10 years ago Philadelphia Grand Jury formed as a garage band out of some great Sydney punk band legends – Joel “MC Bad Genius” Beeson on bass, keyboard and guitar; Simon “Berkfinger” Berckelman on vocals and guitar; and Dan “W. Sweat” Williams on drums.
If you’ve heard of the Philly Jays, or have been lucky enough to go to one of their shows, then you would know that the guys never do anything the conventional way. This absolutely holds true for their newest tour So you think you can Philly Jays? coming to Canberra’s very own Transit Bar, Friday 3 June.
Ahead of their Canberra visit I caught up with drummer Dan W. Sweat to chat about the band’s visit to the nation’s capital and their new take on gigging – a karaoke-style tour.
Funnily enough the idea came from Dan himself during a band Skype meeting.
“Because Simon lives in Berlin, most of our band meetings happen over Skype. We always try to do something new and fun for each show so I jokingly said we should do a karaoke thing and the guys jumped at the idea,” he says.
“Someone threw out the idea of So you think you can Philly Jays? and once we had a name for it things just flowed on from there.”
The karaoke-style performance means that fans can get up close and personal with the band. Some lucky fans will even be able to get up on stage with the Philly Jays to sing some of their band favourites – as well as some good karaoke classics.
“We really like the vibe of Transit Bar. We want to be up close and personal with the audience, so we were on the hunt for some smaller venues for this tour,” Dan says.
“We want to leave the set list pretty free form so we are taking online requests from our fans. The most exciting thing is that the idea has the potential to be a complete success or an absolute disaster.”
Philadelphia Grand Jury plan for some awesome shows in the future – including a potentially impossible feat.
“We really want to do a show in five capital cities (Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane) in the one day,” Dan says.
Although the band would be wrecked by the end, they insist that it’s for the audience and not for them!
The Philly Jays will be performing at Transit Bar Canberra on 8pm Friday 3 June. Tickets for the concert are available via moshtix – ticket sales close 5:00pm Friday 3 June.
