Silvertide was back in the house on the 9th for  a show at the sold-out TLA on South Street.  It was a packed house from the floor to the mezzanine.  The faithful were in full force to welcome their favorite sons home.

The night kicked off with the most buzz-worthy band on the local original rock scene, Kid Felix.  They opened up with one of their fan favorites, “Class Action Satisfaction”, followed up by their newer track, “Jericho”.  This was a tougher spot than Kid Felix is used to; they’re usually the headliners.  They’re also accustomed to playing more than seven songs.  Their crowd was in pockets throughout the floor section, so the infection took a song or two to spread.  But they delivered as they always do, and by mid-set they were in full- stride.  The normal smack to the senses had been delivered to the audience. And when they closed with “Once Upon a Genghis Khan” all eyes were onstage.

Lead singer Jake Falana had this to say, “At a show of that caliber, opening up feels just as good as headlining. Just getting to perform with artists like Silvertide is an incredible feeling in itself. I used to walk around the halls of Sterling High School singing songs like “Ain’t Coming Home”, “Foxhole Jesus Christ”, and “Devil’s Daughter”, so it was a bit of a surreal experience for me.”

Kid Felix wound up playing an encore show later that night at the TLA After Party at Dobbs on South St.  It came together on the fly when their manager Zac Tait joked with DVT’s Vince Volz to “clear off  (at Dobbs) the stage cause we’re playing at the after party.”

John and Brittany were the second act of the night.  They hit the stage with their standard riffs galore, keeping the energy level right where Kid Felix left it.  They deliver a consistent show every time, and this night was no exception.  This would seem less impressive if it wasn’t only the second show with their current rhythm section.  Bass player Mike O’Brien and drummer Terry Sharkey were recently added to the line-up. They played multiple tracks from their new EP Start Sinning like “Zzzzoloft”, “Start Sinning”, and my personal favorite “Dirty Little Magazine”.

John Faye opened up after the show, “This was definitely the biggest show that John & Brittany have done to date. The energy at the TLA was amazing and we really fed off of the crowd’s energy. It was also the first big show we have done with Mike O’Brien on bass and Terry Sharkey on drums, so that made it all the more exciting for us.”

And then, it was time for Silvertide to hit the stage.  The crowd murmured with excitement as the minutes between sets passed.  A cheer for a guitar check.  Another cheer for a drum roll.  And then the curtains went up, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  A one, two, here we go! Back-up!  Back-up!  Back-up yeah!  Ain’t turning back…I ain’t coming home.”  Well-played fellas.  The crowd agreed.

The energy in the crowd was electric.  There were some people there who were meeting Silvertide for the first time.   They may have heard a song on the radio a few years back.  These people were introduced to Silvertide the live band; and its strong handshake.  Silvertide made their bones being an awesome live band, on top of all their talent.  So many bands are stuck with one or the other.  Great crowd interaction.  Great energy on-stage.  Great camaraderie between everyone.   There’s truly a trickle down effect from the way lead singer Walt Lafty interacts with the crowd, to the energy from lead guitarist Nick Perri, to bassist Brian Weaver, rhythm guitar Mark Melchiorre and drummer Kevin Frank.

A larger contingent of the crowd was like an old friend who you haven’t seen in awhile.  Excited to see you at first, then reminiscent of the good times the longer you talk.  I found myself up on the balcony to get a better view (and a faster drink).  Up there with me were people singing along with every word.  There was a great exchange; “I brought my rain to California, all the way from Philadelphia, PA.”

The show had a similar feeling for the band.  Drummer Kevin Frank had this to say about the atmosphere backstage, “This one (show) was more family members, friends, and sponsors that we hadn’t seen in awhile.  It almost felt like a high school reunion.  But our pre-show half hour rule kicked in.  We spent the half hour before our set together as a band, no matter what.  Just like we used to.”

The band decided to play the entire Show ‘n Tell album.  They threw in some b-sides and even “Adult Child,” which was only released on the Japanese version of Show ‘n Tell.   The crowd was happy with their extended set, because they were to make-up for lost time.

As the night came to an end, after the crowd roared for more, many conversations talked about the future.  Pockets of fans talked about how great the show was, but openly wondered what was next.  So what is next?  I could tell when I spoke to Kevin that he had heard this question a few hundred times already. He was diplomatic in his response, with a sense of quiet hope, “Right now we’re recording for the next two-three weeks with David Ivory.  We’re all good friends; he’s a great mentor.  We’re expecting to release a new EP sometime in late spring.  And we’re looking to play shows sometime later in the year.”

He continued, “But right now we’re five people doing five very different things.  We get together as friends.  We write music.  We’re going back to our roots; re-establishing the original flicker, the original flame.  Long term plans for Silvertide are temporarily on hold.   We are going to make the CD, re-connect with our fans.  If they like it, cool.  If they want us to play more shows, great we’ll do it.  Whatever falls into place, cool.”

Whatever is on the horizon for Silvertide looks promising, when using Saturday night as a barometer.  It was a great night for Philadelphia’s original rock scene.  New faces.  Known faces.  There’s a good amount of promise locally.  Silvertide deserves some of the credit for giving everyone else something to aspire too.  Here’s to them pushing their bar, and Philadelphia’s collective bar, even higher.

“What we don’t want to do is be that band that’s just touring traditional dingy rock clubs,” says John.

“But we don’t mind that,” says Brittany.

If you’re one of the lucky, in possession of a ticket to Silvertide’s sold out reunion show March 9th at the TLA, and if you haven’t already experienced the opening act, you might be unsure of what to expect. The name doesn’t give much away.

“A lot of bands can say, ‘We sound like this other band.’ And I don’t think that’s possible for John & Brittany. I think we just sound like ourselves,” guitarist/vocalist John Faye says.

Start Sinning, John & Brittany’s second album, released in January, is the realization of, in Faye’s words, “a real, aesthetic vision.”

“The record was titled before we even recorded a note. We knew we wanted it to have a certain kind of dark, organic sound that was still accessible in terms of melody and hooks and that kind of thing. And the themes are a lot more intense [than the first album’s], from a writing standpoint,” Faye explains.

Start Sinning deals grittily with love and addiction, often in tandem. It is certainly dark, but it begs no sympathy. This would appear to define John & Brittany’s direction for 2013—although it may sound like multiple directions.

“It’s super eclectic. We have a bluesy number, we have a punk number, a poppy one, and some straightforward rock,” says Brittany Rotondo, also guitar/vocals.

“That’s just the way we are. We love variety. It’s kind of exciting to not pigeonhole ourselves,” Faye adds.

Although it has the refreshing feel of a diverse playlist, Start Sinning is strikingly cohesive. The breadth of John & Brittany’s influences and stylistic versatility exists within what, despite the sometimes dramatic differences between the tracks’ style origins, remains a unified and identifiable sound.

The album motors forward from the title track, where liberal distortion and grungy intervals make a promise to lovers of bygone rock that is upheld by the rest of the album. Start Sinning is filled with nods to the perennial greats. “ZZZoloft” is a welcome and well-executed reminder of early punk rock. The Latin-swung “El Gato” is a creative, modernized take on the Western ballad. “Mississippi Fred,” the final song, exposes a classic blues influence that finds its way back to the rest of the album in the chorus.

Other songs are evidence of further, bolder exploration. “Paper Planes” features a sweet Beatles-esque transition into a bridge that places strings, courtesy Daniel DeJesus, in the forefront—something almost unforeseeable at the beginning of the album, but which sneaks in nonetheless with no noticeable disjuncture. Throughout the album, John & Brittany manage to change while staying the same.

If you’re one of those lucky ticketholders, you’ll be grateful John & Brittany are on the bill. If you’re not going to the TLA, take heart—chances are you’ll have plenty of opportunities to see them.

“It’s been extremely nonstop ever since the record came out, and we definitely planned it that way. We played six nights out of seven last week. And all of them have been, you know, off-the-beaten-path kinds of shows,” Faye says. “The reaction to the record has been really strong so far, which we’re really happy about. We had a very successful launch show at World Café at the end of December.”

Evidencing that success, along with the upcoming TLA show, was a thoroughly tight appearance on Radio 104.5’s “Live @ 5” Friday, February 15th. They performed “ZZZoloft” and covered The White Stripes’ “Fell in Love with a Girl” in a big, bluesy half-time before jacking it up to the original tempo.

Stops in the band’s future include the Dewey Beach Pop Festival in April. The duo plans to range wider.

“We’re going to be touring a little more extensively in the later spring and summertime. We’re definitely going to be doing some West Coast stuff,” Faye says.

With the deservedly successful Start Sinning under their belt and widening exposure, John & Brittany have a full head of steam going forward in 2013.

Big announcement from WMMR just last night, Silvertide is back. They are playing a show on March 9th at the TLA sponsored by WMMR. They will be joined onstage by two, top-level, local acts John & Brittany and Kid Felix.

Silvertide’s full, original line-up will be onstage together in Philadelphia for the first time in long while. All members will be back in the area by early February. They are planning to play their entire Show and Tell album. The pieces are in place for something bigger than just the upcoming show. Soon afterward they will start writing new material and head back into the studio to reunite with producer David Ivory.

Over the past few years the members of the band have pursued different paths, but admitted that their greatest and most memorable musical moments were together in Silvertide.

John & Brittany are fresh off of Jaxon’s WMMR Mistletoe Jam on December 26th at the World Café Live. The band used this gig as an appropriate record release party for their new, full-length album Start Sinning, available at JohnBrittanyStore.com. This ten song album features tracks like “Dirty Little Magazine” and “Paper Planes.”

Kid Felix is continuing to build on momentum that has been growing rapidly this past year. They headlined the First Annual Liberty Music Fest at The Legendary Dobbs last August and released their new EP Young Luck. The band blew the doors off the TLA in October and just rung in the New Year as a part of Jaxon’s WMMR New Year’s Eve Bash at the Electric Factory (with local favorites Octane and Bong Hits for Jesus.)

Tickets for this show are on sale now. You can get them through several online locations such as TicketMaster, Live Nation, and the TLA.

Saul Dratman of Gravity Given Productions has put together quite a line-up to end the Summer Season at Dave & Buster’s on Delaware Ave. Many local favorites will be playing throughout the day and night on the dockside bar. The event coincides with the Red Bull Flugtag. The event is happening on the Camden side of the Delaware, but Dockside will have one of the best views in Philadelphia. What goes great with the atmosphere of a Red Bull Flutag? How ’bout some adult beverages and rock ‘n roll.

The line-up for the festival is stacked. John & Brittany, Bong Hits for Jesus, Mach 22, The Jackson, Rider, The Good Excuses, Phil La Placa, and more. Bong Hits is fresh off of playing their biggest show to date. They played with Sublime with Rome and Cypress Hill at the Festival Pier. They also just released a new EP – Low Rent Hustlers. John and Brittany, Mach 22, and The Jackson Rider all recently played the first Annual Liberty Fest at The Legendary Dobbs. And each band seems to be mixing something up in the studio. Phil La Placa may sound familiar from his “Even the Res” days. He has been frequenting local haunts as an acoustic artist more recently. He still brings his A game, strong songwriting with vocals that truly portray the emotion of the words.

The Festival started to come together back in July. Stephen Rose of Bong Hits put Dratman in contact with an intern at a David Ivory’s Recording Studio who also works at Dave & Busters. They wanted an awesome rock line-up to end the Summer Season. Dratman knew how to put one together.

Dratman has been running Gravity Given Productions since March, earlier this year. He has started to book bands regularly at Rebel Rock Bar in Northern Liberties. He put together Conniefest at Connie Mac’s in Pennsauken over the summer. He is working towards making that and annual occurrence. He even has a night booked at The Grape Room at the end of the month. He is moving quickly for someone just getting into the business; a business that can extremely taxing at times.

Dratman is a local musician himself. His band Give Me Gravity is also playing the Fest. He credits some of his success to being more in tune with other local musicians, “It has helped me greatly because I’ve become friendly with musicians on the local scene. Because I’m a musician I feel I know what the bands I book are looking for. They want drink tickets and fair cuts. I’d rather the bands get paid over myself.”

Dratman hasn’t only been working hard on planning- Give Me Gravity just wrapped up an EP they released in July. They’ve been getting spins of their single “Leave” on 93.7 WSTW’s Hometown Heroes Show. They have a pretty solid indie, pop/punk rock sound. At times they remind you of Taking Back Sunday, minus the double vocals in every song.

So if you’re looking to do something this Saturday, whether it’s all day, afternoon, evening, or night, you should head down to Dave & Busters. There will be drinks, loads of plus local original music, and plenty of opportunities to generally be a menace.