NPR’s Bob Boilen introduced The New Pornographers with an explanation of the title of the band’s newest album Brill Bruisers. It had been inspired by the sounds and music that were written in the Brill Building – the same unique one-off venue that the audience was standing in. The Brill Building had ben home to numerous pop music publishing houses in the mid 1900s where many chart-toppers were written. However, the building is currently under renovation, which is why the audience (including Will Sheff of Okkervil River and Neko Cases’s parents) found themselves in a open and industrial-looking construction space for the temporary stage. Boilen was quickly gave the stage over to AC Newman, Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, occasionally Dan Bejar and the rest of The New Pornographers who performed an energetic and sweaty set of new material and older classics. Their set was furious and tight given they only had about an hour to play through songs like “War on the East Coast”, “Brill Bruisers” (which they performed just a block or two up at the Ed Sullivan Theater the night before) and “Backstairs”. Before the last song, “Bleeding Heart Show”, Newman suggested the band had to remember how to play this dusty old rarity but if the audience didn’t laugh at that joke they still appeared more than tickled as many were singing “hey-la” along with the band.
“Brill Bruisers” performed on Letterman: