On Thursday night, July 26th, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong made their way to Paddy’s Beach Club in Westerly, RI for a performance with support from Montana jam-grass quartet Kitchen Dwellers.
After the Kitchen Dwellers’ well-received opening set, which they capped with a bluegrass cover of the Grateful Dead‘s “New Speedway Boogie”, Pigeons cast off on their set with “Sail On”. Psychology vehicle “Time to Ride” got the show moving from there, followed by renditions of “Fox & Toad” (Pizazz) and “Bad For You” (Pleasure).
Next, the show took a turn into Phish-y territory, as Pigeons dove into “Down With Disease”, the phan-favorite off 1994’s Hoist. The band stuck with the Phish from there, segueing into a riotous “Run Like An Antelope” cover, with the lyrics amusingly altered to “bob like a pigeon out of control.” Pigeons Playing Ping Pong have similarly woven “Down With Disease” into their set before, including at New Haven, CT’s Pacific Standard Tavern in 2015 and during their Domefest 2017 Phish/Grateful Dead “Undercover” set, when they mashed-up “DWD” with “Shakedown Street” for a cleverly executed hybrid jam dubbed “Shakedown With Disease”.
The Phish medley eventually slid into one of Pigeons’ own go-to originals, “Melting Lights”, which in turn fed into “King Kong”. From there, a trio of upbeat, beach-appropriate tunes (“Sunny Day”, “Fun In Funk”, and “Ocean Flows”) brought the set to a close. Finally, the band returned for a memorable encore, which saw them work through “J-Town” and into “E-Funk” before landing in a “Down With Disease” reprise to round out the performance.
Next up for Pigeons Playing Ping Pong is a performance tomorrow, Saturday, July 28th at Tumble Down at Waterfront Park in Burlington, VT.
Watch a selection of clips from Pigeons Playing Ping Pong’s Paddy’s performance below [Note: As of now, no video of the Phish covers has surfaced online, but we will update this article as soon as it becomes available]:
“Burning Up My Time”
“Melting Lights”
“Fun In Funk”
Setlist: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong | Paddy’s Beach Club | Westerly, RI | 7/26/18
Set: Sail On, Time to Ride, Fox & Toad, Bad For You, Down With Disease^ > Run Like An Antelope^* > Burning Up My Time > Melting Lights > King Kong, Sunny Day, Fun In Funk, Ocean Flows
E: J-Town > E-Funk > Down With Disease^
Notes:
^Phish Cover
*”Bob Like A Pigeon out of control”