Strawberry Cheesesteak Serves Up a Fundraiser

Karen Ponzio Photos

Strawberry Cheesesteak

Robbie Keenan came onstage at Cafe Nine to introduce the band Strawberry Cheesesteak Saturday night, congratulate them on their album release and thank them for allowing the night to also be a fundraiser for his cause. But he also had a story to tell.

The story does not start very well. In fact, it starts the opposite of well,” Keenan said.

He proceeded to tell the audience about his brother Graham John Keenan, who died in a car accident in August 2012. Graham’s death became the impetus for the GJK Music Festival, for which this show was a fundraiser. Three bands full of friends and fellow musicians would take the stage to raise money for this three-day festival in upstate New York, entering its fourth year and put together by Keenan and friends to create something really positive” a couple of years after his brother’s death. 

The show on Saturday involved a raffle, free food from West End Bistro of West Haven that included — appropriately, considering who the headliners were — steak sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and assorted fruit. Hosts Keenan and singer-songwriter Frank Critelli, who would also be hosting the festival in August, kept things moving in between acts. In the spirit of the occasion, please brace yourself for enough allusions to food to satisfy any and all cravings for such things.

The opening act, the New Haven-basedFiction, got everyone’s appetites whetted with their distinct brand of indie folk rock that mixed a splash of reggae and jam-band bursts of flavor into a delicious musical stew. Ethan James on vocals and guitar, Matthew Gambardella on lead guitar, Joao Joaquim on bass, and Chris Siena on drums came together to enthusiastically share songs from their latest release The Other F Word (released on the same day as Strawberry Cheesesteak’s electronic release of their new album). The crowd was small but the vibe was sweet and pungent, a few audience members dancing and getting all whipped up by this high-energy band. The musicians in Fiction did not let a couple of technical issues deter them from delivering a strong and satisfying set of musical treats, including a cover of I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” (“If anyone asks, we wrote this song 60 years ago,” they joked). They mentioned that they felt blessed to be here” with all these beautiful people” and the audience responded in kind. By the end of their nine-song set, bellies were aptly warmed and ready for more.

The Brooklyn-based Added Color served the second course. Kiko Freiberg on vocals and guitar, Daniel Freiberg on vocals and drums, Tim Haggerty on guitar and vocals, and Danny Dahen on bass fed the growing audience such fire-hot hits as Psycho” and Panic Attack,” each with enough searing guitar solos and big juicy backbeats to satisfy anyone looking for more of what their rock n’ roll soul hungered for. This band, which also had new music out, got more of the crowd closer to the stage, every serving of their songs received with screams of joy and satisfaction. Even when the musicians slowed it down, they still rocked hard, and when it got funky the crowd devoured it and danced along.

Robbie Keenan

Keenan, who is also a member of the local band The Hound, spoke at length about the festival, its origins, his goals, and his brother Graham before the final act of the evening.

Even though his life was cut short, I decided to do something in spite of that. I’m just one person, but coming here and meeting all of these people, we were able to come together and create something really positive. We decided instead of mourning and missing him we were going to get together and have a kick-ass time like he would have wanted us to, and that’s hard. It’s much easier to let the day hit you and feel like you don’t want to do anything, but now I don’t think about that day as the worst day of my life anymore. That’s GJK Fest. That’s the best weekend of my life,” Keenan said to cheers and applause and shouts of GJK Fest!” from the crowd.

The good times got even more fired up with the main course of the evening, the New Haven-based Strawberry Cheesesteak — four University of New Haven graduates who are also sound engineers at Cafe Nine and beyond. Walker DesTroismaisons on vocals and guitar, Garrett Kupplemeyer on guitar and vocals, Mike Voyce on bass and vocals, and Austin Rivera on drums got their name from a friend who mispronounced the name of an ice cream flavor. They then ran with it to create a catalog of sexy and fun songs about food, snacks and so much more. Their newest album was available that night for the first time in physical form, and the band served all 12 songs on it to their insatiable friends and fans. From Dance with the Devil,” which had Voyce down on the floor mixing it up with the crowd, to Banana Hands,” which had the audience serving back the word hands after the band sang banana, these four master chefs kept offering dish after dish of meaty and mighty tunes. And when they softened it up and slowed it down a bit for the lilting and lovely Strawberries,” Kupplemeyer offered guitar work so sweet you wanted to lick his fingers when he was done. But after all that, the crowd wanted dessert too. Thus one more song was served.

After the show, Keenan spoke about his experiences with his friends and GJK Fest in the years since his brother’s passing.

I wanted to find a way to make it better, for my parents, for his friends. And he had always said to me when he was alive, follow your friends,’ so I did, and this is what we did. I wanted something positive to come out of it all, and it has. This festival is about being with people, knowing you’re not alone.”

For more info about GJK Fest click here. For more info about future fundraisers for GJK fest click here.

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