Story and photograph by Thomas Crone
Let’s say you’re the sort of person who’s never come closer to a Grateful Dead gig than a peaceful stroll through the parking lot of Chicago’s Soldier Field on an overcast concert afternoon. Let’s also say that you’re the type who’s got a single Grateful Dead album in your collection, American Beauty, which you bought only because the album was featured on the final episode of the lamented TV show Freaks and Geeks. And, for good measure, let’s just say that the music of the Dead just … never … quite … clicked with you.
Would you say you’re this type of person?
And if you are, would you wind up going to Off Broadway to catch a Dead cover band for about 13 weeks out of 20?
That might not be a safe bet. But it can happen. Here’s why.
Even for the most ardent non-Deadhead, The Schwag earns points for hard work. Formed in 1991 as The Kind, the group’s been playing Tuesday nights ever since, at venues all over town. Their trip around the city’s club scene is an interesting tour in itself: First came Molly’s (they outgrew the space), then Cicero’s (fired, then rehired, then eventually outgrew it, too), Mississippi Nights (since torn down), Club Z (long since reformatted) and even Rock Island (shuttered, mysteriously). There was even a Thursday night stint at another gonesville venue, the Hi-Pointe.
Since January 2007, the band—bassist/vocalist Jimmy Tebeau, guitarist Tim Moody, drummer Tony Antonelli and keyboardist Nate Carpenter—has called Off Broadway home, playing an early rehearsal set for die-hards before their standard two sets, starting at 10 p.m. sharp. They’ve got their audience so well-trained, devotees don’t bother showing up until minutes before the gigs, when the bar is suddenly slammed with orders for affordable drafts (“Their fans are thrifty,” says owner Steve Pohlman) and, oddly enough, more Long Island iced teas than you can count.
“We’ve done pretty well here,” Tebeau figures. “We get people driving down from Quincy or up from Belleville. And people know that at 10 o’clock, we’re on.”
That kind of consistency in approach has allowed the group to cut back their touring, down from 200 shows a year to about 130, with “52 of them,” as Tebeau likes to say, “at this place on Tuesday. We’ve turned this into a small dynasty.”
With a deep playlist from all eras of the Dead, including the post–Jerry Garcia years, a Schwag gig offers all the archetypal things you might expect at a Dead show, in microcosm: lithe, young dancers shimmying and swaying; the dreaded young men in jester’s caps; the occasional glow-stick being twirled. Mostly, you get a band that, for two sets a night, does a damned fine job channeling the act they’ve chosen to honor through their work. Though they don’t affect the same six-piece lineup of the classic Dead, they certainly fill the sonic space.
“It’s ever-evolving,” Tebeau reasons, minutes before the first set of the evening. “This group’s been together for a little while now, about six or seven months. We tend to really burn through guitarists. We’ve had 14 guitarists, seven keyboardists, eight drummers. One’s dead, two have been in and out of rehab. Some are with other bands, touring around, including the Dark Star Orchestra.”
But for The Schwag and their merry following, the party rolls on. It always does.
