'We should be living on Mars by now!' Red Planet and Voyager 1's Pale Blue Dot steal the spotlight in NYC rock show

NEW YORK — Alternative rockers Andy Frasco and the U.N. were a force to be reckoned with on the stage of Irving Plaza on Friday night (Feb. 28), energetically blasting through a set of original songs to a packed crowd.

The multi-faceted band's new tune "Try Not to Die" played a few songs into the set, poetically employing Carl Sagan's famous quote about Voyager 1's "Pale Blue Dot" portrait of Earth as a tiny speck in space and with Frasco's thoughts on the stagnation of humankind:

I'm just another nobody, runnin' in the human race / On a pale blue dot, suspended on a sunbeam, spinnin' through outer space / Even with all this gravity, there's other things pulling us down / We should be living on Mars by now, but we're all runnin' around.

Frasco, whose new album "Growing Pains" arrives on May 23rd, joins a list of musicians who have been inspired to write music about various space objects, — especially the Red Planet.

In recent years, for instance, Space.com has covered Pearl Jam making a "Quick Escape" to Mars," The Claypool Lennon Delirium taking on the "Monolith of Phobos," Coheed and Cambria going from "Here to Mars," and highly acclaimed guitarist Joe Satriani's "Elephant of Mars." All are either high-octane rock albums or songs influenced in part by our inner solar system neighbor.

Another highlight of the show was when the electrifying bass player Karina Rykman, best known for her debut album "Joyride" and performing with the house band on "Late Night With Seth Meyers," stepped onto the stage for a face-melting jam with the band. With so many artists finding off-world inspiration these days, you have to wonder if Mars or space exploration will ever play into her career as a jam rock singer-songwriter.

Watch a clip of her performance here:

Adding to a truly cosmic night, the band also performed "Iowa Moon," a love song that harps on the stars and our celestial companion:

I'm city lights / You're farm star bright / You're my even keel / My Iowa moon.

In a world fraught with turmoil, Andy Frasco and the U.N. flipped the script to bring pure joy to the Irving Plaza plaza crowd. For this old-school rocker, the show was a true reminder of the healing power of music.