LA band, Dorothy, performed at the Theatre of the Living Arts in Philly on Saturday, January 13 during their Freedom Tour that kicked off earlier this month. Throughout this tour, they’ve been choosing different local bands for each stop. For Philly, it was the band In Our Glory, who is seemingly influenced by alternative, punk, and hard rock with members from New Jersey and Fishtown. Throughout their set, they strove to hype up the audience with their mainly heated, raging songs and continuous vocal encouragement. A lot of what they played consisted of heavy instrumentation, accompanied by belting (and occasionally screaming) vocals. An exception was the somewhat slowed-down “Cheap Shot” that the lead singer described as being very important to them, as it’s a heartfelt song that the band wrote together.
Dorothy came out and started off their set with a few new songs that will be included on their upcoming album, “28 Days In The Valley” (release date to be announced). Many of the new songs that they performed sounded a bit more slowed down than most of what they’ve already released, but they have the same driven soulfulness that comes the band’s bluesy rock instrumentation and Dorothy Martin’s insanely strong and passionate vocals. They even introduced a song called “Philadelphia,” and of course included a number of their more well-known tracks that the audience could easily jam and belt along to.
Leading into one of their new songs, “Black Tar and Nicotine,” Martin explained the meaning behind it by discussing addiction. She mentioned her own personal experience and encouraged the audience to both reach out to addicts and speak out as addicts. She also expressed her hope for society’s better education on the subject, in schools in particular. It was a heartfelt moment that didn’t dampen the atmosphere, but offered a time of sincerity both to add context to the following song and to use that context for the spreading of awareness that’s deeply needed. All in all, Dorothy is a powerful rock band whose skills in both creating and performing quality music seem unwavering. The band has a great, raw tone both instrumentally and vocally while performing live that can be missed out on when listening to the studio recordings, so seeing them live is an experience that any fan of Dorothy should have. The Freedom Tour continues until almost mid-March, so take the opportunity to go see them if you can!
Tour dates & tickets: http://dorothytheband.com/tour/
