NANTUCKET – Could there be a better time to visit Nantucket Island than the middle of February?
From what we hear, the answer is yes.
Still, when winter is here and there’s nothing to do, what do you do?
Well, we at Cape Cod Wave headed to Nantucket – Melville’s Island, if you will, that we hear now belongs like a trophy to the 1 percent, except in deep winter when the real Nantucket seems to emerge in a funky, cool, heart-of-the-island place like Cisco Brewery.
And the treat, besides the beer of course, was a stripped-down version of Buckle & Shake, normally a five-piece band but performing on Saturday with only three members.
The three – Caleb Crossman on fiddle, Pete Arsenault on lead guitar, and Doug Cote on guitar and vocals, presented rootsy music, mixing fun interpretations of covers with super catchy originals, including an all-too-representative-of-winter-around-here original, “Winter’s coming.”
For what it is worth, this song is right up there as one of our favorite songs about winter on the Cape & Islands.
In fact, if we were to recommend a Cape Cod Wave seasonal playlist, this probably has to be the early winter song, when summer’s been packed away in a box.
The late winter song that Cape Cod Wave likes is “Start It Up Again” by the Brothers Rye of Woods Hole.
Oh, and this performance also reminds us about how fun it is to see a great joyful band in a local brewery. As a reminder, one of our favorite performances we’ve ever seen, Sarah Swain and the Oh Boys! at Cape Cod Beer.
See, the point is that this little geographic area is richer in musical talent than almost anywhere else in the country, and we continue to prove it here on Cape Cod Wave, video by video.
And speaking of talent, Cote, the showman lead singer of Buckle & Shake also hosts a podcast, “Inside The Whale” about Nantucket.
– If you like Cape Cod music, here is a 6,000-word story that Cape Cod Wave did on the Cape Cod original music scene. We interviewed 20 musicians, four club owners, and two radio deejays – Cape Cod Music And The Joy Of Being Originally Alive
And here is a link to our growing collection of local music stories and videos –MUSIC