Fairfield Theatre Company Weekly Round up: 7 shows announced, Brett Dennen performs in May

Fairfield Theatre Company Weekly Round up: 8 shows announced, Brett Dennen performs in May

This week Fairfield Theatre Company announced Mystic Dead, Brett Dennen, Clare Maloney & The Great Adventure, Improvement Movement, Sam Greenfield, Mac Sabbath and Grateful Shred this week. Tickets are on sale now via fairieldtheatre.org.

Mystic Dead
Fairfield Theatre Company • 70 Sanford St, Fairfield, CT 06824
March 14, 2025
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Mystic Dead

In 2018 a group of musicians got together for a once-a-month Dead night at the Captain Daniel Packer inn in Mystic ,CT. It turned out to be a seriously good time that translated to more shows, more fun and Mystic Dead was born. Deep dives into all things Grateful Dead coupled by the freedom to remain true to their own creative individuality has been and will always be the mantra of all 6 members of Mystic Dead.

Clare Maloney & The Great Adventure
Fairfield Theatre Company • 70 Sanford St, Fairfield, CT 06824
March 22, 2025
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Clare Maloney & The Great Adventure

Clare Maloney & The Great Adventure are bringing the era of windows-down, roadtrip rock & roll straight into the playlist generation. Relix magazine named the band an “Artist You Need to Know” in 2023, calling their debut LP ‘Daybreaker’ “stunning” and praising its “brilliant vocals, rocking band and polished songwriting.” The album title stands as a sly ode to bandleader Clare Maloney’s decade-long battle with writer’s block, and triumph over it; night gives way to day, just as the multi-instrumentalist and former opera singer broke through to write over 100 songs in 2021, flawlessly blending rock, alt-country, americana, folk, funk, the great american songbook & more.

Clare’s powerful and emotive vocals are rooted in her early career as a classical singer, performing at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and throughout Europe and Asia. Despite success in the opera world, Clare felt the magnetism of the rock & roll music she grew up on, and daringly transitioned from the classical stage to become a first-call session and touring vocalist, sharing the stage with members of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship, Allman Brothers Band, Hall & Oates and the E Street Band along the way. Since 2018, she has toured as a vocalist, guitarist and flutist with The Englishtown Project, The Airplane Family and Deadgrass & Friends. As a writer, Clare’s unique and unmistakable voice is shaped by classical literature, poetry, and the sounds of her native New York – from Tin Pin Alley to CBGB’s to Broadway and Brooklyn.

Her electric band, The Great Adventure, features Nate DeBrine, who co-produced Daybreaker, on guitar and vocals, Russ Gottlieb on bass and electric banjo, and Caleb Estey on drums and vocals. The band supported their “Daybreaker” release with a 50-date national tour in 2023. Highlights from their breakout year include openings slots for Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, The Wailers and Bailen, pre-shows for Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Phil Lesh & Friends, and Aimee Mann, and sit ins from members of Goose. Most recently, they opened for The Bacon Brothers featuring actor Kevin Bacon. Their highly anticipated follow up EP, “Reckoning,” is set for release in early 2025 with new songs due out this fall.

Improvement Movement
Fairfield Theatre Company • 70 Sanford St, Fairfield, CT 06824
March 25, 2025
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Improvement Movement

Depending on the day of the week, Improvement Movement might be described as a loose amalgamation of Atlanta songsmiths, a hostile corporate takeover of your dad’s favorite band, or a generous waste of time.

Sam Greenfield
Fairfield Theatre Company • 70 Sanford St, Fairfield, CT 06824
March 30, 2025
Click here to purchase tickets

Sam Greenfield

Multi-instrumentalist and artist Sam Greenfield has made a name for himself in the music industry playing alongside some of the biggest names in the biz. He has toured extensively with Vulfpeck’s Cory Wong, Joss Stone, Dave Koz, and Thank You Scientist.

But he’s not just a hired gun – Sam made waves with his latest release “Sam Greenfield Rules,” blending the sophistication of jazz with the lively spirit of pop and funk to create a sound that is uniquely his own. He has built a loyal following, drawing in listeners with his irresistible melodies, grooves, vibrant energy and infectious personality.

And he’s no stranger to the recording studio either, having worked with the likes of Ed Sheeran, John Legend, Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, and more. With his fourth album on the horizon for early 2025, Sam Greenfield is sure to cement his place as one of the most exciting musicians on the scene today.

Grateful Shred
Fairfield Theatre Company • 70 Sanford St, Fairfield, CT 06824
May 1, 2025
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Grateful Shred

After a meteoric rise from obscurity to a national touring band, Los Angeles-based Grateful Shred has made the most of its time in the spotlight. The lineup, featuring Dan Horne and Austin McCutchen alongside keyboardist Adam MacDougall woke the Grateful Dead cosmos with a unique laid-back harmony driven sound. The band literally went from playing the Shakedown Street vendor area prior to Dead and Company shows to touring the United States.

The moment that sent the band’s popularity soaring is the “Busted at the Bowl” video, a YouTube video that features Shred members starting an impromptu set in the parking lot of the Hollywood Bowl before a Dead and Company show in 2017. They don’t get too far before drawing so much attention that the police shut them down. Instantly creating Shred-cred, this was a bit of good fortune that doesn’t get past McCutchen. “We’ve been dealt some pretty good cards,” he states. “It’s been cool to roll with it and push forward and continually make stuff happen. Things have gone our way. Even that video happened magically. It was put together at the last minute, and boom!”

The thing is, Grateful Shred manage to channel that elusive Dead vibe: wide-open guitar tones, effortless three-part vocal harmonies, choogling beats, and yes, plenty of tripped out, Shredded solos. The look, the sound, the atmosphere. It’s uncanny. Far from being a historical re-enactment, Grateful Shred’s laissez faire vibe infuses the band with a gentle spirit, warmth, and (dare we say it) authenticity. From their killer merch game to their eminently watchable YouTube channel, they’re clearly having a rad time and spreading the love. Strangely enough, in a world overflowing with wax museum nostalgia and Deadly sentimentalism, we need the Shred, now more than ever.

Grateful Shred is: Austine Beede, Dan Horne, Alex Koford, Mikaela Davis, Adam MacDougall, Austin McCutchen, John Lee Shannon

Mac Sabbath
Fairfield Theatre Company • 70 Sanford St, Fairfield, CT 06824
May 4, 2025
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Mac Sabbath

Why do we care about a disturbed clown named Ronald Osborne? A clown who’s convinced he traveled through a wormhole in the time-space continuum from the 1970’s with a band of Monsanto mutants named Slayer MacCheeze, Grimalice and the Cat Burglar? Because they are here to save us from the disastrously decayed synthetic state of music and sustenance! THAT’S WHY!

Mixing raucous comedy with borderline-horrific theatrics, the only thing more petrifying than the impending health problems resulting from years of overeating fast food is a MAC SABBATH show. The gruesome foursome was recently seen performing their song, “Sweet Beef,“ for the Prince Of Darkness™ himself, Ozzy Osbourne on the American idiot box. MAC SABBATH puts on a multimedia stage show complete with a smoking grill, laser-eyed clowns, bouncing burgers and many more magical surprises! Basically, everything a theatrical rock show consumer has been jonesing for.

The Dickies

They were the first L.A. punk rock band to score a major label deal, the first to go to Europe, the first to go insane, and more-or-less the only known survivors from the first wave of punk pioneers. The Dickies have done it all and more and lived to laugh about it. Their uplifting, (some would say zany) pure punk, melodic-pop style has remained in tact for over twenty years!

Ever since the break-up of the Ramones, the Dickies hold the title of being the oldest active punk band in the land. These guys have released records and played punk shows in FOUR different decades. Yowzers! The band’s epic career is matched only by their wacky high-octane live performances. With Stan Lee’s buzzsaw guitar and frontman Leonard’s demented dance moves, the Dickies remain as one of the most rockin’ bands around today. No fire-breathing or acrobatic posturing for these veterans; Leonard’s repertoire consists of inflatable dolls, scuba gear, and a large penis puppet named Stewart. Now that’s entertainment!

The story of how the Dickies came to be on Fat Wreck Chords is a modern-day punk rock fable of fate. Fat Wreck prez Fat Mike got his portly paws on a four song demo in 1996 and contacted the Dickies in hopes of releasing a full length. Upon receiving the first call from Fat Mike, Stan had this to say: ‘Who?’ Stan then called up Leonard in hopes that he could enlighten him about this mythical Fat recording company. Leonard responded in kind with a ‘Fat what?’ Someone in the Dickies camp knew what’s what however, and encouraged the band to work with Fat Mike. So not long after Stan explained to Mike that they ‘have a whole record worth of shit’. Now you may be wondering why is it that the full length was not released until 2001. Well folks, Stan lied. But hey, all’s well that ends well!

Their legacy of recorded works (ahem, trying not to get too carried away here) includes the groundbreaking (sure, why not?)_ Incredible Shrinking Dickies_, the sophomore(ic) Dawn of the Dickies, the indie-punk classic Stukas Over Disneyland, the prophetic Second Coming, the EP built around their theme song to the cult-hit movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and long player Idjit Savant. Then came Dogs From the Hare That Bit Us, an all-covers collection. It was in 1996 that the Dickies met up with Fat Mike and agreed to release the 7″, My Pop the Cop on Fat Wreck Chords. This led to the inevitable release of their latest and greatest full length, All This And Puppet Stew. It is reasonably safe to say that the Dickies are perennial favorites the world over, adored by fans ranging from grizzled geez-punks to kids not yet born when the Dickies were first incredibly shrinking.

These furious fogeys may be old, but they tour like young’uns! They can still pull full U.S. tours and have been to both Europe and Japan. Catch the Dickies on tour and in your pants soon, and be on the look out for Leonard and his maniacal stage props!

Flummox

Flummox are a progressive, avant-garde metal band from Murfreesboro, TN. Formed in the summer of 2012 by Alyson Blake Dellinger and Drew Jones, the band has seen several sound and line-up changes since its inception. They released two albums through Tridroid Records ( 2014’s “Phlummoxygen” and 2016’s “Selcouth”) before signing to Wood and Stone Productions for their third album, “Intellectual Hooliganism.”

Although the band is not entirely a stoner/doom band, their sound harkens back to these genres in between the various other musical styles they mesh into their sound. Nonetheless, they have shared the stage with notable acts within the genre such as The Obsessed, Eyehategod, Place of Skulls, Iron Man, Howling Giant, Toke, & Dee Calhoun.

Brett Dennen
Fairfield Theatre Company • 70 Sanford St, Fairfield, CT 06824
May 6, 2025
Click here to purchase tickets

Brett Dennen

Across his career, Brett Dennen has established himself as the kind of singer-songwriter who finds inspiration by digging into the nooks and crannies of the human condition—exploring pain, joy, sadness, and all points in between. If It Takes Forever (Mick Music), the California native’s eighth solo album and first full-length since 2021’s See the World, is no exception. The warm, immersive collection boasts deeply felt sentiments, underpinned by rich acoustic guitars and Dennen’s earnest vocals, in the vein of dusky Americana (“Golden State of Mind”), harmonica-driven blues (the Tom Petty-esque “Careful What You Wish For”), rootsy indie (“Don’t Go Talking”), and meditative folk-rock (highlight “Time To Wake Up”).

If It Takes Forever emerged out of a tough 2023 for Dennen, as he was dealing with the death of his dad. “He was such a strong figure in my life that I depended on so much as both a dad and a best friend,” he said. “And I knew immediately in order for me to deal with his death, the best thing I could do was to make an album about it.”

Understandably, Dennen took his time coming up with song ideas for If It Takes Forever, and spent the bulk of a year simply thinking about “what kind of album I was going to make and what kinds of songs were going to be on the album,” he says. “I jotted down ideas on paper, made little voice memos with ideas of songs, melodies and choruses, or sometimes even just talked into a voice recorder.”

With these ideas as a foundation, Dennen was well-prepared by the time he hunkered down in late 2023 to formalize his rough ideas into songs. “Making them a reality all happened very fast,” he says. “These songs were in my head and came out when I had the guitar in my hand. I would record one, put it away and then come back a few days or a few weeks later and listen to it: ‘Okay, I think that’s done. That’s good enough. Move on, move on, move on.’”

Dennen naturally wrote some songs directly about his dad. But he also wanted If It Takes Forever to tackle his new reality going forward. “It was evaluating life—like, what did this person mean to me?” he says. “What did they inspire in me? What do I think life is about now? Who’s the person I really want to be?” But he also found himself turning to broader philosophical questions. “I was also thinking about the state of life: What is life? What does it mean? What’s it all about?”

This lent itself to lyrics full of vibrant imagery with multiple layers of meaning. Among his favorite songs is the gentle, folksy “In the Garden,” which was indirectly inspired by his parents and the impressive vegetable garden they tended. “I don’t necessarily think it’s a song about my dad—or a song about him speaking to my mom, per se—but I think it’s a song about love and putting your intention into something,” Dennen explains. “Metaphorically, it’s about taking care of something and creating something beautiful, but it’s also a literal place for beautiful things to grow, and a calm place to find solace in.”

Another favorite is “Wood Canoe,” a narrative-driven story of humble man who has a knack for building a canoe out of wood, with lyrics speaking to the idea of metaphorically taking somebody away to a better place, he explains. “It feels like a Cat Stevens song and has a little bit of Latin rhythm to it.” Dennen also loves “Another Day in Babylon” because of its rumbling groove—and the fact it’s very literal, as he based the lyrics on things that happened in his own life.

The easygoing opening track, “Chipping Away,” meanwhile, touches on resilience and the importance of persevering even when things might not be falling into place the way you’d like. “There’s so many things I want to do and so many things I haven’t done—and I’m the one holding myself back from doing those things,” he explains. “But that’s just life, I guess—and here’s an opportunity to celebrate that.”

Dennen recorded If It Takes Forever quickly, “in a whirlwind five days” in Los Angeles with the musicians in his live band and another long-time collaborator serving as producer, Jon Solo. This full-band configuration gave the album a distinct feeling of immediacy but also lends itself to depth-filled arrangements. Organ courses through the standout “Dharma Baby” while plaintive piano adds sharp melancholy to the meditative “Star Surfer.”

“We haven’t recorded an album together before now,” he notes. “But it was easy to trust everyone and get excited about what we were creating together. We felt like a team; I’ve never had that feeling before. That’s why I think it was easy to get so much done in a short amount of time.”

In general, Dennen prefers recording live with a band anyway. But the bond he had formed with his bandmates across years of traveling around together on the road made the If It Takes Forever experience especially seamless—namely because everyone contributed parts and ideas in the studio during the process. “I was really impressed with everybody’s ability to help me get to a place where I was feeling good about the direction it was going,’ he says. “It wasn’t me or the producer saying, ‘I want you to do this. I was hoping you would do this.’ It wasn’t like ‘This is Brett’s album’—it was like, let’s just make this music the best that the four of us can make it.”

Since debuting in 2004 with a self-titled album, Dennen has amassed a loyal fanbase thanks to a steady touring schedule, including alongside artists like John Mayer, Jason Mraz and G Love and Special Sauce, as well as multiple song placements in the TV show Parenthood. Another tune, “Comeback Kid (That’s My Dog),” became the theme song for the TV adaptation About A Boy. Along the way, Dennen has also had multiple top 10 hits on the AAA radio charts, with the keening title track of See the World, an encouraging song about growing up and forging your own path in life, landing at No. 4 in 2021.

With If It Takes Forever, Dennen plans to hit the road once again, but he possesses additional perspective on—and gratitude for—the solace provided by art and music. “To really boil it down, this is life,” he says. “Life is full of things that get complicated and make you busy, and are really hard to deal with. But if you write songs about it, and put it into art, then it makes it a lot more relevant and meaningful and worthy of celebration.”

River Whyless

Here’s what you need to know about River Whyless: they’re a band from Asheville, North Carolina whose music sits somewhere between folk, indie and something harder to define. Known for their festival appearances (Newport Folk, Bonnaroo) and for their performances on platforms like NPR’s Tiny Desk, their sound has earned them a reputation for thoughtful songwriting and surprising arrangements. Their latest album, Monflora, feels like a conversation—between four distinct voices, between tradition and experimentation, and between the familiar and the unexpected. A return to their roots as well as a leap forward, the album blends lush harmonies with a raw, unfiltered energy.

Don’t miss

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