Kurt Vile makes surprise appearance during Beach House show at Johnny Brenda's

The Mount Airy-based musician was the opening act in Fishtown on Tuesday for a last-minute show that sold out in minutes

Kurt Vile was the surprise opening act Tuesday night during Beach House's show at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia.
Thom Carroll/For PhillyVoice

Kurt Vile made a surprise appearance Tuesday during the Beach House concert at Johnny Brenda's. 

Over the weekend, Baltimore band Beach House announced a show at Johnny Brenda's, with tickets going on sale day of and featuring a mystery opener. Come showtime, hometown favorite Vile showed up at the venue, which seats 250 people. Phones were barred from the event, so there aren't any videos of the show, but fans took to the internet with their love for the performance. 


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One fan posted the setlist that Vile played, which included "Turtle Island," "Pay No Mind," "Rough Song," "Master of None" and others. 

While tickets were sold online, they were not distributed digitally in an effort to avoid reselling. Attendees had to go to will call and match the credit card they used to buy the tickets with an ID to get inside Johhn Brenda's. 

"Apologies if this is inconvenient, we are just trying to make sure no scalpers have a merry christmas on our supporter’s hard earned money," the band wrote in an Instagram post

Shane Savitsky, editor for Axios Philadelphia, attended the show. 

"There's nothing quite like knowing a show is going to be legendary while it's happening," he wrote. "The fact that the audience abided by the band's hard 'no phones' rule made it that much more incredible."

Beach House last played Philadelphia in 2022 at The Met.