By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times
The Boston-based band also has a lot of devoted fans in the Delaware Valley – fans who are delighted that they can add a concert by the band to their Labor Day Weekend activities.
On September 4, Big D and the Kids Table will headline a concert at MilkBoy Philly (1100 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, 215- 925-6455, www.milkboyphilly.com).
Key members of the band are founding member David McWane (vocals) along with Ryan O’Connor (tenor saxophone), Matt Appleton (tenor and baritone saxophone) and Alex Stern (guitar).
The band just released its latest album, “The Good Ole American Saturday Night,” a few months ago via SideOneDummy Records.
“The new album came out in April,” said McWane, during a phone interview Thursday evening from a tour stop in Washington, D.C. “It’s our 12th album.
“We finished recording it in 2025 and then had to wait a little while until it came out. The album was recorded in different sessions.
“We were touring a lot and then realized – ‘time is going by…we need to make a new record.’ So, we just got in the studio whenever we had time off the road.”
The album was produced by Joe Gittleman (the founding bassist of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, a Boston-based ska-punk band) and the band’s Matt Appleton (also saxophone, keyboards, vocals for Reel Big Fish, a ska-punk band from Huntington Beach, California.)
The new disc was also engineered by Appleton. It was recorded at Madoak Studio in Alston, Massachusetts and The Station recording studio in Vermont.
“We did the drums at Madoak,” said McWane. “It’s a great studio. It’s close to where we live and it has a really good drum sound.
“The rest was recorded at The Studio, which has a nice band house to stay in. We like to sleep over at the studio and then get together and record every day.”
Fans had to wait a while for this album to arrive.
The band’s previous album was “Do Your Art,” which was released via SideOneDummy Records in 2021.
“Some of the songs on the new album were written when we were recording ‘Do Your Art’, which was also produced by Matt (Appleton)” said McWane. “The rest were worked out at different stages.”
In 30 years, the band has more than 30 members come and go. The current nine-piece lineup kicks ass as well or better than any previous incarnation.
“Everybody in the band is awesome,” said McWane. “We really love each other. This is the longest-running lineup for the band.
“We try to encourage everybody to write. We don’t necessarily have just one person writing the songs. Quite a few of the songs are written in the rehearsal room.
“A lot of us went to Berklee (Boston’s Berklee College of Music) where we learned about learning from each other.”
McWane graduated from Berklee with two degrees –
Music Production and Engineering (MP&E) and Bachelor of Music in Music Business/Management.
His resume also includes five books of self-published poetry, prose, fiction and personal stories – “Kringle,” “Modern American Gypsy,” “Chalk,” “The Gypsy Mile” and “Biting Lightening, Bloody Mary.”
“The Good Ole American Saturday Night” finds the longtime ska-punk innovators firing on all cylinders more than 30 years into their career.
The album moves seamlessly between high-energy ska-punk anthems, laid-back reggae grooves, heartfelt songwriting, and massive singalong choruses.
Drawing inspiration from every chapter of the band’s catalog — from the punk urgency of “Good Luck” to the reggae influence of “Strictly Rude” — the record celebrates individuality, creativity, community, and finding joy during challenging times.
Led by the singles “Whiplash,” “Right Now,” and “Scatterbrain,” the new album has earned an enthusiastic reception from fans and critics alike.
“The Good Ole American Saturday Night” has a thread that links the new songs.
“There is kind of a theme,” said McWane. “In the past, we did songs with political and topical themes.
“With all the crazy things going on today, we said to ourselves – ‘we need to back up.’ We didn’t need to preach to the choir. So, we focused more on songs of hope.”
The band has embarked on a rigorous tour schedule for the fall with eight shows in the Northeast.
The tour launched August 27 in New York City and included dates throughout the East Coast with Matamoska, followed by four October shows in Tecate, Monterrey, Guadalajara, and Mexico City.
The band will then tour the northeastern U.S., Canada, and Midwest with Devon Kay & The Solutions before wrapping up with two special “A Nightmare Before Halloween” shows featuring The Pietasters in Asbury Park and Boston.
“We’re just ending up the first leg,” said McWane. “We’ll take a break and then go to Mexico. It will be our second Mexican tour in 10 years.”
Big D and the Kids Table have a long history of shows in the area.
“We’ve played Philly a lot over the years,” said McWane. “Some of the venues we’ve played are Milkboy, TLA and the Troc.
“It was weird one of the nights we played the Troc. There was gum — chewed gum – stuck to all the trees outside the venue. They covered the trees – up-an-down and all around.
“I never saw anything like it before. I have no idea what it was all about.”
Fortunately, it was not about Big D and the Kids Table.
Chewing gum walls have become increasingly popular in major tourism cities across the world, with the bacteria-laden phenomenon thought to have started in the early nineties in Seattle.
When it comes to being one of the most unhygienic attractions in the world, the gum mural, which is located in an alley close to Seattle’s foodie hotspot Pike Place Market now eclipses even Ireland’s Blarney Stone — where tourists are invited to kiss a 330-million-year-old carboniferous limestone for good luck — for germ potential.
In 2020, Seattle’s gum wall measured eight feet in height and more than 54 feet wide with an estimated one million pieces of chewed gum stuck to it.
Fortunately for Big D and the Kids Table, there are no trees near Milkboy.
The band’s fans won’t get gum trees on Friday night but they will get a tasty selection of songs recorded over the past here decades by Big D and the Kids Table.
“It’s hard to make a set list when you’re working with 30 years of recorded songs,” said McWane, whose band’s discography includes a dozen LPs.
“We do a block of three songs from each album. This is our first tour for the new album so we’re doing six songs from it – which is quite a lot. We’ve never before put that many new songs in a set.
“We play the three singles – ‘Whiplash,’ ‘Right Now’ and ‘Scatterbrain’– and three other songs from ‘The Good Ole American Saturday Night.’ The new songs are getting a great reaction.”
The show at Milkboy on September 4, which features Matamoska as the opening act, will start at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $34.41 ($25 + $9.41 fees).
Other upcoming shows at Milkboy are Brown Horse with Sweet Petunia on September 6, Two Runner with Dan Wriggins on September 8 and Shiner with Bursting and Sleep Tactics on September 9.
The intriguing new Paranormal Cirque production, which is intended for a mature audience, is touching down at two area locations over the next few weeks.Primarily, the Big Top will take up residence on the grounds of the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center (100 Station Avenue, Oaks, 484-754-3976, https://paranormalcirque.com) from September 4-7. It will also visit the York Exposition Center (334 Carlisle Avenue, York) from September 18-21.
Paranormal Cirque will expose audiences to a unique creation of combined theatre, circus, and cabaret with a new European style flare.
This innovative horror story, which is presented in true circus style under a Big Top tent, features different shades of sexy and an incomparable storyline.
Audiences likely will find it difficult to separate reality from illusion at this show as they fall into a parallel world and end up surrounded by monstrous creatures with hidden talents.
Currently, Paranormal Cirque has four tours running –Paranormal Cirque Voodoo, Paranormal Cirque Inferno, Paranormal Cirque Nightmare, and Paranormal Cirque III. The tour Specter visiting our area is Paranormal Cirque Specter.
Paranormal Cirque’s “Clown Castle” (also known as the Big Top) presents a mesmerizing effect while hosting a two-hour hypnotizing and enchanted show.
A careful casting selection has united the best artists from all over the world.
Under this Clown Castle, which is a black and red big top tent, there are aerial straps, hand balancing, single trapeze, aerial chains, juggling, high wire, roller skating, hair hang, aerial silks, comedy and Wheel of Death — all the elements that make one think of a “normal” circus.
But this circus is anything but normal.
There are contortionists, illusionists, freaks, lyra, burlesque dancing and mysterious creatures — all the elements that make one think of a “paranormal” circus…a circus unlike anything you’ve seen before.
A new show with breathtaking implications always poised between fun and the most uninhibited fear that will transport you to a dark world inhabited by creatures with incredible circus art abilities.
A crazy yet fun fusion between circus, theatre, and cabaret in perfect harmony with the evolution of a show that brings you back to when we dream … and when we had nightmares and fantasies.
Video link for Paranormal Cirque — https://youtu.be/UxVYV1WZCk4.
Ticket prices start at $30.
This will be the second weekend for “Hershey Felder & Jonathan Silvestri — Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” at People’s Light (39 Conestoga Road, Malvern, www.peopleslight.org)
Hershey Felder, who created the show “Monsieur Chopin” at People’s Light in 2025, returns to Malvern in his newest hit.
Felder stars as the virtuoso pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor, regarded as one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Renowned for sweeping melodies, lush harmonies, and emotional depth, he is celebrated for works like “Piano Concerto No. 3,” “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” and “Symphony No. 2.”
Overcoming early career setbacks, notably the failed premiere of his First Symphony, he achieved redemption through therapy that inspired his most famous concerto.
Exiled after the 1917 Russian Revolution, he settled in the United States, focusing on his career as a pianist while composing fewer works, leaving an enduring legacy as a performer and composer whose recordings and compositions remain central to the repertoire.
“Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” features the most beloved compositions by this last great representative of Russian romanticism, including “Prelude in C# Minor” and the “2nd Piano Concerto.”
Video link for “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” — https://youtu.be/xVe-bUdlGmE?si=b1BuFS6_Ry_3luxF.
The new show at People’s Light is running now through September 20. Ticket prices start at $59.
Kennett Flash (102 Sycamore Alley, Kennett Square, 484-732-8295, http://www.kennettflash.org) is hosting Sugar Lime Blue on September 5.
Uptown! Knauer Performing Arts Center (226 North High Street, West Chester, www.uptownwestchester.org) is presenting AM Radio Tribute Band on September 5.
Longwood Gardens (1001 Longwood Drive, Kennett Square, Longwoodgardens.org) will host a “DJ Jazzy Jeff: Fountain Party” on September 9.
Jamey’s House of Music (32 South Lansdowne Avenue, Lansdowne, 215-477-9985, www.jameyshouseofmusic.com) is presenting John Ferrara on September 4, Scuffletown on September 5 and the Philly Blues Kings with Clarence Spady on September 6.
2026 Concerts Under the Stars series at the Upper Merion Township Building Park (175 West Valley Forge Road, King of Prussia, www.concertsunderthestarskop.com) will have “Collie Buddz – Spark Up Summer Tour” with SensaMotion + DJ Proud on September 4 and Splintered Sunlight (Grateful Dead Tribute) on September 5.
Elkton Music Hall (107 North Street, Elkton, Maryland, www.elktonmusichall.com) presents “First Impression Band: Tribute to Classic Progressive Rock” on September 5.
