This horn player is blowing up!
A Williamsburg pop artist will host an extravaganza of live performances, including dancing, drag, a brass band, and other acts at Freehold on Feb. 22, as part of his quest to reinvent the traditional music concert and throw the ultimate party.
“To be frank, I’ve been pretty bored with the live music experience, which is this routine everybody already knows,” said Spencer Ludwig. “Instead of saying ‘Come see my band,’ I’m saying, ‘Come to my party.’ ”
The Los Angeles–born horn player, who trumpeted for indie rock band Capital Cities before going solo in 2015, expressed disdain for the standard concert format — the opening act you’ve never heard of, the uneventful wait for the headliner to start — scorning the steady procession of bands as a “dry, mundane experience.”
But Ludwig has a remedy he calls “Le Trumpet,” a four-hour bonanza of live acts the artist curated around the impulse to have people let their hair down and paint the town red.
“All of this reflects the energy and message of my music, and the feel of my music is straight up party time,” Ludwig boasted.
The trumpeter promises drag queens from California, a contortionist on the bar, and a New Orleans–style brass band amongst acts that will spring up suddenly from the crowd, and then vanish into the revelry as another performance takes shape on the other side of the venue.
“Every performance leads into the next one,” said Ludwig. “After my performance, you think it’s over, the DJ starts spinning, and out of nowhere the drag queens start performing!”
This Friday’s show is part of his five-month residency at Williamsburg’s Freehold restaurant, where he throws a party on the last Friday of every month until May, after which he hopes to take the curated party concept he developed in Brooklyn and share it with the rest of the country.
“The idea is to take this concept on the road, I would love to be able to curate a tour experience, so that it’s not just, ‘I’m playing in Atlanta, this band’s opening, you know the drill,’ ” said Ludwig. “I want it to be a party.”
“Le Trumpet” at Freehold Brooklyn [45 S. Third St. between Kent and Wythe avenues in Williamsburg, (718) 388–7591, www.freeh
