Brothers pack ‘Punch’ Wednesday at Auditorium

The inside of the IU Auditorium was thunderous Wednesday. Thunderous in the applause, thunderous in the instrumentals and thunderous in the pounding drive of Chris Thile’s mandolin.

“Hello, Bloomington!” Thile shouted before he and the rest of the Punch Brothers charged into a rousing rendition of “You Are” in front of a lively audience.

The band covered a wide variety of tracks from their prior releases Punch and How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, as well as covers by The Strokes and Radiohead. But, in support of their new album "Antifogmatic," the Punch Brothers stuck with largely new material.

“We’re going to be playing a whole lot of that,” Noam Pikelny, the band’s banjo player, said. “We’ve forgotten mostly everything else.”

The Punch Brothers, founded and helmed by Thile in 2006, will embark on a tour in support of their album “Antifogmatic,” to be released in early June, with stops at Bonnaroo and the Newport Folk Festival.

At their auditorium performance, however, the band was focused purely on the moment, playing a two-hour set and stopping only to re-tune their instruments and engage in some playful banter with each other and the audience.

Freshman Jeff Carlson said he came to the performance with no prior knowledge of the group.

“I wanted to see some of the things the auditorium had to offer,” he said. “I saw a couple shows earlier this year and figured this would be a good time to come back. Even though I didn’t really know anything about it, it was still really fun.”

Julie Warren, a Bloomington native, said she was drawn to the performance because of her interest in bluegrass. She said the Punch Brothers’ performance was a mixture of bluegrass, classical and pop.

“It’s just five guys up there, but there’s lots of tempo change and a lot of energy in their music,” she said. “It’s really cool.”

Another fan, Alex Davidson, said he was thoroughly impressed with the band as a whole although he attended to see Thile in particular.

“I’ve seen Chris Thile before as a solo act, but him with the Punch Brothers — I mean, it’s the complete package,” he said. “The complete bluegrass package.”