Violent Femmes are a band that doesn’t tour often. Aside from the occasional festival, or co-headline go-round, Gordon Gano and Brian Ritchie keep things quiet. 2016 has been a special year for the Femmes as it marked the release of their first album in sixteen years. We Can Do Anything was released in March, and brought them back out on the road with something new to celebrate.

The stage of the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, was littered with more than the usual equipment. Yes, guitars and basses and mics were dutifully present, but also a drumset featuring a Weber barbecue grill; a xylophone, a banjo, a violin, a conch shell, and three saxophones. The Femmes—Gano and Ritchie, along with drummer John Sparrow, and the horn section, Horns of Dilemma—made use of every last instrument in their 90-minute set.

The band waste no time getting a couple of hits out of the way. Their enduring alt-rock hit “Blister in the Sun” felt as new and fresh as ever, as did the angst of “Kiss Off.” Throughout the evening, the Femmes bounced around their catalog while devoting time to songs off We Can Do Anything, which, surprisingly, blended in with more familiar songs. It seems despite 30+ years of freak Americana, and the inevitability of growing older and wiser, Gano and Ritchie haven’t changed much at all.

Setlist

1. Blister in the Sun

2. Kiss Off

3. Good for/at Nothing

4. Love Love Love Love Love

5. I’m Nothing

6. Life Is An Adventure

7. Country Death Song

8. I Could be Anything

9. It’s Gonna Rain

10. Issues

11. Jesus Walking on the Water

12. Good Feeling

13. Hallowed Ground

14. Old Mother Reagan

15. Freak Magnet

16. Color Me Once

17. I Held Her in My Arms

18. Black Girls

19. Gone Daddy Gone

20. American Music

Encore

21. What You Really Mean

22. Memory

23. Add it Up