery | Chicago, IL | 5/16/2018

Set 1: Untitled (Instrumental #1), Untitled (D Riff), Isosceles > Boy

Set 2: Nickels & Dimes > Lead Weight > Head Over Heels > Lead Weight > Winter War Games *

E: Come Apart **

*w/ War Pigs (Black Sabbath) mashup
**w/ Head Over Heels, War Pigs & Boy teases