W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Cyril Neville and The Fuel at Brooklyn Bowl (2026-09-16)

I first came upon The Neville Brothers in the summer of 1980 when they were the opening acts for the Wild Tchoupitoulis at The Bottom Line here in New York.  I’m pretty sure that this 4 night run at the legendary Greenwich Village club was the Neville’s first time playing NYC.  Of course it would normally have been a bit of a stretch as to why this 21 yr. old from NY would be going to see an Indian Tribe from New Orleans.  As it turns out a bunch of my college friends bagged school for a week to drive down to NOLA for Mardi Gras earlier that year.  When they got back to Ithaca all they could talk about was this band of brothers they’d seen down there called The Neville Brothers.  Needless to say seeing them at The Bottom Line became an absolute no brainer that summer.  And let me tell you, that show in June 1980 made a lifetime believer out of me, that’s for sure.

Fast forward and myself and these same friends would make an annual trek down the the Crescent City for Mardi Gras and one of the absolute musts (right up there with The Zulu Parade and catching a coconut) was seeing The Neville Brothers on Monday night at Tipitinas regardless of how wasted and/or exhausted we might be.

One of my musical regrets will always be not having ever gotten out to San Francisco for at least one of the legendary New Year’s Eve shows that the Nevilles did with the Grateful Dead.  Alas, raising a family was the priority at the time.

Obviously The Dead and The Nevilles enjoyed a close relationship born out of their mutual love for music.  Unfortunately after all these years, Art and Charles Neville are no longer with us.  Likewise Jerry Garcia, Bobby Weir and Phil Lesh aren’t either.  But fortunately Cyril Neville, the youngest of the 4 brothers is still out on the road and currently he’s touring with his son, Omari Neville and his band The Fuel doing a tribute to the music of The Grateful Dead.

The band made it to Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg on Wednesday and certainly did all of the musicians who are no longer with us, quite proud.  Opening up with “Touch Of Grey” was a perfect opener as it got the crowd of almost 100% greyheads up doing their very best old age version of the Grateful Dead spin.

Neville, himself was in fine form as he stood center stage behind his congas, dancing, drumming and singing with the energy and aplomb of a man half his age.  Following “Touch” the band jumped into “Fly Like An Eagle”, the Steve Miller classic hit which was the first song in a long segue of tunes.  From “Eagle” they moved on to “Not Fade Away” from which guitarist, Gregg “ShotGun” Molinario teased The Beatles “Norwegian Wood” before moving on to “Iko Iko”, “Jambalaya (On The Bayou)”, and “They All Asked For You” before coming full circle back to “Not Fade Away”. No doubt about it, this was a transitive segue that would have made Jerry, Phil and Bobby proud.

Next up we were treated to the proverbial Dead medley known to all Deadheads simply as Scarlet/Fire…but to you uninitiated Scarlet Begonias into Fire On The Mountain.  Closing out the first set was the funkiest, grooviest and easily most fun “Deep Elem Blues” that I’ve ever heard. Cyril was pure fiyo on this one.  Following “Deep Elem” we got the title track from Cyril’s most recent LP, “Don’t Wait ‘Til I’m Gone”. At the conclusion of “Don’t Wait” Cyril told us all that they’d be back after a brief break which totally took me by surprise.  I for one never expected a 2 set show from a 78 year old especially one who had just played his skinny ass off for the last hour but who was I to argue?  After 10-15 minutes the band returned and kicked into the age-old classic “Truckin’” complete with its thunderous line “busted down on Bourbon Street” to which the crowd, not surprisingly erupted in applause.  We got a mini drums from Omari and Cyril in the middle of “Truckin” and let me just say, the kid can really pound those skins.  This was already quite evident by the steady back beat that Omari and bassist Austin Clements, son of renowned New Orleans guitarist Cranston Clements, had been laying down throughout the evening up to this point.

After Truckin’ the second set was pretty much dominated by NOLA classics like Professor Longhair’s “Tipitinas” and “Brother Jake” a Neville Brothers staple from their 1990 LP Brother’s Keeper.  None of which seemed to bother any of us in the crowd who might have been expecting more Dead material.  All in all, Cyril provided all of us in attendance with a fantastic evening of New Orleans infected Grateful Dead songs.  All of this being said, the world is filled with a plethora of

Grateful Dead tribute bands.  Some of these ensembles play the material close to the vest, attempting to mimic the sound and style of Jerry and the rest of The Dead.  Some of these bands have the chops to pull it off, many can’t come close.  Then there are other groups which take the material that the Dead left us and they put their own spin on the songs, transforming them into something just a little more personal, all the while trying to maintain an homage to the originals.  Cyril Neville firmly falls in the latter of these bands and he manages to perfectly blend the two narratives of self expression and tribute into a blissful gumbo of musical styles.  Us old timers were lucky to live on this earth at the same time as The Grateful Dead and The Neville Brothers and all I can say is thank goodness we still have Cyril Neville to carry on this fantastic legacy.

Photo Slideshow: