Courtney Marie Andrews

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7PM - Doors

8PM - The Brother Brothers

9PM - Courtney Marie Andrews

COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS

You can’t water old flowers. Yes, you fall in love, you make mistakes, and so do they. You run through blackberry fields in the summer of your youth, dream in passenger seats gazing past towns and fields, imagining a future life where everything works out. I fell head over heels in love at nineteen. The kind of love where you call up your best friend and say, “I think I’ve found my soulmate.” The pull towards that first true love is strong. It consumes you, makes you question your own dreams.

We taught each other, grew up together, we were family. We fit just right, for a time. Then one day, after a long and rocky nine year road, life changed and became a complicated mess too hard to untangle. We couldn’t get our love back, no matter how many dreams that shadowed this hard truth. We grew resentful, selfish, harboring past mistakes and holding them up like armor from every blow. We grew up and our paths diverted. 

On New Year’s Day, 2018, a great horned owl dropped dead at my exes’ feet in my mother’s yard. It felt like a daunting omen, ushering on change for the both of us. We were distraught. We couldn’t afford the taxidermy, so we placed it in a big blue plastic garbage bin. Now it felt so cheap, that mystic creature in a plastic coffin. That’s how love feels sometimes – like we don’t serve it the ending it deserves. 

The omen was true. That year, I started to see the woman I could be, the woman I wasn’t yet. Anytime I felt like myself, I was alone and wandering, and I knew that was a sign that it was time for change. New Year’s Day 2019, I said goodbye to my first true love and moved across the country. Losing someone you spend every day for nearly a decade with is intense. We talked in our dreams. I knew where he was, even before I entered a place. He’d always be there if I had a feeling. Humans are connected in unexplainable ways.

I was writing a lot after we broke up as a healing technique, preserving each memory like an emotional archaeologist. Late one night, I woke up from a dream where I was searching for him, my ex, at a carnival. It was so vivid. I woke myself up to write a song on my piano. The next morning, he reached out to me for the first time in months. We went out, had a drink, caught up, and he told me that the hardest part about our separation was a reoccurring nightmare where he searched for me at a carnival. In that moment, I knew, humans have ways of connecting beyond words and touch. I truly believe that. We had the same dream, without seeing each other for months. 

Even with all the mystic symbolism that year presented, this is an age-old story I can’t make up. We fall in love, we grow up, we change, and they don’t change with us. ‘Old Flowers’ is about heartbreak. There are a million records and songs about that, but I did not lie when writing these songs. This album is about loving and caring for the person you know you can’t be with. It’s about being afraid to be vulnerable after you’ve been hurt. It’s about a woman who is alone, but okay with that, if it means truth.

This was my truth this year – my nine year relationship ended, and I’m a woman alone in the world, but happy to know herself.

These songs came to me alone, late nights in Bisbee, Lisbon, Nashville, and London. Sometimes I’d just cry and sing, and a song would come out. I drank too much wine while writing this record, lit too many candles. You could say this was my attempt to summon the muse, but that’s bullshit, because she was just standing there naked looking me in the eyes. So I told her the truth.

This is my story of the most heartbreaking, but soul-revealing, year of my life. I drove myself mad. I drove to the smoky mountains just to drive back. I danced with a Portuguese boxer and cried on his shoulder in a Fado cafe. I did everything an artist is “supposed to do.” But at the end of the day, beyond all the romance, these songs are my truth. I think they might be yours too. 

THE BROTHER BROTHERS

The Brother Brothers are the indie folk duo of Adam and David Moss. The identical twins were born and raised in Peoria, Illinois and originally based in Brooklyn, but have been ultimately and profoundly shaped by indiscriminate rambling. They are the kind of people who have a story about everything, and moreso, one you might genuinely like to hear.

Plopped atop virtuosic musicianship and enlivened by true blood harmonies, these stories come to life on the band’s stunning sophomore album Calla Lily, produced by Grammy-nominated Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Brandi Carlile, Vance Joy). According to American Songwriter, “Calla Lily proves that no matter what musical context Adam and David Moss may come to put themselves in, what the duo want to say through music will always come to show the beauty that exists—even in the deepest cracks—of human living.” Proclaims No Depression, “the warm harmonies and silky melodies of identical twins David and Adam Moss evoke the kind of ’60s-era folk tunes that reverberated through dark, wood-paneled bars in the Village… If these brothers aren’t among the Americana Music Association’s nominees for Emerging Artist or Duo-Group, I want a recount.”

The Brother Brothers’ luminous touring career spans international headlining, support runs with the likes of I’m With Her, Big Thief, Lake Street Dive, and Shakey Graves, as well as key plays at NPR’s Mountain Stage, FreshGrass Festival, Folk Alliance, Woodford Folk, Nelsonville Music Festival, and Edmonton Folk among others.

In accordance with Philadelphia's citywide mandate, attendees will be required to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination for entry to all Johnny Brenda's events. Please note that negative PCR / antigen test results will not be accepted. We ask that you bring your vaccination card, a copy of your vaccination card, or a legible photo of your vaccination card on your phone. Full vaccination must be completed at least 14 days prior to the date of the event. If you are unable or unwilling to provide proof of vaccination, we will refund your tickets in full. Please feel free to e-mail us at [email protected] with any questions or concerns.

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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, United States