"This is our first fucking show in 14 years," Be Your Own Pet's Jonas Stein told the crowd at East Village club Heaven Can Wait. After a pregnant pause he added, "We're not nervous!" The Nashville indie rock band, who made a splash in the mid-'00s, signed to Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace and suffered from too-much-too-soon burnout, are back together at the behest of Jack White, who wanted them to open a few dates of his solo tour, the first of those being tonight (4/21) at Brooklyn's Barclays Center. The show at Heaven Can Wait was a warm-up, announced only a few hours earlier on Wednesday.
Jitters aside, Be Your Own Pet sounded great and seemed to be having a good time at this very intimate show. (Heaven Can Wait, which until a month ago was known as East Berlin, and Coney Island Baby before that, holds about 200 people.) Their set included "Becky," "Adventure," "Bicycle Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle," "Bummer Time," "The Kelly Affair," "Super Soaked," "Fuuuuuun" and more. There was no "Damn Damn Leash" but they did play "October, First Account" live for the first time ever.