The Green
Fremont Theatre
∙
San Luis Obispo
Sunday, February 6 at 8 pm PST
Concert Venue
2 +People going
Sunday, February 6 at 8 pm PST
Concert Venue
Entry Options
Details
Description
California Roots Presents The Green live on Sunday, February 6, 2022 at the Fremont Theater with special guest Keznamdi
♦ SHOW INFORMATION ♦
Sunday, February 6
Door Time- 7 pm
Show Time- 8 pm
♦ TICKET INFORMATION ♦
Tickets on sale NOW!
$25 - $32 General Admission
ALL AGES
♦
VENUE COVID PROTOCOL ♦
All events at the Fremont Theater require:
- proof of full vaccination or a negative lab test within 72 hours of the event prior to entrance into the venue.
- Masks must be worn in line and while entering the venue
- In accordance with San Luis Obispo Health Officer Order #6 All patrons regardless of vaccination status are required to wear face coverings at all times while indoors.
** These guidelines are subject to change.
♦ ABOUT THE PERFORMERS ♦
With much of the live music industry scaled back or in a holding pattern for 2020 and 2021 due to theCOVID-19 pandemic restrictions, many musicians enjoyed an extended hiatus at home with family andfriends and additional time to focus on their music. Hawaii-based reggae band The Green sum up theirperiod of self-reflection, as well as overcoming personal challenges, on the title track of their 6thstudioalbum, Brand New Eyes, out November 5th (Easy Star Records/Ineffable Records). A powerful rootsreggae song, “Brand New Eyes” was co-written by one of The Green’s four lead singers, JP Kennedy, andGrammy nominated singer/songwriter Kimie Miner.
“Kimie is a friend of the band and the song was inspired by us becoming new parents at about the sametime, but as our latest album came together, the song evolved into a whole new thing,” explains JPKennedy. One of the greatest accomplishments for JP during lockdown was going into rehab; throughoutthat time the band kept up their rigorous rehearsal and work schedules. “When I was away, the bandtook that time to evolve so when I got out, we had a whole new foundation of what we are workingfrom; I was blown away by that. Even though ‘Brand New Eyes’ was written years ago, it speaks to wherethe band is now, what centers us to achieve the same goal. The song is relevant to looking at your lifeand trying to make things better.” “It’s about having minds of our own, different lives, seeing things froma different perspective,” adds vocalist Caleb Keolanui, who co-produced “Brand New Eyes,” alongside JP,Leslie Ludiazo, and Lapana Ieriko, the crew that also produced the tracks “Stay True,” “Feeling Free,” and“DFRTNLY,” all recorded at Honolulu’s Live Animaux Studio. 4
The Green are among the very first reggae bands from the Hawaiian islands to extensively tour the USmainland and perform in such far-flung locales as Japan and New Zealand. One of the genre’s busiestacts, prior to headlining their own tours, the band supported many American reggae bands includingRebelution, Iration, SOJA, and even Jamaica’s Damian Marley. Grammy winning pop superstar BrunoMars selected The Green to open his three sold out shows at Honolulu’s Blaisdell Arena in 2014 and histwo sold out dates at Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium, Hawaii’s largest outdoor venue, in 2018. The Green havealso appeared on several of America’s biggest music festivals, including the Vans Warped Tour, Wakarusa,Life Is Beautiful, Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, One Love Cali Reggae Festival, California RootsFestival, and Rebelution’s Bright Side Festival in Jamaica. The Green launched their forthcoming album byperforming two consecutive shows on May 20-21, 2021, at an event called Brand New Eyes: TheExperience. It was held on the rooftop of Waikiki’s International Market Place and is Hawaii’s first rooftopconcert; the concert footage will be released at a later date.
For band members Ikaika Antone (keyboards, vocals) and Zion Thompson (guitar, vocals), who becamefirst time fathers during the pandemic, the lockdown afforded expanded time to bond with theirnewborn daughters; for the entire band, the lockdown provided an opportunity for deeperconcentration on their music making. “Because we weren’t touring, we were able to pull the albumtogether in a way that we couldn’t before,” says Ikaika. “Now that our families are growing, it’s time toget more proactive with our music, so the pandemic was a blessing in disguise, and we adapted reallywell.”
One of the album’s standout tracks is the ballad “Young Man,” produced by Imua Garza. Ikaika takes thelead, openly sharing the struggles he and his wife experienced trying to conceive their daughter; thesong is tenderly written from the perspective of their unborn child. “I wrote the song over the process oftrying to conceive, beginning with our first miscarriage, then having trouble getting pregnant again, thenwe had another miscarriage, an 18-month span that ends with a pregnancy that we held on to,” revealsIkaika. “The listener might not get that, but they will get that someone is lost, maybe struggling with anaddiction.” When Ikaika wails, “living life on the bottle and a hand on the needle, planting a seed will beharder for now,” he’s not depicting a drug addict or an alcoholic’s unstable reality, he’s referencing thefertility drugs that his wife took to conceive their child. “Ultimately, whatever the song will mean topeople will be powerful in some way,” Ikaika continued, “and I hope they get the message of hope, loveand strength because those were the things that helped us to persevere during that time.”The Green was formed in 2009 with Caleb Keolanui (lead and backing vocals), Ikaika Antone (keyboards,lead and backing vocals), JP Kennedy (lead and backing vocals, guitar), Zion Thompson (lead and backingvocals, guitar) and Brad Watanabe (backing vocals, bass, keyboards, guitar, drums). Drummer JordanEspinoza joined in 2011, replacing Leslie Ludiazo, who remains the band’s musical director. The Green’sself-titled debut was recognized by iTunes as the Best Reggae Album of 2010. In 2014, the band receivedthree prestigious Na Hoku Hanohano awards (considered Hawaii's equivalent of the Grammys): Group ofthe Year, Reggae Album of the Year and Entertainer of the Year. They’ve also had three albums releasedvia Easy Star Records that topped the Billboard Reggae Album chart, 2011’s Ways and Means (whichspent four weeks at number one), 2013's Hawaii 13, and 2017’s Marching Orders, which stayed in thetop 10 for 18 consecutive weeks, regaining the no. 1 spot three separate times. Marching Orders wasdistinguished as the Best Reggae Album at the 2018 Na Hoku Hanohano awards. In 2019, The Greenreleased an acoustic set of their greatest hits, Black & White, the same year they were named Group ofthe Year at Hawaii’s Island Music Awards, created by Hawaii’s no. 1 reggae radio station, Island 98.5 FM.The varied cast of producers complementing the enhanced writing on Brand New Eyes’ 11 tracks bringsout a bolder shade of The Green. They include Jamaica’s Phillip “Winta” James on “Recipe” and “LostYou” and Brooklyn’s Ricky Blaze on “Feelings.” Brian Fennell (a.k.a. SYML, a successful artist in his ownright) who has worked with Third Eye Blind, OneRepublic and with The Green on Marching Orders, helmsthe production on “Coming Home,” “Blue Skies,” and “My Friend (Don't Give Up).” “We get a lot ofinspiration from each song and as our songwriting grows, that has an effect on everything, includingwho’s producing it,” notes Ikaika. “From album to album, we recognize that our songs are getting moremature so sonically, it evolves in the same way.” “With Brand New Eyes we have a pretty good sizeproduction team, which allows us to take songs to places that we wouldn’t have been able to on ourown,” adds JP. “Songs like ‘Recipe’ (a sultry interpolation of legendary English band Aswad’s ‘YourRecipe’), ‘Lost You’ (an exquisite reggae love lament), and the irresistible soca-tinged ‘Feelings’ (featuringJamaican singer Gyptian and J Boog) are completely Jamaican produced; that’s the result of having yearsin the game, being able to work with veterans and not having to do everything ourselves.” Other guestartists include Alborosie on the redemptive reggae track “Feeling Free” and Keznamdi on the ethereal“Blue Skies.”The Green has earned rave reviews from Billboard, which described their music as “a powerful sonicidentity that fuses late 1970s-era dub-heavy roots reggae with strands of contemporary rock/pop/R&Band sporadic indigenous Hawaiian musical and lyrical references.” Top Shelf Reggae enthused: “TheGreen as a musical force cannot be overstated; they are one of the most consistently loved bands in thegenre.” The band has almost 1 million monthly active listeners on Spotify, nearly 50 million total plays onApple Music and over 311 million lifetime streams on Pandora.As The Green prepares to hit the road again in 2022, Brand New Eyes’ heart wrenching ballad “ComingHome” ruefully expresses the most challenging aspect of touring faced by musicians: telling their youngchildren they are leaving home, again. “I wrote the chorus and two verses, and Caleb wrote the secondverse,” says bassist Brad Watanabe. “When we were on tour, I saw the boys talking to their kids backhome and I thought, what is it like for the kids when we leave?” Sensitively conveyed by Caleb’s lead,“Coming Home” is notable because it is partially written and sung in ʻŌlelo Hawai’i, the indigenousHawaiian language that was banned in schools and government by the United States in 1898. Five yearsearlier, a consortium of sugar and pineapple businessmen, the American minister to Hawaii, and heavilyarmed soldiers and marines deposed and subsequently imprisoned Hawaii's Queen Lili’uokalani,conspired to annex the islands to the US, and seized 1.75 million acres of crown land. Hawaii became aUS territory in 1900 and the 50th US state in 1959, by which time the Hawaiian language had nearlyvanished. A revival began in the 1980s and Hawaiian Language Immersion Schools were created toprovide K-12 Hawaiian language education. “I have been learning Hawaiian for the past three years,teaching at a Hawaiian Immersion School, and the language has become a really big part of my life; Ididn’t set out to write the lyrics in Hawaiian - they just came to me that way,” adds Brad. “Brad is theone guy in the band who doesn’t have kids yet, so coming from him, this song is a very impactful,universal take on the whole story,” offers JP. “We also take great pride in our Hawaiian culture, so it’smassive for Brad to be taking up the Hawaiian lyrics and putting them into our music.”Brand New Eyes concludes with “My Friend (Don’t Give Up)” a polished, soulful fusion with empoweringlyrics that offer an important reminder: “You are enough, more than enough and never, ever change,” asentiment that has gotten the band through their greatest hardships. “Responding to adversity issomething that we are naturally good at,” reflects JP. “We all come from humble beginnings and whenthings start to get rocky, we toughen up and just get it done. Throughout the pandemic, we justhunkered down and did what we needed to do. I am so proud of Brand New Eyes; I am proud of all ofour albums, but the way this one happened through all of the challenges, I am so stoked to share it.”By Patricia Meschino