Phox at Terminal West, Atlanta - February 10, 2015

Tonight's forecast for Baraboo, Wisconsin is one.  One degree.  Fahrenheit.  That's it, just one degree - old man winter can't even grant the state a second single degree for tonight.  The forecast high for tomorrow is 12 degrees.

With those temperatures, it is any surprise that the members of Baraboo's Phox have decided to go out on tour?  After playing some gigs in St. Paul/Minneapolis on February 5-7, the band headed south to Nashville, where they played the Mercy Lounge on February 9.  Last night, February 10, they played Terminal West in Atlanta.

Milwaukee's Field Report, who probably wanted to escape the cold as well, opened with a set of gentle folk rock.

 Phox took the stage around 10 pm.

Phox played one of the loosest, most anything-goes sets I've seen in a while.  After playing a half-dozen or so songs, Monica Martin announced that they were going to play the next several songs in the manner in which they were first composed - acoustic and performed with the entire band standing around a single directional mic (Monica had a separate mic for her voice).

Seemingly on a whim - or a dare they came up with on the road - they then performed the next couple of songs a cappella, with only a couple band members providing background harmonies to Monica's vocals.  

Inevitably, the set wound up as just Monica performing solo, and wearing a Green Bay Packers scarf a fan gave her in a gift bag along with a Packers teddy bear, a custom Phox t-shirt, and other goodies.

There was clearly a lot of affection between the audience and the band, particularly Monica, and the whole set seemed a little off-script, with the band spending time talking among themselves and the audience between songs, apparently trying to figure out how to perform the next number in the reductionist mode in which they had chosen to perform.  In a way, it made the whole evening seem more spontaneous and intimate than the usual tour set, but on the other hand it sometimes seemed like the band had grown bored of their material and were looking for ways to keep themselves interested in their own music.