The Joy Formidable at Park Tavern, Atlanta, September 6, 2015

As a Labor Day weekend treat for those Atlantans not at DragonCon or the Pride Festival this weekend, Park Tavern provided the penultimate performance of their Sunset Series of shows, featuring Wales' The Joy Formidable.  Because of those other festivities this weekend, traffic was a nightmare in and around Piedmont Park, and it took me over a half hour to advance one block past the sold-out parking lot at Park Tavern before I could find a parking space on the street about a half mile away (and yes, I did get a traffic ticket for parking facing the wrong way for the side of the street I was on). The traffic was so frustrating I almost didn't go to the show, and had vowed that if a parking space didn't present itself to me soon I was going to just keep driving and go on back home, but said space did lure me over at that very moment, and since it was a free concert and I didn't pay anything for on-street parking, the cost of the ticket doesn't seem so bad.

Atlanta's Today the Moon Tomorrow the Sun opened.

We've seen TTMTTS several times before, but buoyed by the enthusiastic audience at the Park Tavern, this was the best show we've seen yet by the band.  They were a quartet in the past but played as a trio last night, and it may he the stripped-down sound of the smaller ensemble that gave the songs more urgency or it might have been the energy of the crowd, but you had the feeling during their performance that this was going to be a special night.

The Joy Formidable have been relatively quiet for the past couple of years,  We last saw them almost exactly two years ago today when they were the headliners (or at least final performers) at the 2013 Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle, and had no idea at the time that the show would be the last that we'd hear from them for two whole years.   

The Joy Formidable at Bumbershoot 2013

Last night, Ritzy Bryan announced that the band would be releasing a new album, their third, soon, followed by a "proper" tour (they're here now for a very limited number of dates, mostly festivals, and we're lucky to have them here during this brief visit).  Most of the familiar trappings of Joy Formidable shows past were gone - the Christmas lights strung over the microphone stands, the anthemic music played over the PA before the band took the stage, etc. - but the band has lost none of the firepower of the past. In fact, they look better and more relaxed and confident than ever before, and I'm looking forward to hearing what they're going to come up with next. 

The band clearly appreciated and was feeding off of the energy from the audience, and several times bassist Rhydian Dafydd came to the edge of the stage to rub the head of one particularly enthusiastic fan at the edge of the stage.

At the end of the cacophonous encore, Ritzy handed her guitar to a young woman in the audience standing right in front of me to let her keep strumming and keep the noise going, and then Ritzy and the rest of the band left the stage (roadies quickly got the guitar back from her after the set). 

And that was that.  The end of the Park Tavern's Sunset Series and the end of The Joy Formidable's brief pre-album tour.  All good, and the best part is that with Labor Day tomorrow, we don't have to go to work in the morning (you can thank a liberal for that!).

Post-Script:  Not that I'm counting or that it means anything, but based on that "Bands Seen in 2015" banner over on the right, I jut realized that The Joy Formidable were the 100th band I've seen so far this year.