Fans pack the house for St. Paul and The Broken Bones in San Diego

The Sound in Del Mar is always a fun venue; it’s spacious, accommodating, a little bougey with the food offerings including bao buns and street tacos. But I’ve never seen The Sound so packed as I did this past Saturday night for St. Paul & The Broken Bones!

Attracting an older crowd, at least the lack of space for this show remained respectful.

I just wasn’t prepared for that kind of pull. I mean, I’m a fair-weather fan of the band. St. Paul & The Broken Bones dot my Spotify playlists here and there; I just haven’t done the deep dive into their full discography yet. Little did I know that I was behind the times.

Before the main event, rising folk talent Tyler Ballgame went on, singing soulfully to an already packed house. Without knowing much about this rising artist, I was impressed with his vocal range and thought, if he only opens up to enjoying himself a bit more onstage, Ballgame can really go far fast. Time will tell!

At intermission, I checked out the breadth of merchandise at the merch booth, debating to get a poster, a vinyl, or a T-shirt of SPBB. Their merch is topnotch, let me tell you! Before I could decide, it was time for the main men to go on… with an interesting introduction by ChatGPT. Casually, ChatGPT ‘assisted’ the audience with a rundown of the merits of a St. Paul and The Broken Bones shot, noting their liveliness onstage and ability to get a crowd moving. With ChatGPT being, you know, AI and not able to, you know, hear and see a show, the bot sadly has to “live vicariously through humans” — the last sentence echoing over and over through the speakers.

Way to set the stakes high, SPBB.

After the bot did an audible fadeout, the band members took the stage clad in classy black outfits, with lead singer Paul Janeway entering last in a white suit with flowers on the lapel. Like I said, classy. Immediately, I began to see why the place was so crowded — Janeway can BELT live. Every member onstage was incredibly talented, with solos alternating from lead guitar to bass sax. I cannot stress enough how I had to pick my jaw up off the floor with the bass saxophonist squealing high-note flutters between low bops and booms; this all led up to Janeway returning a good 10 minutes later to go right back into “GotItBad”. The crowd went absolutely wild!

At the end of the night, St. Paul and The Broken Bones lived up to their ChatGPT description — and then some. They deserve all the accolades coming to them (and ones already garnered, as I’m sure they have quite a few already). If you haven’t seen this band yet, believe me, you want to.

Photography by Kristy Rose

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