Too Many Zooz closed out their latest cross-country tour this past weekend to a sold-out crowd at San Francisco’s The Chapel. Throughout a night of lively and upbeat music, the band helped to cement their legacy as the torchbearers of the Brass House genre with a set that echoed throughout the streets of the Mission District.
After a long and improvisational opening set from interpretative electronic artist Honeycomb, the New York-based outfit finally walked onto the stage one by one as the audience roared louder with every member taking their place.
For much of the set, the band seemed to do away with a traditional setlist as they faced each other and dictated the set as they saw fit in the moment. Through long-flowing extemporization, each member took their cues from one another, showcasing the trust they had built in one another over their last decade as a group.
Trumpet player Matt Muirhead took a beat to pick up the microphone to introduce the band comprised of himself, percussionist David Parks, and Saxophonist Leo Pellegrino, who just might be the last person grandfathered into legally being allowed to rock a mullet with such flare. Muirhead then continued, “We’re not going to talk a lot, it’s just going to be a bunch of music.”
The set unmistakably drew from their origin performing as buskers on the New York City subway. However, while it was narrated by a sense of inspiration and spontaneity, the night was seemingly musically anchored with their genre-defining single “Brasshouse Vol 7 No 68.” The band reprised sections of this song several times throughout their set, giving the performance an almost symphonic sensibility and a palpable thematic tone throughout.
Muirhead once again addressed the audience late in the set to say “We’re going to play a few more” to which an audience member yelled “Five” loud enough to draw a reaction from the crowd. “Five? We’ve only played two.” Muirhead responded, joking about the free-flowing nature of the show, but continued in jest “We pick songs that might be a little auspicious of us… You guys like T-Pain?” The band then proceeded to play a series of instrumental covers including T-Pain’s “Buy You a Drink” and Weezer’s “Hash Pipe,” the audience taking the vocals into their own hands and intermittently screaming the lyrics alongside them.
The band then walked off stage only to return after a moment of milking the crowd for an appropriately selected encore. Almost as if to pay homage to the city of San Francisco, the band ended their performance by playing their 2016 single “Warriors,” feeling almost like a tribute to Golden State’s win over the Phoenix Suns which many fans watched in the venue’s cantina only a few moments before the start of the show, their notes inspiring as much revelry as Steph Curry’s game-winning three-point shot.
