Homeshake Plays for the Kids at Union Stage

Saturday night at Union Stage, Homeshake went on a little after 7 p.m. It felt early for a headliner, but I guess Homeshake was playing for the kids. The venue was sold out but it never felt crowded. Children are smaller though.

Homeshake is led by Peter Sagar, a grad of the Mac DeMarco touring band, and his music feels like a more sedate and intimate version of DeMarco’s “jizz-jazz.” It’s the brother to DeMarco’s music that instead of going out and drinking, stays home and smokes with a friend or two.

That said, Sagar is at ease onstage and joked about how young the audience was. After “I Don’t Wanna” he paused to say:

“That was for all the parents that accompanied their kids.”

The chorus of the song goes:

“Cause baby I just want to go home/ I want to go home/ Cause baby I just want to go home/ I want to go home.”

His jokes were met with much applause and calls of “I love you Peter!”

He also made a joke about playing the “early show.”

“At least this leaves you lots of time to… go out and party? I’m not going to go party. I’m going to go to bed. But you can go party.”

Sagar spoke through a sampler and pitched his voice up or down an octave for comedic effect. (Check out more on Homeshake’s gear on equipboard.)

Sagar, though, almost felt like more of an MC and it was instead the bassist (Brad Loughead?) who looked like he was the band’s showpiece. He stood center stage and wore white to the rest of the group’s black. He also failed to cover his head like everyone else in the band. I too, thought it felt like sacrilege.

He may have been hot, but maybe not. It was hard to tell– I think that he was hot but he played bass like he was kissing with his eyes open and that felt scary. I don’t mean to spend so much time on the bassist whose name I’m not even sure of, but he was distracting, like the red car on his white shirt.

He could play though, as could the discount Seth Rogan on drums (Greg Napier?) The band played tracks mostly off their latest record Fresh Air, like “Every Single Thing” which got the crowd bouncing, as did “Khmlwugh.”

“Khmlwugh” stands for kissing, hugging, making love, waking up and getting high, which gives you an idea of Sager’s M.O. And that’s what I love about his music, it is so homey; however, I rather wish his live show was more than just playing the record as wrote. Still one of the best shows I’ve seen was Thundercat at 9:30 Club and what made that show so compelling is the way that Thundercat rewrites his songs on the fly.

Listen to Homeshake on Spotify, Soundcloud and Bandcamp.