Greg Freeman, Golomb
Ukie Club
847 N Franklin St.
Philadelphia
Jan. 27, 2026
It was heartening to see the Ukie Club packed out on a Tuesday night despite the nasty conditions and the roads; the 400-capacity club was nearly full, which can only be a testament to the enduring thrill of catching Greg Freeman and his band live. The interior of the club was all winter coats and knit caps – I didn’t see it but one of the guys in Freeman’s band told me they saw a literal pile of snow in the corner somewhere, and he might have been joking but I can’t say for sure – but in my soul, anytime it’s a two-band bill, it’s peak summer. (I’m playing a four-band show soon, and obviously I love music a lot, but it can be a bit much sometimes. Three is good. Two is perfect. One is also perfect.) Seeming no worse for wear and in great spirits despite having to cancel a few shows recently with the snowstorm, Freeman and his band are a road-tight unit that has logged serious hours and maxed out odometers in the last few years; I think I’ve seen them play in Philly at least five or six times in the last couple years, each time a revelation, usually at Johnny Brenda’s, both headlining and supporting. This was their first time at Ukie Club, one of the last stops on their current headlining tour, less than a year since the release of Freeman’s second album, Burnover. Even before that record dropped, their debut, 2022’s I Looked Out – already a classic – provided ample material for their transcendent live shows, and they’ve only grown better and more dynamic with the new songs worked in.
Live, Greg Freeman is an electric coil, a man completely possessed. Watching him perform up close is as good as it gets in rock: physically, he plays guitar with ferocity and style, slashing at the strings with precision-strike arm swings for the explosive moments (it’s a wonder he isn’t constantly breaking strings), finger-picking with freakish pocket, command and swagger always. He winds through complex rhythmic changes, jumpy syncopation and squirrely tension-release dynamics with a stiff upper lip and a mean sense of restraint, as if to say – even when he’s unloading downright nasty, noisy, monstrously fuzzed-out sounds (a ProCo RAT maxed out, his MusicMan amp audibly seething) – that he’s holding back an even more overwhelming din contained internally. He nearly seems to black out with the intensity of his focus. Even when their songs are bouncy and grooving, they’re a high-wire act in a lightning storm, the whole band locked in and squalling on a string; Burnover’s opening one-two punch of “Point and Shoot” and “Salesman” kicked off the set with merciless energy that nearly put the recorded versions to shame as a matter of course. (Not a diss!) Most incredibly, the band played their jerky, punk-energy rippers (the mangy “Gulch”) with essentially the same energy and poise as the slower, more atmospheric songs (a sublime treatment of “Sawmill”), utilizing and emphasizing the textural qualities of long, legato fiddle sweeps, rich woodwinds and wide-screen pedal steel, rich sonic worlds unto themselves. It makes songs like the almost painfully slow and behind-the-beat “Long Distance Driver” drag in a mysterious, disturbing way, with tectonic force, as if the band were slowly ripping a thousand miles of highway from the ground with a giant hand. And even those songs function as necessary breathers; if the slow, moody songs lifted us into the clouds, the rockers put us square in the eye of the earthquake.
Suffice it to say it was more than worth braving terrestrial impediments: Greg Freeman and his band may have equals, but there’s no live band in rock today that bests their combination of cathartic, vein-popping power and artful songwriting. An absolute must-see group ‘til the wheels fall off.
