The indie band, now 10 years old, has played homage over several shows in Brooklyn to different artists. Their latest feat was covering The Beatles sophomore effort.
The Providence act covered The Beatles, which according to Tommy Stinson, “takes a lot of balls”, as the third installment of six shows that are celebrating their 10th anniversary. They invited Marshall Crenshaw and Jana Hunter on Friday for a cover of NRBQ’s Tiddlywinks, and on Saturday, they got Sharon Van Etten and Patrick Stickles to help cover Lou Reed’s Transformer.
For Meet the Beatles!, they enlisted Taylor Goldsmith, from Dawes, as well as James Felice, of the Upstate New York folk rockers The Felice Brothers. They also wore all yellow.
John McCauley took John Lennon’s spot, with Ian O’Neil playing the Paul McCartney to his John. They opened outside of their traditional indie-rock vein with three part harmonies on treasures such as “Till There Was You”. Taylor Goldsmith was George Harrison for the night, and in true Felice Brothers fashion, James played a nice accordion on “Little Child”.
The Beatles tribute ended with side two of the album, and additional material was Deer Tick-centric original music. Middle Brother, the enormously favored supergroup formed between McCauley and Goldsmith, who are two of the three members of the crowd favorite trio, came out to sing billed as “Little Brother”. “Daydreaming” and “Million Dollar Bill” really got the crowd into a fervor before the rest of Deer Tick hopped back onstage to showcase some of their own material. They played “The Bump”, as well as “Now It’s Your Turn”, but the night was all about the Beatles covers. The debt that Deer Tick pays to the Beatles music is immense, which has to do with how well they covered the duo-centric chemistry that existed between Lennon and McCartney.
Check out this video below, and stay tuned for more information about Deer Tick’s 10th anniversary shows.