Live: Walter Etc. in Brooklyn
Thursday night, I headed to Elsewhere in Brooklyn to see Walter Etc. Before the show, I had a chance to sit down with Dustin Hayes and ask him a few questions about the band and making music. Check out the interview here.
Fans started trickling into the venue for opening acts Blaise Ambrose and Loose Buttons. By the time Walter Etc.’s set time rolled around, the place was packed. Cheers went up as the band came on stage and launched into their first song.
When I spoke to Dustin about touring, one thing he mentioned was the sense of community he got with the same faces reappearing in the crowds at different shows. Brooklyn had several reappearances. Early into the show, the band asked who had seen them before and almost every hand went up as people started shouting out tour dates and locations. One person had even been to a house show of theirs with the band joking “how’d you get our address?”
A mix of folk, punk, rock, Walter Etc. describes their music as “indie” for the sake of simplicity, but their sound really encompasses a little bit of everything. What draws people in are the lyrics. With the years of material that Walter Etc. has put out, their set list had songs stretching back to their Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra days. Despite switching between older and newer songs, fans in the audience knew every word.
Earlier songs in the set list included 2014’s “Compersion” and “Post Graduation Oblivion” before jumping to songs off 2020’s album Dark Comedy Performance Piece. After a few of those, the band reverted back to older material, with “April 41st” and “Holy Cannoli”.
“Otterpops in the Icebox” is a fan favorite from 2010. The song features kazoos and as each band member grabbed theirs, Dustin yelled out “if you’ve got one, whip it out” which he later joked about never thinking he’d say that at a concert. A few fans came prepared with kazoos and one person even had extra, tossing them out to the eager crowd so they could kazoo along.
As the set went on, mosh pits kept opening. It was a whirlwind of people pushing around, all in good fun. It was my first mosh pit and definitely a fun one to be in.
One of the last songs of the night was a cover of Weezer’s “Beverly Hills” for which the band got their tour manager Andi up on stage for. Andi absolutely killed it, giving the song her all and even coming down to mosh with the crowd.
While the night was technically over, calls for “one more song” and then “two more songs” had the band agree to do an encore.
Check out the interview with Dustin here.
See photos from the show here.
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