I love Deer Tick, they are fantastic band! I have seen them quite a few times, since 2012, at Putnam Dan, The Met, Infinity Hall, Brooklyn Bowl…at a quite few more venues in new England. John McCauley is always having contact with audience, he has fun and enjoys performance himself. It’s wonderful to watch and listen.
Not in The Stone pony though… I’ve seen them several years before in the stone pony, in 2014, as i remember, and it was all the same as yesterday – they performed well, but McCauley himself was miserable. You could see it looking at him - poor guy couldn’t wait for it to end.
Four days before, I attended their gig at The Haunt - Ithaca, NY. It was fantastic performance. McCauley announced, that day before he was very sick, and was thinking to cancel the show, but he was touched that the show was sold out and decided to perform. At the end, the band came back for encore and played four more songs!
03/08/18, In the stone pony, which actually was sold out as well, they didn’t spend literally one extra second on the stage…
Is it the venue, or town, or state? Who knows…
Any way, you want to see real performance of Deer Tick, don’t go to see them in Asbury Park.