After the long dormancy imposed by the Covid-19 related shutdown of 2020, New Haven’s live music scene came back in 2021 — first with a little trepidation, then with gusto, as if making up for lost time.
Maybe no band exemplified that quite like The Problem With Kids Today, which helped New Haven roar back into live music with a string of shows that combined punk fury and humor with an up-to-the-minute sense of hooky absurdity. In a full evening of music at Cafe Nine that started with Greg Banks on the roof and ended inside with a triple bill of wall-to-wall rock ‘n’ roll bands including Peasant and Ditch Boys, The Problem With Kids Today was both a license to party like there was no tomorrow and a collective middle finger to the year that had been.
The year 2021 also saw the reopening of one stage after another, making the months feel full of first. Perhaps the most triumphant return was that of Space Ballroom, which threw open its doors with a triple bill of local heroes Ceschi, Siul Hughes, and Phat A$tronaut. Each act was thrilled to be performing again, but it was the packed house that made the night, full of dancing, beaming faces, the embodiment of catharsis and the thrill of being able to gather again after so many months apart.
Another band that seemed to have its finger directly on the pulse — or maybe better put, stuck into the light socket — of the times was Mightymoonchew, which, like The Problem With Kids Today, built a following fast on the strength of a series of freewheeling, high-energy shows. As part of another triple bill at Cafe Nine that also featured Glambat and the touring act Blvck Hippie, Mightymoonchew combined driving rhythms, emotional vocals, and a healthy tilt toward experimentalism to give New Haven the release it was looking for.
The musicians’ living room on the corner of State and Crown also hosted the return of the New Haven Jazz Underground’s monthly jazz jam session, which before the pandemic had grown into a linchpin of the contemporary jazz scene in Southern Connecticut. NHJU organizer Nick Di Maria brought the session back with fingers crossed; would anyone return? Sure enough, after a swinging hour from Ryan Sands, drumming for a quartet, the stage opened up to round after round of young jazz musicians, playing hot and supporting one another through the night.
Best Video responded to the pandemic with radical adaptation, building a patio and running an extension cord out of the building to transform its parking lot into an outdoor club. In late April, with vaccinations spreading fast, the Whitney Avenue spot drew big crowds. A Saturday in late April marked the year’s first bout of warm weather, and a capacity audience, spaced out, gathered to hear Alex Burnet, S.G. Carlson, and Pat Dalton play, just drinking in the music in silence, with only the traffic noise as background.
New England’s fickle weather was often part of the performances at Best Video’s outdoor stage, and rarely were the two as in sync as they were for New Haven folk legend Kath Bloom’s set there. As late fall settled in and it got dark early, her many faithful fans gathered — among them, many of New Haven’s finest musicians in their own right — and Bloom delivered a set of songs that was both clear-eyed and hopeful, just the right music for the end of a summer, and of a hard year. The solace in her songs made room for anger and sadness, which made it connect that much more.
New Haven’s clubs led the way in implementing Covid-19 protocols from mask wearing to vaccination requirements that allowed people to feel safe attending indoor shows again when the weather turned just a little too cold to be outside. This meant that Light Upon Blight got to return to Best Video to perform its annual improvised score to a classic silent horror movie on Halloween weekend. This year’s pick was 1932’s Vampyr, and the ensemble’s rotating cast of characters gave one indication (among many) that New Haven’s experimental music scene — one that is the envy of other towns — didn’t have to rise from the dead to pull off the event. It never really went away.
With its championing of strict health protocols and its development of professional live streaming, Firehouse 12 rolled out its fall concert series to packed rooms and overflow crowds watching happily from home. That was particularly good news for Dezron Douglas, who grew up in Connecticut’s jazz scene and was returning to the state as both visiting jazz dignitary and hometown hero. In a long, fiery set of original compositions and one nod to Pharoah Sanders, Douglas and his quartet raged through the possibilities of contemporary jazz could offer, and did it all with humility and a generous sense of humor, happy to be performing again, and doubly grateful to be performing for friends.
Thanksgiving can be a quiet time for a show even in normal years. But, as each of the performers mentioned, this year Space Ballroom succeeded in making a Sunday matinee show on a holiday weekend feel like a Friday night. It helped that the three bands on the bill — Rob Falcone, Carter Vail, and Kid Sistr — were young acts who also happened to be Connecticut natives visiting their own families. It helped even more that several of those families came out to see them, and help pack the place. But in the end, it was the music, ranging from slacker indie to tight pop to all-out, jump-up-and-down rock ‘n’ roll, that made it startling to leave the club, see glimmers of daylight in the sky, and wonder if it was because you’d just been up all night partying. It was also a testament to the importance of all-ages shows, a tradition Space Ballroom has picked up and made part of its programming, helping make sure that young folks who want to find a certain way into the music life have a place to start.
So many shows were about responding to the moment we’re living in. Others were about reminding us that some things persist, that in the end it’s about the long game. One of those was the Hawkins Jazz Collective’s resuming of its perennial Wednesday night slot at the Owl Shop. The band — a trio that night, led as always by jazz stalwart Gil Hawkins — swung hard and stretched out for an appreciative and attentive audience. The signs of the pandemic were still everywhere, but in the now-historic, warm interior of the Owl Shop, smoke filling the air as it used to in every club jazz bands played, the connection to the past and the future was palpable. The live music scene in New Haven has been around for longer than anyone has been alive, and it will go on after we’re all gone.