Pigeons Playing Ping Pong Offer Debuts & Welcome Magic Beans At New Year’s Eve Show In Pittsburgh

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong concluded a two-night New Year’s run in Pittsburgh on Saturday. For their New Year’s Eve concert, PPPP offered original/cover debuts and welcomed openers Magic Beans.

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong — guitarists Greg Ormont and Jeremy Schon, drummer Alex Petropulos and bassist Ben Carrey — got their NYE show underway with “Time To Ride” before “Move Like That” flowed into “White Night,” the latter of which saw Magic Beans keyboardist Casey Russell joining in. Russell stuck around to help PPPP unveil a cover of Lizzo’s “Juice” as well as to tie up “White Night.”

In a nod to their collaborators, Pigeons then sandwiched the PPPP song “Beanstalk” within “Julia” before premiering a brand new original, “Calm Before The Storm.” From the new song, the quartet found their way into “Water.” Next, “Feelin’ Fine” encompassed the Radiohead tune “The National Anthem” to wrap the first set.

Set two commenced with “Pop Off” before “Horizon” prefaced the New Year’s sequence, which began with “Somethin’ For Ya” and continued into “Auld Lang Syne.” An instrumental version of The Beatles classic “With A Little Help From My Friends” followed ahead of a return to “Auld Lang Syne.”

The band then headed into “F.U.” before debuting another cover, “Hungry Like The Wolf,” which saw all four members of the Magic Beans — Russell, guitarist Scott Hachey, bassist Chris Duffy and drummer Cody Wales — all joining for the Duran Duran classic. The Beans would stay on for an “F.U.” reprise before the collaborators sealed the set with the final cover debut of the evening, Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime.” PPPP would return to go it alone for an encore of originals “The Liquid” and “Dawn A New Day.”

Watch video of PPPP debuting Lizzo’s “Juice” with Casey Russell on keys below: