Mourn at Knitting Factory
photo by Amanda Hatfield

Mourn played Knitting Factory with (very NSFW) Sloppy Jane (pics)

Barcelona band Mourn returned to NYC on Wednesday (9/6) after a few years away to begin a short North American tour. The band didn’t tour anywhere behind their 2016 sophomore LP  Ha, Ha, He, due to some legal issues with their former Spanish label, but are making up for lost time now and this week released a new EP of covers, Over the Wall. Dressed in paint-splattered white and seeming very happy to be playing shows again, they pulled out the Replacements cover from that EP, an appropriately rowdy take on “Color Me Impressed,” that mixed in well with the band’s own dark punky numbers.

Wednesday night’s show was opened by Sloppy Jane, who kicked off the night with a wild set. Frontwoman Haley Dahl relocated to Brooklyn from LA and recreated her band with a new lineup, which seems to be still evolving; there were seven members onstage at Knitting Factory, but there have been as many as eight. Before a cacophony of instrumentation (including a violin, a saxophone, and recorders), Haley, covered in paint and naked except for socks, was the main focus. When she wasn’t playing guitar she was directly confronting the audience or writhing on the floor. Sloppy Jane bring their brand of live show as performance art to this weekend’s Meltasia festival in the Catskills. They also play an upcoming show at soon-to-open new Bushwick venue Elsewhere with Guantanamo Baywatch and Surfbort (tickets).

Los Angeles band Adult Books also played the Knitting Factory show. Like Mourn, they said they hadn’t played NYC in a while, and were trying out some new material. Check out pictures of all three bands (note, the Sloppy Jane pictures are mostly NSFW) in the gallery above.

photos by Amanda Hatfield