Punks decorated in clown makeup filed into the New Paltz VFW Post on Feb. 24, ready to jump and collide to the alternative sounds of Sir Echo. They came for Cirque de Sir Echo: a sold-out celebration of lead singer Amelia Allen’s birthday and the release of the band’s new single, “Venison.” The event, co-organized by Doors at Seven and Loudhouse, featured an exuberant lineup of music, drag, tarot and more.
Local bands Imposters and PTCHWRK were featured in the lineup alongside Massachusetts-based bands Trash Rabbit and Nailed Shut. Although Sir Echo has played sold-out rooms and basements before, this was their first official sold-out show. “It means that there were 150 people that knew they wanted to be there,” Allen said. “We’re really just excited and thankful for everybody’s support.”
Upon arrival, the audience was greeted with tables of vendors lining the walls. Millions of Butterflies sold baked goods in support of the local free food fridge, as Crimson Cat Co. turned punks into clowns with face paintings at the door. Showgoers stopped by their table for tarot readings and grabbed merch from the various bands playing in between sets.
PTCHWRK, led by Doors at Seven’s own Noelle Janasiewicz, started off the night with songs from their unreleased EP. They urged the crowd closer, bringing the energy up for the bands to follow. In between sets, drag artist Freddie Bender performed on the other end of the room, lip syncing and twirling to songs such as “Mama” by My Chemical Romance while the bands tuned and mic-checked in the background. When Trash Rabbit began playing, the crowd shifted their attention back to the front and shouted along to their songs in rhythm. For those of age, the venue had bars both upstairs and downstairs; but most patrons rocked along to the music with no drink in hand. Imposters played next, introducing piano into the rock-heavy lineup. Allen joined the band at the front of the room, singing over the heavy, distorted guitar of their song “Empathy.”
By the time Sir Echo started playing their unreleased song “Simmer,” the room’s energy was skyrocketing. The audience screamed back the lyrics to “Venison,” even though it had only been released the day before. The crowd’s unbridled energy centralized in the moshpit, where people threw themselves against each other and crowd-surfed the tangle of arms. The band ended their set with a mashup of “B*tch Better Have My Money” by Rihanna and “FSU” by Fidlar, sending everyone further into a frenzy.
The crowd came together to send off Allen with the “Happy Birthday” song before they anxiously awaited the last band, Nailed Shut. “Wake the f*** up New Paltz!” the hardcore band screamed, reviving the moshpit one last time before curfew at 10 p.m. After one last call for merch, the clowns and mimes of the night headed out, satiated from the hours of live music.
“There are no words to describe what happened at Cirque de Sir Echo,” Sir Echo posted on Instagram. “It was electric, a sacred night.”
Despite the success of the event, the band is looking to focus on releasing music over live performances in the coming months. Last year, they performed nearly 70 live shows.
“We looked back at that and said let’s dial back the shows a little bit and focus more on recording and writing and putting more songs out. I think that’s important for us at the moment, just being able to get more tunes out there for people to connect to,” said guitarist Jeremy Stene.
Their new single “Venison” is only their first release this year, and the band has already started recording more songs. Being a crowd favorite, it felt natural that “Venison” would be their next release.
“We love playing it. I think lyrically it’s one of our stronger songs as well, it’s got more of a backbone to it,” Allen said.
The song begins with a heavy, catchy guitar riff and fast-paced drums that fall into silence when Allen sings the first line. She immediately grabs the listener’s attention with the visual of “lungs like dirty laundry lint.” Songwriters Stene and Allen go on to depict unhealthy coping mechanisms within a relationship gone wrong. Wordy lines like “a crazed paradoxical, parasitical nuisance” are reminiscent of early Panic! At The Disco, and the song structure overall takes inspiration from music of the 2000s. The driven guitar and building drums leave space for the lyrics to make an impact, manifesting in the angsty repetition of the last lines of the song.
“It’s a story about when you get so far into a relationship and you lose so much of yourself, you forget who you are at your core,” Allen said. “Then you get out of it and you just remember who you were as a little kid and your interests and just find yourself again after that point in time.”
Creating their songs entirely on their own lends to more challenges and pressure in the recording process. The band spent multiple recording sessions at West West Side Music making the song perfect.
“The last four songs we have out are really good, but we’ve found our direction a little bit more since those four songs,” drummer David Stingle said. “So I felt a bit of pressure on this song to be like, ‘Hello, this is our new direction. This is what we actually sound like.’ Even though it’s not too different and it still fits in with the other songs.”
Although they haven’t announced new music just yet, new Sir Echo releases are on the horizon. While fans learn the lyrics to “Venison” and await the next announcement, they can see the band play live again on Friday, March 1 for WRONG COAST’s release show at St. Andrews.
To stay up to date with Sir Echo, follow their Instagram @sirechoband.