.png){kind=small}
On October 20th we return to Moe’s Alley in our hometown of Santa Cruz. Of course, we’re really excited to be back playing at Moe’s especially given that this is our first club date in Santa Cruz since May, so it feels long overdue. In addition to the normal excitement of playing a local show, October 20th is a date that’s marked on the Coffis calendar every year but has even a little extra significance this year.
Earlier this month marked the year anniversary of Tom Petty’s passing and October 20th would be Tom’s 68th Birthday. In the year since, we’ve started to play his songs on stage pretty regularly which is not something we did as much of before, oddly enough. I think we were playing You Wreck Me but that was about it. I’m not sure really why that was, but probably sort of out of respect to those songs or something. And like so many others, we’re still just as sad about Tom’s passing as we were a year ago, but throughout this year we’ve had a lot of fun playing his songs and the opportunities to play them continue to pop up. There was our show October 6th at Sutter Creek Provisions where there was so much Tom Petty memorabilia in the venue that it only felt right to play a half dozen Petty tunes, or earlier this Summer when John Craigie asked us to back him up on a set of Petty tunes at the Kate Wolf Music Festival, which still feels like one of the highlight sets of our year. But even aside from the real heavy Petty nights, we’ve been playing a song or two most nights seemingly. We played It’s Good To Be King at the Strawberry Music Festival, Love Is A Long Road on the Stompin’ Grounds Stage at the Whale Rock Music Festival, we encored our set at the Redwood Mountain Faire with Runnin’ Down a Dream and You Wreck Me, which featured a very surprised McCoy Tyler on lead guitar, and even made a video of Rebels at a distillery in Templeton (https://youtu.be/F7ye51l1rmE). Some nights they might feel really emotional and it can be difficult to get through, and other nights they’re just fun and sort of healing.
Tom Petty set at Kate Wolf with John Craigie
It turns out that we weren’t the only who had Tom’s Birthday on the calendar because we’ve noticed a lot of Tom Petty tribute shows going on that night which is really cool to see. Our show at Moe’s Alley will not be one of those Tom Petty Tribute Shows, but it was no accident that we chose this date to play in Santa Cruz. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, everything we do is in some way a tribute to Tom, and October 20th at Moe’s Alley will be no exception to that. If there’s one thing that might stand above everything else that Tom taught us, it was the importance of a song. So yeah, we’re going to play mostly Coffis Brothers songs that night. I think in some ways that’s as much of a tribute to Tom as anything we can do. With that said, if you think we’re going to play a show on Tom Petty’s Birthday in our hometown and not play at least a few Tom Petty songs then you don’t know us very well. And we can get pretty liberal with “a few” when it comes to Tom Petty songs. Tom Petty’s songs are our very favorite songs in the world and we want them to continue to be heard and played so we’re going to do our small part to make sure they always are.
Castoro Cellars in Templeton playing “It’s Good To Be King”
We look forward to seeing lots of friends, family, and fans at this show. We’re really excited to have our good friend, Taylor Rae who will be bringing her band with her to open the show. If you live in Santa Cruz then I’m sure you’re already familiar with Taylor, but if you aren’t then I’d really recommend you make a point to see her. You’ll love her.
The Coffis Brothers & the Mountain Men at Moe’s Alley
Saturday October 20th 8pm Doors 9pm Show with Taylor Rae Tickets- http://www.moesalley.com/artist.php?id=2811&artist=THE_COFFIS_BROTHERS_+_Taylor_Rae_Band
Lying on the stage at Moe’s Alley during “You Wreck Me” on October 13th, 2017