By Murray (PRB Staffer)

I went to a concert expecting a concert and ended up stumbling into the world of Jamtronica.

I got my first first taste for the genre when I came across Papadosio’s “Polygonz”.

The song exploited my weakness for climactic Electronic Dance Music sounds. Papadosio seamlessly blended the funk/rock jam-band sounds with synth. So I went to check them out at Stage 48.

The opening act was Consider the Source, a psychedelic jam-band with Middle-Eastern and metal influences. The experience was intense, the crowd totally engaged, and after two hours I had forgotten that these were the openers.

But at 11:30pm, Papadosio was setting up.

(Would we have to leave early to make our train? Likely. Was I in denial about this? Totally.)

Papadosio began with the lighter but still dance-y tracks “We Are Water” and “Direction.” These tracks are the first two on their new album T.E.T.I.O.S. (To End the Illusion of Separation)[1]. The rest of the show melded to a blur, and I found myself jumping around to their anthem tracks, “Cue,” “Method of Control,” and of course, what started this journey last summer, “Polygonz.”

Stage 48 was littered with light-up hula hoops, neon bar trimming and glow-in-the-dark juggling balls, hippie shirts and harem pants. It’s also a typical New York club venue, with a guy standing in the bathroom giving out paper towels to dry your hands. But the music and the crowd soon overwhelmed this tension.

Somehow, it was 1:23am. We were only a four minute drive from Penn Station, but we missed our train anyway.

I didn’t know anyone in the city who would be up on a Friday morning, so my friend Charlie and I made our way back for the encore at Stage 48, the first steps of a night wandering the streets of New York City.

(continued next week)

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