Hamell On Trial + Ruth Theodore + Guy Gibson – Adelphi 40th Anniversary

As good as it gets… ****** 6/5
“Bill Hicks, Hunter S. Thompson and Joe Strummer all rolled into one” Philadelphia Weekly

Ed Hamell of Hamell on Trial is one of the most exciting and brilliant songwriters to come our way in years. The New York-based Hamell is a one-man punk band, and what with his frantically strummed and heavily amplified acoustic guitar and wonderful vocal delivery; simultaneously bleak, touching, and hilarious songs; and propensity for telling long and very amusing anecdotes you won’t even notice he’s up there all by himself. You’ll be too busy laughing, or being moved by the man’s incredible empathy for the damaged, the downtrodden, and the damned.

HAMELL ON TRIAL
Headliner and one-man explosion, Hamell on Trial, is a dynamic performance informed by politics, passion, intelligence and the all-important sense of humor.
Armed with a battered acoustic guitar that he amplifies mightily and strums like a machine gun, a politically astute mind that can’t stop moving, and a mouth that can be profane one minute and profound the next, Hamell’s caustic wit and devil-may-care attitude has long been a favorite of anti-establishment icons Aesop Rock, Kimya Dawson, and has toured extensively with folk legend Ani DiFranco. His performances invoke thoughts of the great, rebellious satirists and social commentators of the past: Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks. There’s no way around his obscenity but in that is a willingness to fight for the free thinkers of the world.

“Bald, bold and superbad!” – Rolling Stone magazine
“one man Tarantino flick: loud, vicious, luridly hilarious, gleefully and deeply offensive” – the Village Voice

+ Ruth Theodore

+ Guy Gibson