Public - Sweet Lemonade (EP)

Music You Might Want to Consider - P

As a music fan, I’m reticent to dive all in on a new artist. Blame it on old age. Blame it on outdated standards. Blame it on the rain.

Yeah. Yeah.

So if I do develop a respect for a new artist, enough respect to warrant a recommendation, it’s no easy feat. Public is one of those rare exceptions.

I’ve written extensively about the night I first heard them already, so I won’t rehash it. But basically, they’re a Cincinatti band that opened for Twenty One Pilots in Columbus. They were a three piece rock/pop band that hadn’t quite “made it” yet, so they did everything that they could to ingratiate themselves to a rabid fanbase that didn’t even know who they were.

Opening acts have a tough go of it a lot of the time. Nobody is really there to see them play; they are basically a stop gap for people to find their seats.

Public didn’t let that phase them. They played a fun set of original music, and came off like stars. My boys and I dug them.

As we were leaving the venue, we walked past the merch tables, and much to my surprise, the members of the band were just hanging out, selling their own stuff, and chatting with fans. We bought a few copies of the Sweet Lemonade EP, got some autographs, and my kids got a picture with them.

Are they famous now? Maybe. I don’t pay attention to the radio. If they are, we have photographic proof that we knew them when.

The EP itself is a mix of funky guitars and eighties-era synth hooks. The opening track, “4Her”, is a fun ode to unrequited love, the fear of rejection that we all face at least once in our lives. The stylized “I<3U” is the highlight of the EP, starting off slow, building to a crescendo, a feverish dance beat that is betrayed by the lyrics about lost love and regret.

Public is a band that can only get better with age. They’ve released multiple singles since that night, and even went viral when their song, “Make you Mine” was featured in a wedding proposal video. I look forward to a full length album, just not sure when that will be.