Pigeons Playing Ping Pong rock Rams Head Live

Sometimes, the story rewrites itself.

This article was supposed to be about jam band legend moe’s opening night stop at Rams Head Live, but opening act Pigeons Playing Ping Pong demands to have its own light cast on it.

The Pigeons’ lineup of Greg Ormont vocals/guitar; Jeremy Schon guitar/vocals; Ben Carrey bass/vocals, and Alex Petropulos on drums put on a one-hour clinic of funk-rock jamming that had the crowd engaged and moving from the start.

The six-song set opened with the wild-eyed and grinning Ormont joking “we’re going to be your dinner entertainment this evening” before jumping into Highest Five, a jangly guitar riff driven song that set a pure party tone for the night.

Following that was Julia, a calypso-inspired dance jam from their 2014 album Psychology. The band was clearly reveling the moment, laughing and dancing with each other as they moved through the song. After the song, Ormont commented on being back in Baltimore, saying “its great to back home, this was an easy commute for us.”

The band calls Baltimore home, but it keeps up a cross-country touring schedule that puts it in a true road warrior status.

“We used to play in Baltimore all the time, so any time we’re able to make it back home we’re super thrilled,” Ormont said. “It’s always way laid back and nice and cozy, and to make that cozy feeling at Rams Head happen is really exciting because, you know we used to have our home at the 8×10 in Federal Hill, and now it’s a 2,000-plus person venue in downtown, so we’re just happy to be representing Baltimore on the road and then back at home.”

Pigeons has a growing, national fan base thanks to their touring efforts and multiple festival appearances.

“I love playing live music,” Ormont said. “I’ll play to five or 5,000 and I’ll be really happy about it. I do like playing festivals because you get to make more people smile at once, but every night is special for me.”

Ormont also spoke about sharing a stage at Rams Head with moe.

“They’re a great band, we’ve been looking up to them for years, they’re primarily two guitars, bass, and drums, of course with their percussionist, but has the same makeup as our band, and its not very common not to have a keyboardist, so we always like listening to the way they write music, and the way they construct their songs and jams, so it’s been a treat.”

They continued the set with a new song, Something for You followed by Burning Up My Time, that opened with Franklin’s Tower-esq riff and featured spacey mid song jam that built into a great, frenetic guitar solo by Schon.

The show’s beefiest opus came next, an extended Upfunk/Zelda, with a densely funky bass line from Carrey, a long jam that flowed from electronica to metal, back to electronica, with a full drum solo from Petropulos for good measure.

Pigeons concluded the set with Live it Up, the first single from their forthcoming album Pleasure, due for release April 1.