Live Review: Roses Grove Band - 7/13/19 Connolly's Times Square NYC

Roses Grove Band

Live @ Connolly's Times Square

NYC, NY 7/13/19

While the Upper West Side of Manhattan was plunged into darkness via a fire resulting in a mass power outage, Times Square managed to stay lit up and allowed the Roses Grove Band to bring their interpretations of Grateful Dead tunes to the center of the city. 

The band got lucky as drummer Adrian Mullins was delayed by the power outage and barely got to the show in time, but things coalesced quickly as the band begin with "Feel Like A Stranger". The sound had a some issues as things were a bit dodgy to start but the band managed to drop into their groove with relative ease for an early "Shakedown Street" which got spacey fairly quickly and segued in and back out of "Playin' In The Band".

The group loves to use these pairings of songs that the Dead themselves would have never done, opening up the groups catalog even further with unique segues and jams as there are rarely ever any breaks in the set.

The groove laid down by Mullins and bassist Ben Chaleff anchored things as Nick Epstein took lead vocal duty on "West LA Fadeaway" which found things moving from laid back to fast as the band truly locked in and soared directly into "Estimated Prophet" with Matt Lasurdo's keys and Chuck Gallanti's Garcia like lead lines swimmingly floated through the air before the highlight of the night "Fire On The Mountain" (with lyrical nods from Chaleff to fire on the upper westside) closed the set.

The second set never reach the heights of the end of the first, but the band got a bit looser as "Dark Star"got exploratory and out there before the rhythmic work of Mullins lead the charge into "St. Stephan" as the drums pumped heavy. The bands splashes of energy and upbeat rock and roll also colored "Cassidy" and is one of the many reasons RGB is a Dead cover band worth checking out.

The night closed with a stand alone "Franklin's Tower" as the crowd thinned out trying to find their way around a partially shut down city, a rare event in NYC, but the Roses Grove Band always delivers a good time while shining a light on the Dead's material.
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