Date: June 25th, 2023
Opening Acts: Pepper, The Elovaters, Sensamotion

Arriving after a stormy day in NJ to Asbury Park, I was ready to catch the much anticipated summer tour of Stick Figure’s Wisdom tour with Pepper, The Elovaters and for this show, local reggae act Sensamotion. Due to weather north where I was traveling from I missed Sensamotion. Hopefully next time! I managed to walk in right when The Elovaters were getting started and boy, was it a packed show already!

I was excited to finally check out The Elovaters, hailing from Massachusetts. I have been listening to them a ton in the last year, and have been loving the material they have been putting out, especially the new singles for their upcoming record “Endless Summer” out in late July. The band played a lot of new songs too like “M.I.A,” “Sunlight” and “Gimme Love.” Jackson Wetherbee has such a unique and great voice that their vocals really stand out when he’s either singing on his own material or guest vocaling on another album. A short but sweet set, but that will leave fans wanting more as they embark a headlining tour later this fall. I can’t wait to hear more.

Pepper was on next, and they are always a fun time. Hailing from Hawaii, the band is high energy in the vein of the genre’s bredren in Sublime, but with its own style, energy and humor. At one point during their set, they actually had to stop the show for EMT’s to help someone.

Side bar, as a matter of fact, this was not the last time in the night, but happened 3 times during the concert. People can’t seem to control their consumption, or perhaps mixing too many things because I was standing near one of the exits most of the night and we all counted over 10 people that were hauled out of the show for either collapsing drunk, or whatever, but security and EMTs were busy all night. The venue seemed to be oversold, because there was no room to maneuver. How about giving us all a little space to enjoy the show next time, Stone Pony? Just because you can cram all these people in there, doesn’t mean you should.

OK back to Pepper, they were a lot of fun, but as mentioned above the disruption in the set near the end kind of put a damper on the flow of the show and the night. I’ve never seen that happen before. Hopefully it will be the last. I can’t see spending all that money on drinks or what have you, and then getting hammered and not remembering what you were there to see.

There was a threat of more storms and an announcement that the show may be delayed or canceled if the storms came through. Luckily that did not happen and Stick Figure was able to play the whole set. They were fantastic. They haven’t played Asbury Park in 5 years, lead singer of Stick Figure and mastermind Scott Woodruff said. It’s been just as long or longer since I last saw them too. Waiting for the band to come out on stage, we were all greeted by Cocoa The Tour Dog as she awaited toys and beach balls to come out on stage. Stick Figure came out and played a variety of popular songs amongst fans including new ones like Paradise, and Way of Life off the band’s latest record “Wisdom.”

Most of the set featured more songs from the last 2 records since it’s been a few years since the band made it out to Asbury Park. Sprinkled in were some older tracks like “Weight of Sound,” which always is a hit with fans and features Scott’s best friend and writing partner, TJ O’Neil to come out and perform as well. I found the band’s performance was stronger than ever, and the vocals and harmonies were kicked up a notch too. Seeing Stick Figure live is a truly fun and exciting experience.

Some photos from the evening:

The Elovaters

Pepper

Stick Figure