Skating Polly / Gully Boys w/ Sticky Bangs @ The Duck Room at Blueberry Hill

Last Sunday Skating Polly and Gully Boys brought their co-headliner tour to the Duck Room at Blueberry Hill. Opening for the bands was local band Sticky Bangs.

I have been a fan of Skating Polly since around 2013. I was going to see them at The Firebird back in 2013 but ended up getting tonsillitis and was unable to make the show. The following year I almost took a four hour detour while on a cross country road trip to see them in Reno, Nevada but was not sure if it would put me behind and not make it home in time to go back to work (I should have went as I was back two days early). I finally was able to catch them live in 2017 when they opened for X and have tried to catch them every time they are in town. For years the band consisted of sister duo Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse, but later added their brother Kurtis Mayo on drums for a fuller sound.

I was not familiar with the Minneapolis-based band Gully Boys when I saw they were tour mates with Skating Polly so in the weeks leading up to the show listened to them a lot on my way to and from work. Much like Skating Polly they draw a lot of influence from 90s grunge rock and have done a a fantastic cover of ‘Violet‘ by Hole. Stand out songs were their latest single ‘Love Me 2′, ‘The Way‘ (a song the lead singer Kathy Callahan asked the crowd to scream “I Hate It Here” during the refrain), and the set closer ‘Neopet Graveyard ‘. The band consisting of Kathy Callahan (singer and guitar), Natalie Klemond (Bassist), Nadirah McGill (drummer), and Mariah Mercedes (guitar) formed in 2016 and currently working on releasing their debut LP.

Having seen Skating Polly five times before tonight I knew I was in for a great show. The band kicked things off ‘Singalong’, ‘All the Choices’, and ‘Man Out There‘ off their 2023 album Chaos County Line. What I was not expecting from the night was the song ‘Carrots‘ of their 2013 album Lost Wonderfuls. Kelli Mayo said that they stopped playing the song because she thought that people only liked the song because they thought that it was stupid. Standout songs of the night were ‘Nothing More Than a Body’, ‘Pretective Boy’, ‘Hail Mary’, and closer ‘Camelot’.

Gully Boys