Real Estate, an indie rock quintet with a majority of its members hailing from Ridgewood, New Jersey, played a homecoming show at Terminal 5 in Manhattan on Thursday, October 2 in support of their third and latest album, Atlas. The group, consisting of vocalist/guitarist Martin Courtney, bassist Alex Bleeker, keyboardist Matt Kallman, guitarist Matt Mondanile, and drummer Jackson Pollis contracted friends Regal Degal, Peaking Lights, and DJ Tom Scharpling to help them start off the special night.
Regal Degal
At 8pm, the prerecorded voice of Frankenstein permeated the atmosphere at Terminal 5. After a series of grunts and moans, it finally announced the first opener of the night: Regal Degal.
The Brooklyn-based trio of guitarist Josh da Costa, drummer Jamen Whitelock, and bassist Josiah Wolfson took the night’s crowd by storm with sparkling guitar riffs, pounding drum fills, and wandering basslines. Their songs, most memorably “You’re Ruining My Life” and “Oppressive Living,” filled the venue and its patrons with enthusiasm that carried over into the next two acts and beyond.
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| Regal Degal at Terminal 5 |
Peaking Lights
Next up at 9pm was Peaking Lights, the Californian husband-and-wife duo, Indra Dunis and Aaron Coyes. Bucket hat-clad and dressed in matching horizontal tie-dye prints, the two ravished the crowd with hypnotic beats, flowing effortlessly from one time signature to the next. Dunis’s repetitive yet catchy lyrics stretched perfectly over Coyes’s analog synths. Peaking Lights most certainly brought the heat to Terminal 5 and got its audience even more pumped up for Real Estate to take the stage.
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| Peaking Lights at Terminal 5 |
Real Estate
After being forewarned by DJ Tom Scharpling, also an esteemed comedian, that Real Estate was “in the building” and ready to take the stage, the crowd at Terminal 5 fell to a hush around 10:10pm until the house lights went off. The house music stopped and everyone erupted in screams as the men known as Real Estate walked onto the stage at Hell’s Kitchen’s Terminal 5.
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| Making their mark on Terminal 5 |
Courtney announced to his fans that Real Estate’s biggest headlining show to date was happening in that very moment, and that the band would play its best show ever. After that, the five piece tore into an amazing eighteen-song setlist, covering songs from all three of the band’s albums: Real Estate (2009), Days (2011), and their most recent, Atlas (2014).
Throughout the set, Bleeker showed pride in his musical counterparts and expressed gratitude for his friends, family, and the crowd for coming out and sharing that experience with them. At one point, he even stopped to answer questions from some audience members near stage left. “You want us to play our songs two times faster? Okay,” Bleeker joked with an inquisitive fan. “We’ll try.”
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| Alex Bleeker jamming out during one of Real Estate’s hits |
As the night came to a close, Real Estate headed full force into “It’s Real”, the last song of the set. After the band had all of Terminal 5 sweaty and dancing, they exited the stage for a few minutes only to come back and present its fans with an encore.
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| Real Estate headlining Terminal 5 |
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| Martin Courtney |
Atlas is available on iTunes now.
Setlist:
Green River
Had To Hear
Fake Blues
Horizon
Talking Backwards
Kinder Blumen
Dunes
Past Lives
Crime
Wonder Years
The Bend
Green Aisles
Easy
Younger
It’s Real
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The Chancellor
Basement
Primitive
Written by: Kelly Merrill
Photos by: Kelly Merrill
Photos by: Kelly Merrill