Elway at Sovereign Smokehouse (photo by Ray Rusinak)
According to their Facebook “about” page, “Elway is an American punk rock band from Fort Collins, Colorado. Their sound is a unique and inebriated take on a time-tested formula: aggressive punk rock with soaring melodies coupled with lyrics ranging from that of the sad sap to the indignant atheist with a bevy of homespun dick jokes.” This pretty much sums the band up quite well. I would go a little further to say that they fall smack in the middle of that category of bands that you scratch your head wondering why they aren’t more popular. Their brand of pop punk should be much appreciated by fans of bands like The Menzingers, The Lawrence Arms, Make War and even Alkaline Trio, yet they still languish in relative obscurity. Having formed back in 2007 under the name 10-4 Eleanor, the band released one album, “…Too Bad” in 2008. Then in 2010 the band signed to Red Scare Industries and changed their name to Elway (somewhat to the chagrin of the Hall of Fame Quarterback and then executive of the Denver Broncos, John Elway).
Over the years Elway has released about nine LPs and EPs via Red Scare, including the recently released The Best Of All Possible Worlds. According to the band, its the best thing they’ve ever done, and while bands are obviously supposed to say things like this, I wholeheartedly agree. From the opening acapella lines of opening tune, “Pangloss,” to the syncopated drum beats of closer “The Jetty,” this album, song for song, is a banger.
Elway for a multitude of reasons (none of which are all too clear) do not tour all that much here in the Northeast. More often than not, they’ll do a show or two in Chicago, do The Fest down in Gainesville, FL and random local shows around their hometown of Fort Collins. But other than this, their tours have been slim pickings in these parts. I hadn’t seen them since they played Suburbia a good nine years ago, so I was totally stoked when I saw that their 10 show tour would include Sovereign Smokehouse here in Brooklyn.
Elway at Sovereign
Opening band, Philly’s The Holy Mess, haven’t been too active of late but provided quite an energetic opening set. From what I could gather the band hadn’t played any live shows since 2016 but with the 10 year anniversary of their seminal album, Cande Ru Las Degas and an opportunity to tour with labelmates Elway, how could they resist? Anyway, lead singer and bassist, Steve-O led the band through a rip roaring set heavy on the aforementioned album which had the front of the stage screaming and yelling to almost every word.
After a quick equipment change Elway took the stage and wasted no time whatsoever, starting off with lead singer/guitarist, Tim Browne, blasting his way through “Maximum Entropy” off the new album followed by “Lunatic Thirteens” off of 2015’s Better Whenever LP. Moving forward, Brown along with bassist Joe Henderer, drummer Bill Orender and guitarist Brian Van Proyen managed to keep the crowd captivated and energized, mixing various songs from the older albums with choice cuts from Best of All Possible Worlds.
In a night filled with highlights, the best moments of the evening for me was when Brian started a slow guitar riff, followed by Bill’s steady drum beat and finally Tim’s almost spoken word intro to “Song For Eric Solomon To Sing” from the 2011 epic Delusions LP. And before you even knew it the entire room was screaming the words back at them:
So rat me out to the scene police cause I’d rather be living
Rather be living
Well these are our friends they’re not commodities
And don’t you forget it
Don’t you forget it
Elway at Sovereign
And then 2 songs later the boys broke into a scorching version of “The English Wishbone” which once again had the entire room screaming at the top of their lungs:
I don’t really want to talk now, baby
I don’t want to think about it anymore
Sooner or later this will all start fading
We’ll have all the time we need to mourn
Truth be told Elway hasn’t seemed to have missed a single beat in the nine years since that insane beer soaked night at Suburbia. They maintained an incredible breakneck pace throughout the set and Tim Browne’s indelible stage persona has grown and only become even more enjoyable over the years. Finishing off the evening, the band had its keen sense of humor front and center as they came back for an encore of The Killer’s “All These Things I’ve Done”. Browne joked at the end of the set that the band would be back in Brooklyn real soon only to add the kicker that by Elway standards “real soon” probably meant more like four or five years. Such a shame, such a shame.
Setlist: Maximum Entropy, Lunatic Thirteens, Hold On, The Infirm Dreamers Dream, Dear Colorado, Song For Eric Solomon to Sing, Folly For Death, The English Wishbone, The Rest Is Posthumous, Patria Mia (Room 20)
Encore: All These Things I’ve Done (The Killers cover)
Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Ray Rusinak)
THE HOLY MESS
ELWAY
