Cue up the Bryan Adams and journey back to the summer of 1969. That was the year of men landing on the moon, Woodstock and the Miracle Mets. It was also when Siena College hired Tony Rossi, its longtime head baseball coach, for the steal-of-a-deal sum of $200 a year. “The program was Division II, nonscholarship and was run by the head basketball coach, who was the athletic director as well,” remembers Rossi. “He told me the salary, but that was never and still is never why I coach. I accepted and have obviously been a very happy person.”
Still going strong after 51 years, the 76-year-old Rossi is the longest tenured head coach in NCAA Division I baseball history. A six-time Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Coach of the Year, Rossi has 908 career wins, more than any MAAC coach in any sport. Fifty-six of his former players have signed professional contracts, including three who have advanced to the majors—Gary Holle, Tim Christman and John Lannan.
“You know, I never really think of it,” Rossi says of his longevity. “It has gone real fast for me. When you have something that you really like, and you spend your life—every year since I was seven—doing it 24/7/365, you are always thinking about what you do and what the next challenge will be. There is never enough time, in my case, to do all of what I need to do. As I tell my assistants, there is always something to do, never any downtime.”
Unfortunately, Siena’s 2020 season was cut short by the COVID-19 crisis, and while it was a disappointment to Rossi, he is enthusiastic about his team’s future and looking forward to the 2021 campaign. “Every program is in the same boat,” Rossi says. “So the main thing that concerns all of us is that our kids did not have this year to continue to grow as baseball players and men.”
But he’s not using the time off to think about a curtain call: Rossi, whose teams have a record of 380-296 (.562) in MAAC play since the Saints joined the conference in 1990, is still full speed ahead. “I know there is an end, but really don’t think about it,” says Rossi. “There’s too much work to do.”
Web-exclusive: more from Saratoga Living‘s interview with Rossi…
Saratoga Living: Did you ever entertain any other jobs or has Siena simply been the ideal fit for you? Tony Rossi: The first 33 years of coaching at Siena, I was also a teacher in the Guilderland Central School District. So, in my early days, I did apply for a few full-time coaching positions with colleges and got an interview at Central Florida University, along with a couple of others, but having a family, I thought the safest situation for us was to continue to teach, which I enjoyed, and run my own program at Siena. So, I believe it was the right decision for me and my family to stay teaching and coaching.
In what ways has your job and the program evolved throughout the years? What are some aspects of the job that you could’ve never imagined would be possible when you took the job in ’69?
Well, first, the game has not changed. Today, the NCAA has put in many, many rules that were not in effect in the early days. The strength and conditioning of the kids was nonexistent in 1970. NCAA roster size limits for baseball is a problem for the program and school. Baseball is the only larger-roster sport other than football in Division 1 which has limits. We were a Division II, nonscholarship program when I started and became a Division I program in, I believe, 1977, but still nonscholarship. We didn’t get scholarships until around 1992, so the first 22 years coaching baseball here, we were competing against mostly scholarship programs, but never having scholarships. That was a challenge. And the size of the athletes today compared to the early days is like night and day. Wood bats to aluminum bats has also been a change.
Who are some of your heroes in baseball and why? My favorite players growing up were Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks and Stan Musial. All, obviously, are in the Hall of Fame and great players, but all, and I mean all, when they played, were seen but not heard. By that, I mean they produced and were real quiet players. It wasn’t about “look at me;” it was about “look at my results.” No jumping around pointing to themselves. Humble, great people. There are more, but these are the ones that jump out at me.
Do you have a favorite moment or season that you are most proud of at Siena? Well there are a bunch, but I believe the 2014 team going to the NCAA Regional Tournament at TCU, and taking the nationally-ranked host TCU to the 11th inning before losing 2-1. Great game, then defeating another nationally-ranked team, Dallas Baptist, in the next game, 9-8 in 10 innings. We started off that season 0-17 against another tough preseason schedule. A great experience.
What are some things you enjoy and are passionate about other than baseball?
Other than my wife and family, absolutely nothing. No hobbies. Baseball is my hobby and life!
Most of us have faced some dark times during this pandemic, but for anyone checking in on social media, there was a consistent ray of sunshine—the dancing, smiling, laughing pink-haired bright light that is Catherine Hover, owner of Palette Cafe. The colorful coffee shop on Broadway celebrates its first anniversary this month, with its female-focused Palette Upstairs co-working space being open only four months when we all had to go remote in March. Hover didn’t stop moving (literally posting videos of herself dancing her way through the pandemic), getting her member events online and figuring out curbside pick-up for the cafe in record time. She’d worked so hard to create an all-inclusive space for moms, new business owners, those changing careers—anyone, really, in need of a community. So remote or not, “essential” or not, she barely blinked before moving her entire business online to keep it intact. “Coffee and being positive are both essential,” she says. “When you’re loud about it, people listen. So we were loud about [the fact that] ‘it is going to be OK.’”
COVID-19 forced all small businesses to move online. To anyone paying attention, it was clear that Palette was one of the fastest. Walk us through the early days.
It was always my vision to have a digital experience at Palette—if anything, the universe pushed me into doing what I was already going to do. I opened up a Zoom account and took every single event of ours online. We started doing daily check-ins, where we went live on Facebook and asked our members how they were doing. In times like these, we sometimes don’t ask that.
By not overthinking things and immediately moving your day-to-day operations online, how has that ultimately helped your business survive?
By adapting quickly in the beginning, it allowed us to baby-evolve over nine weeks instead of having to do a huge shift later. It allowed us to gradually ease into this new normal, which was less daunting.
Some people fall apart during a crisis, but you are definitely one who has risen to the occasion. Why do you think that is?
From day one, it reminded me of surviving Hurricane Katrina when I was a child living in New Orleans. What mattered was that we had each other. Everyone’s house was floating; the loss was overwhelming. When there’s so much need, you have to be of service. Right now, there’s a lot of invisible need. I knew we had to keep showing up.
At 27, Ricardo Santana, Jr. is still young for a jockey of his caliber, but he’s used to the role, having begun his North American career at the tender age of 16 in 2009. He won his first graded stakes race in 2013 and his first Grade 1 with the 2016 Arkansas Derby. Santana has won riding titles at Delaware Park, Churchill Downs, Keeneland and Oaklawn. He ranked eighth nationally in purse earnings in 2019 and tied for ninth with 17 wins at Saratoga Race Course. Santana won the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Sprint aboard Mitole.
Fun fact: Santana graduated from the prestigious Laffit Pincay, Jr. Jockey School in December 2008.
James McCaffrey will tell you first-hand: Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. According to the actor’s IMDB page, “James McCaffrey was born in 1959 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.” The actor, however, is a native of Albany. You’ve probably come across McCaffrey through his recurring role on Emmy-winning FX series Rescue Me, cable dramedy Suits or as the voice of Max Payne in the über-popular same-named video game franchise. Saratoga Living recently caught up with the actor, who’s nowadays based in Westchester County.
I’ve heard you’re from Albany, but everything I’ve seen online says that you’re from Northern Ireland. What’s the deal?
I was doing a play at The Actors Studio in the late ’80s, playing an Irish housepainter from Belfast, and my manager did my bio. At the time, there was a funny story that Marlon Brando, in his bio, said that he was raised by Tibetan wolves. So she thought, “Oh, well, let’s just throw this in there.” I thought, “OK, great, fine,” and forgot about it. But that was for a play—a single play—and back then, obviously, there were no computers, so I don’t know how IMDB or Google got that. And I can’t get rid of it.
What’s your favorite role that you’ve played?
Probably Jimmy Keefe in the TV series Rescue Me for FX. Just because he was a ghost and he died in the World Trade Center on September 11.
Did you have any personal connections to 9/11 that you were able to draw from for the character?
A friend who grew up two houses away from us when we were in high school and his brother were in the towers, and one brother got out and the other did not. I had a couple good acquaintances who were in the fire department—a famous New York City firefighter named [Patrick] “Paddy” Brown. I had known him for a few years, and he died. I go down there every September 11th with another buddy of mine, an actor who lost his best friend in the south tower.
What was acting for a video game like?
I’m not a big fan of video games, and I never have been. The first time I did Max Payne, it was, like, six hours a day in a sound booth, and it was about 400 pages of script. But, I’ve never seen it, I’ve never played it, I have no desire to. I lack the proper appreciation for video games.
Tell me a little bit about your family’s history in the Capital Region.
My grandfather owned the Albany Senators, which was a professional baseball team. I think he and my grandmother were in the Gary Cooper movie Saratoga Trunk. I’ve been going up to Saratoga since I was a kid. My dad used to have a group of buddies who hung out at the harness track, so when he was in charge of the kids and my mother was working, he would bring us up to the track. And that’s the start of my Saratoga addiction. Then I used to go to SPAC all the time—we used to sneak in. I’ve seen everybody there—Clapton several times, the Allman Brothers, Carlos Santana. Every concert that was there, we were at.
While isolated at home during the COVID-19 crisis, many of us have been drinking a lot more than usual. If in denial, the numbers might sober you up: For the week of April 25, weekly in-store alcohol sales across the country were up 26 percent, while online ones were up a staggering 477 percent, per Nielsen. That all works out to big business for Saratoga Springs’ wine, liquor and convenience stores during a time that’s been particularly difficult for pretty much every other type of small business. saratoga living reached out to Brandan Greczkowski, co-owner of Purdy’s Discount Wine & Liquor in the Congress Street Plaza—a.k.a. Saratoga’s oldest wine/liquor store—to find out exactly how well the libations have been flowing during quarantine.
Opening Up • 8:45am
The day starts fairly early for Greczkowski, opening the business, setting up registers and walking through the building to check that everything’s in order. “I have 1,000 cases of product coming in today,” he says. “All those cases will have to be received and put away in a timely manner.”
Receiving • 9am
The first delivery truck of the day is already outside before the store’s even open. From 9am to about 3pm, Purdy’s receives deliveries of wine, spirits and other beverage products. “Business has been absolutely crazy since the shutdown,” says Greczkowski, who installed sneeze/cough guards for all of the cashiers plus antibacterial dispensers throughout the store.
Taking Care of Business • 9:15am
Greczkowski is rarely not on his feet, pitching in on a multitude of jobs throughout the morning, from offloading incoming shipments and checking out customers on the front end to assisting those with carry-out orders. “Curbside is where we do most of our business: between 250 and 300 curbside sales weekly,” he says. The Greenfield native says that deliveries (all within 20 minutes of Saratoga) have been up as well, between 75-100 every week.
Sales • 2:22pm
All the product deliveries for the day have been received, and Greczkowski begins updating inventory and putting the invoices into the store’s computer system. After this, he will start buying more orders of spirits and wines from salesmen for the store’s next delivery, which starts at 9am the next morning. Greczkowski jokes, “It never stops.”
Brandan Greczkowski, co-owner of Purdy’s Discount Wine & Liquor, hard at work during a typical day at the “office.”
Lunchtime • 3:07pm
Greczkowski orders lunch—steak and shrimp from Kinjo Japanese—and works on adding more of tomorrow’s shipping orders while he eats.
Bookkeeping • 3:18pm
Greczkowski’s wife, Kristen, stops by the store. Kristen is the other co-owner of Purdy’s—her grandfather, George Purdy, founded the Saratoga-based business in 1960—and she does all of the store’s bookkeeping. Her mother, Gail Purdy Brophy, left college in the fall of 1963 to take over Purdy’s after George fell ill. She ended up running the store for 57 years before passing away in February.
Prepping To-Go Orders • 3:35pm
After lunch, Greczkowski and the shop’s wine specialist, John Ryan, prepare the local deliveries. There are nine in all today, loaded into the back of Greczkowski’s vehicle.
Delivering the Goods • 4:20pm
Greczkowski is so busy making signs for the new products that came in today—and, yes, still placing more orders from salesmen—that he hands over the delivery responsibilities to Ryan.
Heading to the Bank • 5:27pm
By now, Greczkowski has finished most of his responsibilities for the day. Kristen checks on how much change the cash registers will need for the next day, and then Greczkowski zips over to the bank to make change and hand over deposits. “We are a team,” Greczkowski says about his partnership with Kristen. “We run the store together, and we’ve been married for 16 years.”
Quitting Time • 6:10pm
Though Purdy’s will stay open until 9pm tonight, Greczkowski is calling it quits for the day. He’s already put in nine-and-a-half hours. Also, it’s Kristen’s birthday. “I’ve got to get home kind of early,” Greczkowski says with a smile. Indeed, it’s never a good idea to upset your business partner and wife, especially when they’re the same person.
BEST THING WE SAW: It was refreshing to see a small business in Saratoga doing so well, even if the bandanas and masks on its employees’ faces reminded us of the new, not-so-incredible normal.
WORST THING WE SAW: A man not having time to eat lunch until 3:07pm!
THE BOTTOM LINE: Purdy’s might be enjoying a booming business, but its staff is working hard for it. You could feel a real sense of duty and wanting to do right by the public that suddenly has this need. For Brandan and Kristen Greczkowski to keep a six-decade-old, family-owned store afloat through good times and bad—and now during a global pandemic—well, that speaks for itself.
While most Saratogians have been told the story that Saratoga was the birthplace of the potato chip—it’s true, we think—fewer have heard our other chip-related claim: that the casino chip hails from the Spa City. As the legend goes, Richard Canfield, the one-time owner of the Saratoga Clubhouse (later known as the Canfield Casino) and “once the best known gambling resort proprietor in [the] country,” per the New York Times, was the first to use casino chips, long before anyone ever did in Las Vegas. A 2018 WAMC article even corroborated the claim, stating that “During the casino’s 37-year run, it revolutionized gambling by being the first institution to use chips to represent money.”
While Canfield certainly used chips in the Saratoga Clubhouse before they turned up in Sin City—Canfield purchased the casino in 1894 and Vegas wasn’t even officially founded until 1905—casino chips had been around decades earlier, according to John Fignar, a local expert on 19th-century gambling who used to own Saratoga Gaming on Broadway. “The chips [Canfield] used were made of ivory, but in fact, ivory chips went back to the early 1840s, and before that, mother-of-pearl counters were used,” Fignar says. “I wish it were true that Richard Canfield invented the poker chip, but unfortunately that’s not the case.”
What can we say? Saratoga Springs can’t lay claim to all the types of chips. But we’ll always have those crunchy, salty potato chips…we think.
Associate Director, Saratoga Senior Center
“During every single Zoom call, our toddler finds me, no matter where I hide.”
Billy Chapman
District Sales Manager, Mission Foods
“I work from home a lot normally, so this hasn’t made much of a difference to my job. My company was deemed essential, since we’re a food delivery service. But I do wish I had an extra room to set up in, because I just use my kitchen table.”
Colleen H. Carlson
Director of Sales, Saratoga Casino Hotel
“The best part about working from home is that there are no interruptions, and I can throw in a couple of loads of laundry while writing contracts. The worst is that I miss my team who are currently furloughed. I also do not enjoy Zoom calls. I miss being with people instead of talking to them on a screen.”
Jeremy Krupa
Project Manager, STS Steel, Inc.
“Working from home has allowed my company to utilize resources that have been available but had not previously been taken advantage of, the biggest being electronic signatures. This has reduced the need for printing and scanning a lot of documents.”
Paul Hennessey
Assistant Vice President, Cool Insuring Agency, Inc.
“One nice afternoon, I sat outside for a conference call with my boss and some other associates. After the call, I needed to talk to my boss about another matter, and while talking to him he mentioned how distracted he was on the conference call by the sounds of birds chirping on someone’s line. Unless he reads this article, he’ll never know it was me!”
Ginevra Fisk
Marketing Coordinator & Design Specialist, The Hyde Collection
“The trickiest part of working from home is probably my crazy desk setup. I was about to get rid of the desk, and had already ditched the drawers, when lockdown started. I usually use a standing desk at the office, and in order to make anything comparable, I mashed together an odd arrangement of items. It’s hilarious and less than ergonomic, but it gets the job done!”
It’s 2am, you just pushed your way through the crowds on the Gaffney’s patio and you’re ready to call an Uber and head for home. But, wait—your night out in Saratoga Springs isn’t over quite yet. As everyone who’s partied on Caroline Street on a Saturday night during track season knows, a trip to Esperanto isn’t just a potential nightcap, it’s pretty much a requirement. (I’ve been known to get up from the bar at Tap & Barrel, mid-beer, and head for the grab ‘n’ go hotspot on a solo mission.) And what do you order? After midnight, there’s really only one socially acceptable choice: the Oboy.
Formerly known as the Doughboy, the king of savory late-night snacks is a tubular treat filled with chicken, cheese, scallions and a secret spice blend wrapped in pizza dough. The Oboy has become a Spa City icon, a delicacy that the town’s tipsiest (and teetotaling) people the Capital Region over have been swooning over for decades. And even though Saratoga’s nightlife scene is on hold due to the COVID-19 crisis, you can still place an Oboy order to go on esperantosaratoga.com, or have one delivered via mealeo. So, what are you waiting for? If you can’t go out on Caroline Street, you might as well bring its spirit right to your doorstep.
The Oboy, Deconstructed:
Enriched high gluten unbleached unbrominated wheat flour
Boneless skinless chicken
Cream cheese
Water
Cheddar and jack cheese
Monterey jack cheese
Corn starch
Canola oil and extra virgin olive oil blend
Scallions
Salt
Lemon Juice
Secret spice blend
The OBOY, by the Numbers:
25: Number of years Esperanto has been in business, serving up Oboys since the beginning
66: Number of Upstate New York Stewart’s Shops that carry Oboys
2: Number, in millions, of Oboys that have been sold over Esperanto’s two-and-a-half decades in business
2,700: Size, in square feet, of the commercial Oboy bakery that opened in 2019 in Ballston Spa
4: Cost, in dollars, of one ready-to-eat, chicken-and-cheese-filled Oboy
99: Cost, in dollars, to stock your freezer with 36 frozen Oboys to heat up whenever the craving strikes you
215: Number of miles between New York State’s southernmost Oboy retailer in Clinton Corners and northernmost in Saranac Lake
One day, shortly after the COVID-19 stay-at-home order was put in place, Max Oswald, the director of sales and operations at Queensbury’s Northway Brewing Co., was sitting at home, bored, wanting to go out for a beer. He quickly realized that he couldn’t, since all the bars and restaurants were closed. “Then I just started to steamroll,” Oswald says. “You know, having been in the beer business for a while, knowing all kinds of bar and restaurant owners; it’s kind of my lifestyle. And it was a wave of ‘what is going to happen to these people who have lost their income?’”
The next day, Oswald reached out to a handful of his contacts in the beer industry to do something to help tipped service industry workers, who are out of jobs because of COVID-19. From those conversations, Brewnited, a partnership of these six breweries—Northway Brewing Co., Adirondack Brewery, Bolton Landing Brewing Company, Druthers Brewing Co., Artisanal Brew Works and Common Roots Brewing Company—was formed. Its first move was a natural one: to make some beer.
Brewnited came up with Negative Input, a simple American lager that would have a wide appeal. “The name comes from that Twiddle song, ‘White Light,’ and it’s this: ‘Take the negative input and flip it upside-down.’ We actually put the label upside-down for that purpose. The song is really true to what’s going on globally, so it was kind of the perfect name.”
What good will these four-packs of craft beer do? All profits from Negative Input sales go directly to local tipped workers who are currently unemployed. Those who fit that criteria can apply for assistance on wearebrewnited.com; in the same place, there’s a list of locations selling the limited edition four-packs as a well as a donate button for more immediate action. At press time, Brewnited had raised $23,805 through donations and Negative Input sales, as well as through a large contribution from Ball Corp. The partnership was also on track to receive a contribution from Death Wish Coffee’s “Broke, Not Busted” charity T-shirt campaign.
To quote more of Twiddle’s “White Light”: “So many people burning down/So many people need a lift/It starts with one big smile/And grows with every laugh.” With Brewnited and Negative Input, it seems as though Oswald and his team of brewers have come together to be that one big smile the Capital Region service industry needs right now.
Technically, you could say that I became a man over Memorial Day weekend in 1993, when I was bar mitzvahed. All of my friends and extended family gathered at Temple Sinai in Downtown Saratoga Springs, where I recited ancient Hebrew text from the Torah, wrapped in a prayer shawl, wearing a yarmulke, as serious as I’ve ever been. But there is definitely a more common “coming of age” ceremony for teenagers in Saratoga: going to see the Dave Matthews Band (DMB) perform live at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) for the first time.
My own first show was on Saturday, June 8, 1996, and I was accompanied by my older brother and one of his friends; we sat in the amphitheater, and my exact seat was No.23 in Section 11, Row LL (I still have the ticket stub). It was only the band’s second performance at SPAC, the first of which had taken place in September 1994, when DMB was one of the headliners at the fledgling Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere (H.O.R.D.E.) festival, which had quickly become the prime showcase for young artists of all shapes and sizes in the “jam band” scene. (That descriptor is a convenient, if not somewhat pejorative, way to pigeonhole bands that, in the vein of lysergic West Coast antiheroes The Grateful Dead, tend towards long, drawn-out musical improvisation and extended solos.)
Two months before DMB arrived for that gig in ’96, the band had released its second studio album, Crash, which went on to become their best-selling of all time, eventually cresting at No.2 on the Billboard charts; spawning a string of hits, including “So Much to Say” and “Crash Into Me,” to name a few; and going seven times multiplatinum. Most of what happened that night was a blur—the single-song encore was a fiery cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” maybe an unknowing tip of the cap to the famed troubadour who’d famously played a pair of shows across town at Caffè Lena in the early ’60s—but above all, I remember feeling a great weight lifted off of my shoulders. I may have read from the holy scriptures at age 13—and that, indeed, was a special occasion—but this…this was a religious experience.
Surprisingly, DMB had been a band for only a handful of years before that first SPAC appearance in ’94. They formed just three years earlier in Charlottesville, VA, as a quasi-vehicle for local bartender/actor Dave Matthews’ budding side-hustle as a songwriter. Matthews, who was born in South Africa and ping-ponged between there, England and the States, before landing permanently in Virginia in 1989, had decided it was time to put some of his songs to cassette tape, so he enlisted a rag-tag group of local talent to build out his sound, some of whom played regularly at Miller’s, the spot where he tended bar: drummer Carter Beauford, saxophonist LeRoi Moore, bassist Stefan Lessard (who joined the band at 16), keyboardist Peter Griesar and violinist Boyd Tinsley. Something gelled, because soon thereafter, the band established themselves as a local favorite, playing gigs at Charlottesville nightclub Trax, as well as a number of other venues and festivals in North Carolina and Virginia.
It was around this time that Matthews got to know fellow guitarist and songwriter Tim Reynolds, a non-singing, fast-fingered, mad scientist on the six-string, who at the time, had been playing solo gigs every Monday night at Miller’s. “I got to know him right away,” says Reynolds of his longtime friend, songwriting partner and later, bandmate. “It was immediately high-school-buddy mode. He was 10 years younger than me, but he was also relating to all the classic rock that I grew up with and he knew about younger bands.” Reynolds remembers one of the first times they sat down to play music together: “Dave sang, and I played a bunch of music, and before the end of the night, he sat down at the piano and played something, and I was like, ‘He’s like Paul McCartney.’ I could tell he was extremely musical. At the time he was an actor, doing full-time acting and being a bartender, and he was very famous in the local scene. So when he shifted to a band, he already had a crowd waiting to see him do that.”
Dave Matthews performing at SPAC in 2018. (René Heumer)
Like Billy Preston was to The Beatles, Reynolds would eventually become the phantom extra member of DMB, playing on all of the band’s ’90s records and later joining up as a full, touring member in the aughts. (He’s also performed, toured and recorded extensively with Matthews as a duo as well.) “Dave’s songwriting is unique,” says Reynolds. “The rhythm and even the way he fingers [the guitar] is unique. He uses his pinkie as the main thing, and it’s different from when you use your pinkie and play solo lines like classical or jazz. He uses it like a giant muscle to clamp down chord bases.” He knew Matthews was onto something when he first heard “Satellite”—an eventual hit song and crowd favorite: “I was like, that’s some unique shit right there.”
By 1992, the band had gained a loyal following, as part of the local bar and fraternity house scene, and began booking shows outside of their comfort zone, first playing a gig at 23 East Cabaret in Ardmore, PA, then at two venerable New York City nightclubs, the Wetlands Preserve and CBGB. “One of the reasons I didn’t tour with them when they were coming up,” says Reynolds, “is that once they started being established, they toured all year long and really dogged the road.” The band played hundreds of shows per year—in 1992, some 166 alone—and it was difficult for Reynolds to perform his own music (with his trio TR3) outside of an arrangement like that. (Plus, he had toured in the late ’70s in cover bands, too, and felt like he’d already experience the road.) DMB would end up making their way up and down the Eastern seaboard, having been welcomed with open arms into the budding jam band scene, which at that time, included bands such as Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, The Samples, Phish, Big Head Todd & The Monsters and Widespread Panic. That same year, Blues Traveler concocted a traveling carnival of a rock festival to showcase their and their friends’ music, the aforementioned H.O.R.D.E. festival. In ’93, DMB jumped on the lineup for a pair of home-state dates, rising to the level of headliner the following year, when the band arrived at SPAC for the first time. Later that year, they self-released their independent debut, Remember Two Things, which consisted mostly of live cuts and one-off studio session pieces, featuring Reynolds on four out of the 10 tracks (it’s since gone platinum). Unlike their 25-plus song sets that they played at SPAC in 2019, DMB was allotted time for just nine songs at their SPAC debut, ending their set with “Typical Situation,” which would later appear on their major label debut, Under the Table and Dreaming, recorded just south of Saratoga at Bearsville Studios near Woodstock. Released on September 27, 1994, it was almost an immediate commercial hit, peaking at No.11 on the Billboard 200 and vaulting the band into superstardom (it would eventually go six times multiplatinum). Reynolds appeared on every track, doubling Matthews’ guitar parts. The resultant album is nothing short of a glorious wall of sound.
With just a few minor exceptions—1995, 1999, 2011 and this July’s two-night SPAC mini-residence, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 crisis—DMB has been playing almost entirely uninterrupted in Saratoga for more than two decades. With maybe the exception of fellow jammers Phish, DMB has had the longest-standing relationship of any band with the people of Saratoga, and like the ants that we are, we march back, year after year, for more. In those twenty-some-odd years, the band has played SPAC a staggering 37 times, beginning their annual two-night stands in 2001. (Matthews and Reynolds have also appeared at SPAC as a duo three times.)
“I was working in the [SPAC] box office the first year that the lawn sold out,” says Saratoga native Tim Harris, now a carpenter in Greenfield. (He can’t quite place the exact year, but he thinks it might’ve been ’98.) “I was sick of answering the same question over and over, so I made a big, ugly, marker-drawn sign that said ‘Dave is really sold out. Yes, that means lawn, too!’ A picture made it into The Saratogian.” Misha Duvernoy, a teacher and horse breeder based in Hebron, NY, who grew up in Wilton, remembers “camping” outside of SPAC’s box office and the long-shuttered Broadway record store, Strawberries, to nab DMB tickets. “I think I enjoyed hanging out with friends and waiting to buy tickets just as much as actually going to the shows,” she says. In other words, the DMB experience started long before the crowds ever streamed into SPAC; it was as much about being part of a community as it was being at the actual show itself—something that is amplified when you grow up in a small town like Saratoga. Native Saratogian Liz Marcell Williams, who nowadays is the CEO of the Center for Resilience in New Orleans, remembers her first DMB show like it was yesterday: “Front row, orchestra pit, elbows on the stage, summer 1996,” she says. “Ben Harper opened, and Dave sat in the wings and air drummed during his set.” When DMB came back the following summer, Marcell Williams met Matthews backstage. She even reveals that it was my older brother that turned her onto the band in 1994 in the first place. (I can attest; he was an early adopter of many bands that became my favorites, too.) “I fell madly in love with Dave at that first SPAC show and have now seen him about 30 times,” she says. “It never gets old.”
The latest lineup of the Dave Matthews Band features (from left): Tim Reynolds (lead guitar), Stefan Lessard (bass), Buddy Strong (keyboards/backing vocals); Dave Matthews (lead vocals/rhythm guitar); Jeff Coffin (saxophone); Rashawn Ross (trumpet/backing vocals); and Carter Beauford (drums/backing vocals).
Even the band itself has a mutual admiration for the city. “They’re always great,” says Reynolds of DMB’s Saratoga fans. “For awhile, it was a challenge to find a hotel where we could have privacy—a couple times we stayed in some other town.” (Reynolds played his first pair of SPAC shows in 2008.) “It’s a really charming little town,” says Reynolds of Saratoga. “I al ways like going there.” In a 2018 interview in New York magazine, Matthews even gave SPAC a shout-out: “When Tim and I played for 20-something-thousand people in Saratoga Springs last summer, the crowd was jumping around and having a great time—and we were having a great time—but it was like ‘Holy shit!’ You’re just trying to ride the energy as best you can.” (For those keeping track, capacity at SPAC is a little over 25,000.) For any Saratogian who’s ever been to SPAC to see DMB, it’s unlike any other show that Live Nation puts on there; it’s simply an electrifying experience, one that’s hard to put into words. It’s as though the whole city is there, listening, hanging on Matthews’ every word.
DMB even shares Saratoga’s penchant for generosity; they’re basically the Marylou Whitney of the music world. In its nearly three decades in existence, the band has raised tens of millions of dollars for organizations such as the Bridge School, a California-based school for children with severe speech and physical impairments; Farm Aid, a concert series founded by fellow musicians Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp (Matthews has been on its board since 2001), which raises awareness and dollars for family farmers across the country; The Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign, a forest restoration effort with the goal of planting a billion trees around the world by 2025; as well as Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity, Every Mother Counts and the Special Olympics (there are countless others). In 1999, the band formed their own Bama Works Fund, which has raised $52 million for initiatives in their hometown of Charlottesville and beyond. And they’ve even (literally) leant a hand to one of our local nonprofits—Ballsfest, a cancer awareness organization that was founded in 2008 outside of a DMB show at SPAC. Matthews signed a guitar that the nonprofit later auctioned off for more than $5,000. (Ballsfest Founder Frank DeBlasi is a DMB superfan, having seen the band perform more than 275 times at more than 40 different venues, with SPAC being his favorite.)
Although the DMB lineup of the early ’90s is no longer—Griesar left the band in ’93, Moore passed away in ’08 and Tinsley was fired in ’18—the band has, in many ways, become an even tighter, stronger unit than ever before. Surrounding the original core of Matthews, Beauford and Lessard are now lead guitarist Reynolds; saxophonist Jeff Coffin, who filled in after Moore’s death and became a full-time member soon thereafter; trumpeter Rashawn Ross, who’s been touring with the band since 2005 and has been a full-time member since 2006; and keyboardist/vocalist Buddy Strong, the band’s rookie, who joined in 2018, following Tinsley’s departure.
Regardless of who’s in the band or how many shows they play per summer, DMB’s annual pilgrimage to Saratoga, which has sometimes coincided with the Saratoga Race Course summer meet, has been a reason for the city to rejoice. Sure, you’ll hear the usual moans and groans from grumpy locals about the traffic snarls along Route 9 North or Route 50 when the band is in town, but that’s normal small-town jive. DMB’s mere presence in the Spa City has meant a revenue jolt to Downtown Saratoga’s restaurants, shops and hotels—and the secondary market for tickets to sold-out DMB shows has become a prospector’s paradise. In 2017 and 2018, Broadway restaurant Boca Bistro even tried to lure Matthews there the weekend of his SPAC performances via slickly produced music videos, promoting a prix fixe menu paired with Matthews’ own Dreaming Tree brand wines—yes, Matthews diversified his portfolio to include winemaking, too, when he cofounded the brand in 2011 (it’s named after a song from the band’s No.1 record, Before These Crowded Streets). He didn’t show up either time, but the videos went “local viral”—and the dinners have become a permanent fixture.
On the same day that DMB canceled their entire 2020 summer tour, including their July 10-11 run at SPAC, they also announced that they’d be honoring tickets bought for the shows on the same dates next year. So even if we can’t see or hear DMB in the flesh this year, let me suggest ordering a bottle or two—maybe a case!—of Dreaming Tree from one of the five wine stores in Saratoga that carries it, dusting off that DMB concert T-shirt, cranking up whatever you use to listen to DMB these days to 11 and closing your eyes. You might just find yourself in Seat 23, Section 11, Row LL at SPAC. And it might just be the greatest night of your life.
Dave’s Band’s Superfans
Checking in with DMB’s biggest (local) fans about their top SPAC experiences.
In early May, the Dave Matthews Band (DMB) postponed their annual, two-day affair at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC)—though they did immediately reschedule the dates to 2021 and will honor all tickets purchased. To some, DMB’s SPAC shows are nothing short of a national holiday, and Saratoga Living wanted to identify those mega-fans and honor their loyalty
Photographer JP Elario posing with Dave Matthews in 2006. (Elario Photography)
JP Elario, Photographer, Troy
“My first DMB at SPAC concert experience was 20 years ago on August 29, 2000. I know what my very first setlist was—and looking back at it now, it was a pretty good show. So good, actually, that DMB released the recording as part of their ongoing Live Trax series. Not many people have their first show as a live release. So, while I don’t remember the concert, I can actually listen to it whenever I want to. For me DMB at SPAC is like Christmas. There is something special about attending a DMB show there. Of the 39 DMB concerts I have attended in the past 20 years, 18 of them have been at SPAC. This is not counting the three I watched, partially, from the Hall of Springs in between first dances, toasts and cake cuttings while shooting weddings. Talk about torture for a superfan.”
Lisa DiAntonio (right) with Dave and her friend Nicole Nawrot. (Lisa DiAntonio)
Lisa DiAntonio, Research Scientist, Rexford
“I met Dave at the Olde Bryan Inn where my husband is the general manager. I waited at the bar until Dave was done eating and followed him out the back of the restaurant with my friend Nicole. He was so nice and warm despite the fact that I lost my ability to speak because he is my favorite. He drew a rhino on a receipt, which I later tattooed on my back.”
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Meghan Raymond, Lawyer, Gansevoort
“I saw Dave when he played H.O.R.D.E. in 1994. My most memorable experience was when I was able to meet [the band’s] LeRoi [Moore], Carter [Beauford], Stefan [Lessard] and Butch [Taylor] in Downtown Saratoga with my friend Erica back in 2002. Back in high school, I used to listen to cassette tapes of Dave’s gigs that he played back in North Carolina at the bar he worked at. Seeing Tim Reynolds play solo at Putnam Den in 2017 was pretty epic, too. Going to see DMB is what every summer revolves around for me.”
Al Pappo’s ticket from his first DMB show at SPAC. (Al Pappo)
Al Pappo, Pharma Operations Manager, Redding, MA
“My first SPAC show was in 2006. We needed a change of scenery from Boston area DMB shows, so my friend and I drove out. What stands out to me—besides the nervousness of going through security with my shoes and belt stuffed with Grey Goose nips—is driving down Broadway and saying, ‘This looks like a nice place,’ and not giving it much more thought. A few years later, I went out during racing season, was instantly hooked and have been back every August since.”
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Todd Martin, Educator, Saugerties
“My greatest Dave Matthews Band show experience was at SPAC—I believe it was the summer of ’97. Living in town and being a rambunctious teenager, my first choice to get into any show was always to jump the fence. I went to the show with my girlfriend at the time and another couple. Our intentions were to sit on the lawn near the Hall of Springs, because not everyone in the group wanted to hop the fence. When we got to the lawn spot, there was a stepladder propped up against the fence. I convinced my group that if we were to ever hop the fence, this was the time. So we did, and without chase. While walking through the big field on our way to the lawn section, four people walking the opposite way asked if we wanted their tickets. Having just gotten in for free, we said ‘No, thanks. We just hopped the fence!’ To which they replied ‘Are you sure? They are inside seats.’ Our jaws dropped. They said they’d come for the opening band and didn’t want to stick around for Dave. We gladly took the tickets and enjoyed a free show at SPAC in the amphitheater.”
Tawn Malison
Billy Chapman
Colleen H. Carlson
Jeremy Krupa
Paul Hennessey
Ginevra Fisk
