When Josh Clark, Trever Garrod, Reed Mathis and Scott Rager took the stage at the Paradise Rock Club, the crowd welcomed them like old friends. Originally from San Francisco, Tea Leaf Green has an expansive following in the jam band scene on the East Coast. That fan base is ever-growing due in part to their ability to maintain an active online community that allows those followers a connection to the band and its music, and in part due to their incendiary and constantly-changing live show. There are two types of Tea Leaf fans: those that are earnestly devoted to the band, know the lyrics to every song, and are constantly downloading live shows, and those that are lay listeners, that know most of the big hits, but only attend the occasional concert. For the latter, the show on Feb. 11 was a mixed bag. Although Tea Leaf played a number of their more popular hits, it was remarkably easy to get lost in their transient jams.
After addressing the crowd, Tea Leaf Green immediately dove into “Incandescent Devil,” from their 2006 live album, Rock ‘n’ Roll Band (SCI Fidelity). The song aptly demonstrates the band’s distinctive sound — catchy keyboard riffs, soulful harmonica interludes and earthy lyrics. As a band that describes themselves as a combination of contemporaries, such as My Morning Jacket and Wolfmother, with the spirit of classic artists, such as 70s Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead, Tea Leaf Green delivers free-spirited, modern Americana that any music fan would love.
Like most jam bands, Tea Leaf transitioned from one song into the next without pause. “Incandescent Devil” progressed into “Stormcloud,” which led into “Easy to be Your Lover.” It wasn’t long before the first set came to a close, with crowd favorite “Morning Sun,” off 2005 album, Taught to Be Proud (Reincarnate). The lighting behind the band reflected the crescendos in the music perfectly, which got the audience to dance and sing along.
While the songs during the first set blended together, the second set highlighted more of Tea Leaf Green’s more mainstream sound. They started the set off with “Nothing Changes” — with hearty vocals and heavy lyrics about the mundane nature of time. Followed by standout hit, “Borrowed Time,” from 2008’s Raise up the Tent (Surfdog), which sounded like a modern-day version of an eerie Beatles track, showcasing catchy guitar solos and a bass beat that rhythmically guided the song’s natural progression. Next, “All Washed Up” demonstrated the band’s ability to improvise. Rager started the song off with a stand-out drum solo that evolved into a “Love Potion #9”-style guitar solo from Clark. Overall the second set carried the crowd through to the end of the performance – everybody in the audience had a beer and a smile. “Taught to be Proud” evolved into “Death Cake” to end the set, while simultaneously sending the crowd into frenzy.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
