DCB Day went down at Bowery Ballroom – 1/4
Appreciators of the late David Berman gathered at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom earlier this month to celebrate the legacy of the Silver Jews/Purple Mountains frontman.
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In a fairly abnormal occurrence, my final show of 2025 and first of 2026 both took place not only outside of Boston, but at the same room in NYC. Like December’s Yo La Tengo Hanukkah residency (though not so long-tenured), DCB Day has become a winter fixture at the Bowery Ballroom – which is precisely why I hadn’t made it to one prior to this year. The tribute to beloved songwriter and poet David Berman has taken place on his birthday – January 4th – for the past several years, which is typically not long after I’ve already spent a stretch of time in New York for YLT. But sometimes you just have to throw reason out the window, book another Amtrak and get to the gig anyway.
The fact that my Boston pals Hallelujah the Hills were set to feature in this year’s proceedings certainly helped to sway that call, and Hills anchored the night with one of two lengthier sets alongside Baltimore’s Majesties. Frequent collaborator Ezra Furman sat in for the majority of the former, joining frontman Ryan Walsh on vocals for a collection of Silver Jews favorites highlighted by Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea‘s “Suffering Jukebox” (a top-10 Berman tune in my book). Majesties also brought the heat, hitting some essentials on their own and welcoming Friendship’s Dan Wriggins for “Punks in the Beerlight” (another personal fav) among others.
Elsewhere on the bill, Charlottesville’s The C’Mon Children delivered some vintage Berman-penned tunes that never made it to tape, the inimitable avant-guitarist Yonatan Gat reworked Purple Mountains’ “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” into a majestic, droning soundscape, local poets gave readings from Berman’s collection Actual Air, and other friends and fans popped in to give their interpretation of a song or two.
Given what limited performing Silver Jews did back in the day, and the fact that a planned Purple Mountains tour never came to pass, it feels like a rare and special thing to gather for a night of real, live David Berman music – particularly when everyone on stage clearly shares the same love for these songs as the audience. Berman’s passing was a heartbreak that still stings seven years later, but communal nights of bittersweet singalongs like these are proof that his words and work remain vibrant and vital even in his absence.
Scroll below for a gallery from the evening.
