Pigeons Playing Ping Pong Will Bring the Funk to Culture Room

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, the funk-rock quartet from Baltimore known for its high-energy performances, exceptional group improvisation, and constant touring, returns to South Florida this weekend, playing the Culture Room on Sunday, February 18. The show also features support from local South Florida rock outfit Tand.

Pigeons' performance at the midsized Fort Lauderdale venue will be the final of four scheduled shows across Florida this week as part of the band's month-long run of dates throughout the Southeast. It also notably marks the band's return to South Florida for its first headlining gig in the area since playing the Miami Beach Bandshell in October 2022.

Despite South Florida's reputation as a less-than-desirable market for touring artists in the jam band and funk-rock genres, Pigeons have made plenty of trips to the region since the band began touring nationally in 2011.

"I think our first South Florida play was at a little engagement party or wedding party at the Funky Biscuit [in Boca Raton]," Pigeons guitarist Jeremy Schon tells New Times over Zoom. Though he can't pinpoint the exact date, Schon estimates that the band's first trip to the region occurred in April 2014. "My timeline could be off, but we've played many places down there," Schon continues. "We used to play Guanabanas in Jupiter."

The current lineup of Schon, Greg Ormont, Ben Carrey, and Alex Petropulos has been in place for nine years. In the hundreds of shows they've played together, the four have molded their respective talents into a well-oiled funk machine capable of achieving liftoff on stage each night for their loyal legion of fans known as the Flock.

"In the earlier years, we definitely learned through the experience of what not to do and what works," adds Ormont, the band's rhythm guitarist and singer who joined Schon on the Zoom call. "We're no longer sleeping on fans' floors, but those were the days. I look back fondly on those early days when we would figure out where we were staying night by night."

These days, the group enjoys the headliner-level reputation it has earned within the jam-band ecosystem. Ormont and his bandmates no longer worry about having a bed to sleep in after shows when they come to Florida.
South Florida remains a less-than-desirable market for many groups similar to Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, though there are local concert promoters who are attempting to change this trend. People from other parts of the U.S. have relocated to South Florida en masse in recent years, bringing with them the demand for quality jam bands to visit more often.

"We notice a strong sense of appreciation when we come down to a lot of the Florida markets," Schon notes of the welcoming his band receives from their fans in this area. "Florida has been very receptive to us. We're very lucky in that regard."

"The one consistent thing we see is appreciation and an elevated energy because [the fans] don't get to see these types of bands all the time," Ormont adds of the excitement of playing markets like South Florida — or even Alaska, which they did in 2023. "So when they do roll into town, it's like time to go for broke for the fans, and we feed off that big time."

"We definitely have a lot of fun things that we'll be pulling out for the Florida shows," Shon also hints regarding the band's return to Florida.

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong headlined the inaugural North Beach Music Festival in Miami Beach in late 2021 when larger in-person music events resumed following the pandemic-induced shutdown of the concert industry. More recently, the quartet performed at Hulaween in Live Oak last October as part of the annual Halloween event's tenth-anniversary lineup.

Coming off a busy year in which they celebrated 15 years as a band, Pigeons have now set their gaze toward the next chapter with the forthcoming arrival of the band's seventh studio album, Day in Time, due out April 26. The album's title track, featuring pianist Ben Silverstein (Smile High, the Main Squeeze), was released in January.
For their latest album, Pigeons again teamed up with producer/engineer Steve Wright, who has collaborated with the band on each of their studio albums since 2016's Pleasure.

"[Steve] understands our style and our sound and knows how to make us really comfortable in the studio," Schon says of the band's excellent working relationship with Wright, who operates out of Wright Way Studios in Baltimore. (Wright Way Studios' past clients also include Miami rap pioneers the 2 Live Crew.) "None of us are analog gear nerds or understand the outboard gear world so well, but Steve knows that stuff like the back of his hand. He knows how to make Greg's vocals sound amazing; he knows how to make my guitars sound crisp."

"He just has that ear for not only each song but the album as a whole, keeping everything cohesive," Ormont notes. "We just trust his instincts, largely because he's only put out great results, not just for us but for other great bands."

Now a decade and a half into their journey as a band with thousands of miles traveled and hundreds of shows played, the members of Pigeons Playing Ping Pong have sustained a career thanks to their funky formula that blends Ormont's feel-good lyrics and extroverted frontman persona with Schon's mind-melting guitar solos during the extended jams.

Ormont credits the band's ability to stay at the top of its game while on tour with the hours the members play together every day before the show even begins.

"We all do different things — I'm warming up my voice and stuff like that — but all of the preparation comes so much earlier," Ormont says. "By the time we're walking on stage, we have already played with each other that day for like three hours."

He continues, "We've all gotten the songs under our fingers. I'm reminding myself of all the lyrics, and that way, when we walk out on stage, you can kind of not get too bogged down by the details because it's kind of drilled in at that point, and you can kind of look up and enjoy the moment a little more."

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. With Tand. 6:30 p.m. Sunday, February 18, 3045 N. Federal Hwy., Fort Lauderdale; 954-564-1074; cultureroom.net. Tickets cost $32.50 via ticketmaster.com.