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Pünsapaya :: 05.27.05 :: Durty Nellie's :: Palatine, IL
Pünsapaya |
Want to see a great rock band and dance your ass off? Then go see Pünsapaya (pronounced "poon-sah-pie-ya"), a rock and roll quartet from Chicago that knows how to blend killer riffs and catchy melodies with funky dance beats and flat-out grooves. Their first album, Prepare to Qualify, recently won "Best Rock Album of 2004" at the Chicago Music Awards, and later this summer the band will travel down to Athens, GA to record their next album, The New Life, with legendary producer John Keane (Widespread Panic, REM, Indigo Girls, Cowboy Junkies).
On a warm evening as spring found summer, Pünsapaya rocked a few hundred suburbanites with a 70-minute set at Durty Nellie's in Palatine, IL. Usually at suburban venues the live band is in the corner playing background music to an intense round of Golden Tee or whatever game is on TV, but aside from the enormous Budweiser advertisements at either side of the stage, Durty Nellie's is an excellent live music venue.
Pino Farina of Pünsapaya |
Pünsapaya took the stage around 10:45 with about 350 fans and a dozen or so of the band members' families in attendance. (You know you're doing well when your mom comes to your show, rocks you band's pink halter tee, and dances in the front row smiling proudly.) They opened with "Already Down," the first of three new songs that night, followed by "No More," a funky tune based around a wah-guitar chord progression, before launching into "Lowdown Dirty Devil," a sexy song whose title and lyrics seemingly reference a girl.
The next two songs displayed the uncanny musical maturity of the band. "Perfect Sky" began with a slow, wavy chord progression accentuated by lead guitarist Mike Poupko's lush melody before drummer Jonathan Schiller kicked it into double-time. The song literally sounds like the sky would sound if it could sing, emphasized even more by vocalist/guitarist Pino Farina's lyric, "the more I care for you, the more I bleed," an insightful concept especially if sung from our own sky's perspective. "It Cracks" followed, a beautiful ballad again with lyrics referring to a selfish tendency to want more without realizing the beauty in front of you: "It cracks, it cracks, into a million people wanting more, a million people waiting by the door."
John Cwiok of Pünsapaya |
After that breath of fresh air, the band brought the dance party back full steam with the combination "I Need Answers" > "Break" > "I Need Answers." "I Need Answers" begins with a playful chord progression on top of a fast bluegrass shuffle before diving into a full-on rock chorus to which half the people in attendance knew the words. The band really opened it up in the middle, improvising around each other's riffs and playful basslines courtesy of John Cwiok, before segueing into "Break," a radio friendly song that dabbles once again with the notion that people are beautiful creatures who often selfishly mistake pain for deficiency. "It might hurt and it might leave just a little scar but imperfections are who we are," Farina sang. In other words, stop searching for perfection — it will never happen — and you will realize your flaws are what make you unique and exceptional. And just as the philosophical wheels were spinning, they jumped right back into the end of "I Need Answers."
Pünsapaya closed their set with two more new songs, "Work For You" and "New Life." "New Life," which they played on WGN News last month while promoting their fund-raising event "Rock For Education" is apparently the new single. After "New Life," they closed the show with the title track from the first album, Prepare to Qualify. "Prepare to Qualify" contains sections of music that display all four band members' incredible technical abilities, capped off by Schiller's thunderous double bass beat. It was the perfect way to end their first show of what promises to be a huge summer for Pünsapaya. Pünsapaya's live shows are non-stop energy from instrumentation we haven't seen in a while: two guitars, drums, and bass. This isn't emo, this isn't metal, this isn't prog. This is straight-up dance rock, and it's not to be missed.
Chris Newton
JamBase | Palatine
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