We’re not sure what’s cooler, walking down the street and hearing a person randomly playing your song, or playing a band’s song and having the person who wrote it randomly walk by and join in. It’s probably the latter, though given the interaction that happened yesterday (May 31) in downtown Boston, both sides seemed equally thrilled.
Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers, who had the day off before playing Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford tonight and Xfinity Center in Mansfield on Friday, was walking downtown when he passed the Walgreens on School Street. There, Fraites encountered Samuel Spencer, who was playing The Lumineers’ 2016 single “Ophelia” on one of the public Street Pianos placed all around the city.
The interaction plays out as you’d imagine, and this kind of scene never gets old: Guy plays famous song, guy doesn’t immediate recognize the songwriter who has approached and casually jumps in, guy then shits himself when realizing what’s happening. The encounter, which is pretty damn adorable, was posted to The Lumineers’ Instagram shortly after it happened.
They write: @nicholassuttonbell and I were walking around Boston on our day off and heard someone playing ‘Ophelia’ on a street piano. At first, he didn’t realize that I was from The Lumineers, but he was kind enough to let me hop in and play with him. Great playing with you @samuelcspencer – see ya Friday in Mansfield! 🎹 – @jeremiahfraites
And Spencer, who was personally invited to the Friday’s show, was blown away, as one would imagine, writing in the comments: “I still can’t believe this happened!! I was essentially in shock for at least an hour afterwards. When he said it was a great song and started playing it with me I was thinking ‘how nuts would it be if this was actually the guy from the Lumineers but there’s no way, that stuff doesn’t actually happen in real life,’ but then it was! I’ll be telling this story for the rest of my life! Thanks @jeremiahfraites and @nicholassuttonbell ! It was so cool getting to meet, chat and listen to you play. Can’t wait for Friday!!
We just love to see it.