Murder By Death with J Roddy Walston and The Business and Jonny Fritz
Louisville, KY 2/23/19
Photos and words by Emily May
Louisville, KY favorites Murder By Death played two hometown shows recently to end their recent tour with J Roddy Walston and The Business. I caught night one, which saw a sold-out crowd packed into Headliners Music Hall, ready for a rowdy and fun night! With Adam Turla’s baritone vocals, Sarah Balliet’s cello and multi-instrumentalist David Fountain’s piano and trumpet playing, the 5-piece had their diehard fans singing along with fists in the air throughout the set.
The band performed a nice variety of songs from their almost 20 year career, with plenty of older songs mixed with newer ones from their recent album The Other Shore, pleasing older and newer fans alike. Chatting a bit with the crowd between songs, Turla talked a bit about the pizza place he and Baillet opened in Louisville recently with her brother Max and how good it was to be playing two back-to-back hometown shows to end their tour with J Roddy Walston and The Business.
Towards the end of the set, Turla mentioned that part of a recent Kickstarter campaign was to allow pledgers to request songs for the band to cover. They chose one of the requested cover songs to perform on this tour, singing an incredible rendition of Iron Maiden’s “Wasted Years” (my favorite Iron Maiden song) which saw the crowd go wild and sing along at full volume! The band played a long set of favorites for their fans, telling them that they would change up their set list and play a bunch of different songs the following night, asking who would be there for night 2? They gave the crowd a really fun evening of great music and showed why they hold such a special place in the hearts of their fans and their city. J Roddy Walston and The Business and Jonny Fritz opened the show.
