Drink The Sea @ Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY 2/20/26
Bill: Drink The Sea
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., New York, NY
Date: Friday 2/20/26
Door: Sold Out ($55 table advance ticket)
8pm Drink The Sea
Active: 2022 (Olympia, WA to Sao Paolo, Brazil to Santiago, Chile to...)
Affiliated: Peter Buck (REM), Alain Johannes (Eleven, Queens of the Stone Age), Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees, Mad Season, Skin Yard, Tuatara), Duke Garwood (Mark Lanegan Band), Lisette Garcia (Barrett Martin Group), Abbey Blackwell (La Luz, Alvvays, Dean Johnson)
Latest Release: I & II (Sunyata, 2025)
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This was the first taste I got of the new "supergroup" Drink The Sea. This is a players band where you can focus your attention on anyone on stage and zone in on what they are doing at any given time. Sure there are nods to the elephants in the room: "The One I Love" was the lone REM played and don't know the Mad Season or QOTSA records enough to recognize "Long Gone Day" or "Hangin' Tree" but I'm pretty sure those were played. Peter Buck I guess has the most star quality but he always had sidebands like the Minus Five that put him in rooms where he wasn't a celebrity. Certainly his guitar sounds like his guitar but there is quite a bit going on.
I wasn't there for nostagia, this is a new band with two new albums and this show was my first exposure to the material. Kenny had a line that the band had some kind of Screaming Trees affiation, was good and got some waiting list table tickets that surprisingly came through yesterday. I didn't realize Peter Buck was in or who actually was until a couple days ago. I'm streaming the second album now as I write this and they are both going to require some focus to get a handle on. More than anything it gives me the vibe of a later Mark Lanegan album which makes sense since Duke Garwood did a co-headlining album with him and Alain Johannes played multiple instruments an Lanegan's bubblegum. This is more along the lines of the Desert Sessions but with a little more struction as well as Lisette Garcia on the vibes and Duke Garwood breaking out a wind instrument when he isn't singing. Since vocals bounce between him and Alain, there is plenty of room for this to happen. We said hello after the show on the way out to let him know humans appreciate this sort of thing and he seemed quite friendly. Friendly serious music. Is that a genre?
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