On Thursday night, The Peach Festival kicked off, marking the start of one of the most highly anticipated music festivals of the summer. While today will see the festival expand to three stages by opening the Grove Stage, Thursday night still offered fans plenty of music to enjoy across the Peach and Mushroom Stage, the latter which was held down by Harrison Waxenberg of Horizon Wireless who recently released a sensational jam-band remix album.

To kick off the festivities, The Marcus King Band started things off with a fiery, soulful performance, followed up by bluegrass act Cabinet, who came out of their recent indefinite hiatus to perform for The Peach crowd. Ahead of New York-based funk act Turkuaz and Vermont-born jam quartet Twiddle closing out the Peach Stage, the fan-favorite jam-funk fusion group out of Baltimore, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, took the stage and offered a high-octane performance of their own.

As to be expected at festivals where numerous artists are on deck before and after their sets, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong took advantage of the musicians who were joining them on the Thursday lineup for The Peach. After electrifying takes on “Whoopie” and “Porcupine” to start the set, Pigeons invited out The Royal Horns—the young standout horn section for The Marcus King Band—for the group’s energized classic “F.U.”, with the horns’ presence hinting at another special guest who would join the band later in the evening.

With the departure of The Royal Horns, the band moved through two additional fan-favorite numbers, “Havana” and “Julia”, easily enrapturing the crowd with their fun-loving and propulsive sound. However, one of the truly standout moments of the set was the band’s take on “Lightning”, which saw the group welcome Marcus King. Predictably, the performance was exactly as you’d expect, with Pigeons guitarist Jeremy Schon and the young guitar prodigy going off and exchanging fiery solos during the song’s jam portion.

“Lightning” with Marcus King

[Video: Christopher Snyder]

Continuing with the momentum built during Marcus King’s surprise sit-in, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong launched into a “Fade Fast” sandwich, using the tune to house two energetic and nostalgic tracks from The Jungle Book that the band debuted during their Disney-themed New Year’s Eve show in Covington. Jamming through “Bare Necessities” and “I Wanna Be Like You”, the band eventually jammed back into “Fade Fast” before closing out their performance at The Peach Music Festival in full with a rendition of “Fun in Funk”.

You can also watch a full stream of Pigeons’ explosive set below, courtesy of Michael Liacos.

Setlist: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong | The Peach Music Festival | Scranton, PA | 7/19/2018

Set: Whoopie, Porcupine, FU*, Somethin’ 4 Ya, Havana, Julia, Lightning^, Fade Fast > I Wanna Be Like You > Bare Necessities > I Wanna Be Like You > Jam > Fade Fast, Fun in Funk

Notes: * The Royal Horns sit in | ^Marcus King sit in

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong – The Peach Festival 2018 – Part 1

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong – The Peach Festival 2018 – Part 2