featured photo from NYS Music
Racing Mount Pleasant Live In New York
On January 26, 2026, Racing Mount Pleasant, an orchestral-leaning, indie-folk band, performed to a sold-out crowd at Bowery Ballroom amidst a New York City snowstorm and record-low temperatures. This was a day when work across the city was cancelled, as people bundled up inside to find warmth and avoid the foot-high snow that covered the usually bustling sidewalks. As I stood back-to-back in the crowd, it was obvious that despite these extreme weather conditions, fan dedication persevered.
Something about this combination made the air thick with a sense of community, a reminder that art and beauty can persevere amidst the chaos and harshness of a New York City winter. It felt like the brink of a cultural movement, like what I imagine it must have been to watch emerging New York City talent like The Velvet Underground in the 1970s or The Strokes in the 1990s — a sense that you were at the center of something important.
If you were wondering, I can confirm the band’s audience demographic is primarily tall men in big sweaters. I must admit out front that due to this fact, this may not be the most comprehensive concert review, as I could not see the stage at all (I am 5-feet tall for reference). However, I promise that my ears were definitely working, perhaps even stronger than usual due to cross-modal plasticity, when one sense is cut off, the others are heightened. In all seriousness, do not worry because I did catch glimpses of the stage through the relatively sparse (and surprisingly so for this day and age) iPhone camera footage.
The 7-piece band opens the set with a new and unreleased song, an unusual move but one that did not disappoint. Racing Mount Pleasant is one of the only bands that can keep momentum just as high with new music at a live show because the instrumentation and “choreography” of the music is so mesmerizing. This band truly comes to life on the stage. That’s not to say that their songs don’t jump off the Indie Folk Spotify playlist, because they do; but, the full sound cannot be grasped until you hear them live.
They follow with “Emily”, a personal favorite. It was so good I had to take out my Loops. The song opens slowly, with a swaying violin riff and a centered lead vocal, painting the picture of a winter day in Chicago. In these quieter moments of the set, it somehow feels like it’s just you and lead singer Sam DuBose, rather than you standing in a room full of 500 people. It feels like one of those movie scenes where time slows down as the crowd fades into the distance, and the main character hones in on one person.
The song picks up as DuBose emotionally sings, “And the scorching cold of that November night will be forever more”. Suddenly, the horns section becomes front facing as the vocals fade to the back of the mix. At this point, the crowd is head-bopping like crazy and in complete sync as the drums fade in and out. The horns come in at the perfect time.
By the fifth song of the setlist, “Your New Place,” the band has really found their stride and is ready to hit the ground running. This 7-minute song feels like the epitome of Racing Mount Pleasant — slow and intimate, big and cinematic, instrumental, but lyrically eloquent. At this point, the crowd is as energetic as it can be for an indie folk concert; they are near jumping off the ground midway through as the instrumentals pick up. By the end of the song, DuBose is putting everything he can into the vocals. As he nearly shouts, “Your hands in mine,” it seems as though he might break down right there.
This is my second time seeing the band, the first time being at their show just two months earlier Baby’s All Right. After which, the band went on to open for Geese at the Brooklyn Paramount alongside Dove Ellis. What really struck me the first time I saw them, and even more the second time, is how in sync everything is. You can see it on the band members’ faces as they study one another to get their timing completely right. It is obvious that the show has been meticulously rehearsed, but in a way that still leaves room for the spontaneous nature of music to come to life on the stage. At the heart of this timing is drummer Casey Cheatham, flawlessly but also humbly leading the charge from the back center stage. The chemistry between DuBose and Cheatham jumps off the stage as he studies her movements to get the rhythm guitar perfectly in sync.
As the show goes on, it seems that these instrumentalists know no bounds, as violinist Kasey Chown swaps out an intense violin solo for an acoustic guitar and plucks a complex fingerpicking pattern for “You” and “You pt.2”, and bassist Tyler Thenstedt and the three horn players, Callum Roberts, Connor Hoyt and Samuel Uribe Botero, add harmonies to several of the songs.
Throughout the set, the band lets the energy ebb and flow, bringing the crowd into a trance-like solemn state just to abruptly shift us into an energetic angst. The horns section seems to signal this change. It is a juxtaposition the audience appreciates as we stand with DuBose on a snowy day and a girl in a cherry-red dress. Then we feel this girl leave the main character, as the song builds and he sings, “Keep me in your heart” during “Snowing, all at once”.
By the time the famous horn riff comes in for the encore song, “Do You Think I’m Pretty,” it is clear that no one in the audience regrets trudging through the foot-high snow and 14-degree weather to go to an optional activity. The climax comes as the crowd shouts in unison “Do you think I’m pretty?” a question so simple but so unifying.
This morning, as I left my apartment and embarked onto the snow-piled New York sidewalk, I passed five strangers shoveling a car out of the middle of an intersection. The crowd cheered as they freed the vehicle from the dangerous situation. One minute later, I watched the group head off in their separate directions, probably never to cross paths again. Racing Mount Pleasant feels like the epitome of this cold winter day — harsh at times, meditative at others, but ultimately bringing the community together.
Rarely, if ever do I leave a concert and immediately listen to the artist’s music. Most of the time, I find that the concert gets their music out of my system in a sense. But as I walked out of the Bowery and raced toward the J train that night, I found myself queuing “Emily” and feeling a cinematic calm wash over me as a fellow concertgoer pulled the doors of the train back open so I could make it on.
Racing Mount Pleasant is the type of concert where you could bring someone with absolutely zero knowledge of the music, and they would walk out a number one fan. This band is winning hearts in the live scene where their years of practice and sound really shines!
Setlist
– New/unreleased
– Emily
– New/unreleased
– Annie
– Your New Place
– Racing Mount Pleasant
– Call It Easy
– New/unreleased
– You
– You pt. 2
– Seminary
– Snowing, All At Once
– Outlast
– Encore: Do you Think I’m Pretty
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