On New Years Eve New Yorks Highline Ballroom hosted two separate shows which focused in improvisational music: The Join and U-Melt. For this performance, The Joins lineup consisted of New Deal drummer Darren Shearer and keyboardist Jamie Shields, The Benevento Russo Duo and, at various points throughout the night, American Babies/Brothers Past guitarist Tom Hamilton (who celebrated his birthday from the stage that night). The group performed two sets of completely improvisational electronic music that nodded to The Duo, but felt more akin to the New Deal. The evenings most recognizable selection was an instrumental cover of The Flaming Lips W.A.N.D. from 2006s At War with the Mystics.

The Joins performance ended at approximately 12:15 AM and the stage was quickly cleared to make room for a headlining performance by U-Melt. The gig marked U-Melts 4th consecutive late night New Years Eve performance in New York and first at the Highline. As previously confirmed, moe.‘s Jim Loughlin joined the quartet for the majority of their 3.5 hour set, performing on ‘Carne,’ ‘The Fantastical Flight of Captain Delicious, ‘A Robbins Tale 1 & 2’, ‘The Eternal Groove ‘ and ‘Elysian Fields,’ as well as covers of Frank Zappa’s ‘Dancin’ Fool’ and U-Melts first stab at Seal’s ‘Crazy.’ For an encore, U-Melt treated fans to a rendition of Kool & The Gang’s ‘Get Down On It’.
Though their show ended a little passed 6:00 AM on New Year’s Day, U-Melt returned to the stage just a few hours later, when they had the honor of being the very first band to perform at the newly redesigned and renamed Sullivan Hall. U-Melt played a short set before their friends Tea Leaf Green closed out the clubs opening night. U-Melt has also recently confirmed their initial Winter Tour schedule, which will begin at Madison, WIs High Noon Saloon on January 23. From there, U-Melt will travel to Minneapolis (1/24) and Chicago (1/26), before heading out for their very first tour of Colorado, where they will play 7 consecutive shows including headlining performances at The Fox Theatre in Boulder (1/30) and the brand new Falcon in Denver (2/2). Following this Colorado run, U-Melt will slowly head back to the east coast, making stops in Lawrence, KS (2/6), St. Louis (2/7), Knoxville, TN (2/8) and Asheville, NC (2/9), before heading back north for shows in Northampton, MA (2/21), Ithaca, NY (2/22) and Plains, PA (2/23).