Petey USA at Metro

I’ve been a fan of Petey since his first album Lean Into Life. I’ve played Don’t Tell The Boys at a loud, yelling volume and yelled along. And no one else I knew had heard of him. I’d never had a chance to hear him play live until this week.

I picked up a ticket and no one else was available so I went alone not expecting much, but it was a sold-out show and it was front-to-back packed inside and so it dawned on me that he must have gotten popular. (Yep, in looking more, afterward: he’s now TikTok famous.) It was an album release show for his newest stuff, so they played the whole album through. It’s a bit slower and more somber than his earliest album I fell in love with, so I was happy but not “hell yeah” until they came back out for the encore and played my three favorites back to back and left the crowd chanting and charged up. I got what I wanted.

The opener was Chicago-local Pet Symmetry whom I’ve missed until now somehow. They sound like a modern Motion City Soundtrack and so of course I loved that.