Continuing their tour for their Grammy-nominated album, Elevate, the psychedelic and experimental funk-jazz-hip-hop jam band, LETTUCE, will be performing at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall at 7 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 5.
Elevate debuted June 2019 and hit #1 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Album Chart, the iTunes R&B Albums Chart and has been streamed over 2 million times since its release. Elevate also includes a funky cover of English pop-rock band, Tears For Fear’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
“We just wanted to express a world where even though people are struggling, that they also have dreams and aspirations and that they should follow them,” LETTUCE drummer Adam Deitch said about the song’s music video. “We wanted to have a video that didn’t really glorify us but glorified just regular people grinding.”
Deitch and the LETTUCE gang have been “grinding” since 1992 in their college years at Berkeley School of Music in Boston.
Without a clue on how to land a gig at a club, the band took a more “imperial” approach on finding “venues” to jam at.
“We’d just go to different colleges and there’d be bands playing at the dorms or college parties and we’d all fit in at the same time and basically just start our own party at someone else’s gig,” Deitch reminisced with a half-guilty, half-mischievous laugh. “It was kind of funny. And we kept doing it. Eventually we were like, ‘We should maybe get our own gig.’”
Flash-forward to 2020 and LETTUCE has performed around the world and in popular arts and music festivals like Electric Forest, Hulaween, The Peach Music Festival and even Florida’s very own, Hulaween, at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak.
“Hulaween is one of our favorite places to play,” Deitch said. “We love Suwannee Park. Everyone that throws that festival are super cool and they make sure everyone’s treated with respect.”
This will be the first time LETTUCE performs at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall and they are just as excited for this intimate show as they were for the very first gig they crashed.
“Playing small clubs is another experience,” Deitch said. “You can see all the people’s faces and it’s very personal. People can really be a part of the show since they’re all right there (with us). We see the people dancing and it’s great. We love playing in the warm weather. We love playing in Florida and you can expect a real, feel-good show.”
For tickets to LETTUCE at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall, Jan. 5, visit www.pvconcerthall.com. For more on LETTUCE, visit www.lettucefunk.com or follow the band on Instagram at @LettuceFunk.
