Last Wednesday, 1/26, Kacey Musgraves gave the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection everything they’d been needing, an arena spectacle complete with pyro, laser lights, and a country diva commanding a mega stage in a skintight jumpsuit as she belted out anthemic breakup ballads (largely from last year’s star-crossed, an album inspired by her recent divorce) to a crowd of nearly 20,000 who looked like the cast of a John Waters film about the gay rodeo scene. However, while Musgraves was the queen who brought all of us fabulous weirdos together in the Wells Fargo Center, it was perhaps support acts King Princess and MUNA who provided the gathering with its most potent subversiveness… Not so much because either the genderqueer lesbian singer/songwriter (King Princess) or the non-binary dance pop trio (MUNA) are so ineffably “out there,” but because the notion of seeing such acts in the home of the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers seemed a little bit other-worldly.
In fact the highlight of the evening was likely the six-song, 25-minute opening set from MUNA, which followed classics “Friday I’m in Love” (The Cure) and “Common People” (Pulp) blasting on the house PA. While the arena was still only about 30% full come their 8pm start time, the LA outfit had dedicated fans in nearly every section standing and singing along with the infectious electropop of “Number One Fan” and “Stayaway,” both off of the band’s 2019 sophomore LP, Saves the World. However, after the band’s initial dance-heavy introduction to the home of Gritty, the more-than-gracious guests thanked Kacey for the opportunity and proceeded to play a few “country songs”: “Taken,” the final single from Saves the World, and new track “Kind of Girl.” After “I Know a Place,” the only song played from the band’s debut, About U, MUNA closed their portion of the evening with “Silk Chiffon,” their latest single and first song since the announcement of their signing to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records. Although the studio version of the track features Phoebe herself, MUNA fans in attendance (who very possibly began as fans of Bridgers) seemed to want for nothing when shouting along with the Americana jam.
It’s not often that we get to see artists as amazingly admirable (and perpetually characterized as “indie,” despite the fact that their last full-length came courtesy of RCA) as MUNA in such a setting, but it is actually the band’s third area appearance on a mega-stage in the past six months (Last September they opened the Mann Center on back-to-back nights, for Ms. Bridgers and Bleachers, respectively.) And while many of their more recent fans may now be longing to see them return to the stage of Johnny Brenda’s for their first experience seeing the band in such an intimate space, it’s looking like that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon…
