Opening with one of their most fun and enduring ditties, the calendar-appropriate “Pie for Breakfast,” The Brothers Comatose, on Black Friday, Nov. 29, serenaded an at-capacity back-patio crowd with a captivating set of contemporary bluegrass/folk-rock revelry. The show took place at Old Princeton Landing Public House and Grill, at Half Moon Bay, about 25 miles south of San Francisco. Santa Cruz, Calif.-based band Wolf Jett opened the festivities. The same two bands played the same venue one year prior, on the day after Thanksgiving.
At it for about 15 years, the band is led by anything-but-comatose Morrison brothers: Ben (acoustic guitar/lead vocals) and Alex (banjo/vocals). The five-piece string band, all accomplished players, delivered a masterful aural party that seamlessly combined Ben’s caramel-smooth lead vocals atop the instrumental wizardry of Ben and Alex, as well as Phil Brezina (fiddle), Steve Height (stand-up bass), and newest bandmate Addie Levy (mandolin/vocals). The band, especially Brezina, who would often leave his spot on the end to move about the stage to collaborate with other players, jammed as various duos, trios, etc., helping the performance stay unpredictable and fresh.
On this night, The Brothers Comatose ran through about 20 tunes of various moods and tempos, all wrapped up in pickin’ ‘n’ grinnin’ positivity. The show included performances of two new songs—the quick, banjo-prominent “Run Boy Run” and “Running Back to You,” the latter performed as a soft duet with Alex on guitar and Ben on vocals. Ben Morrison said a couple of days after the show that a so-far unnamed “new album is expected in summer/fall 2025. We’ve put out a few singles already and will continue that in February or March until the album is released.”
Also performed were several high-energy Brothers Comatose crowd favorites such as “The Way the West Was Won,” “Knoxville Foxhole,” and “Tops of the Trees,” all from their heralded 2016 album, City Painted Gold. The set also featured four tunes from their 2012 record, Respect the Van, including fiddle-forward “Strings” (with Brezina and Levy on fiddles) and the aforementioned “Pie for Breakfast,” as well as “Morning Time,” with audience member Hillary invited onstage to vocalize the part sung by Nicki Bluhm on the original recording. They also offered “120 East” from Respect the Van, an ode to the California state highway where “Pines and redwoods reach to the sky / And they line the winding roads we drive.”
Their “IPA Song,” which The Brothers Comatose recorded in 2023 with Ronnie McCoury, kept the mood light: “That stuff is bitter and gross (So gross) / I just wanna enjoy myself / I don’t wanna be comatose … You can keep your hoppy IPA’s / I’ll be sipping on my PBR.”
The band also played three selections from their 2022 project, Turning Up the Ground: the mid-tempo “Too Many Places,” the bluesy Alex-sung “Working for Somebody Else,” and the frenetic, fiddle-forward “Steel Driver.”
Addie Levy, a renowned musician who’s brought to the fold a wealth of old-timey music talent from the Blue Ridge Mountains of western Virginia, officially joined the band in October 2024, assuming mandolin duties from Greg Fleischut, who moved on to other music pursuits. Levy fronted the band on her song, “Blue Mountain,” which on her own 2024 debut eponymous album features Trey Hensley. She also sang “Little Maggie,” a bluegrass standard recorded by Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys in the late 1940s. At one point, Ben Morrison followed a song by saying, “That was Phil on the fiddle, Addie on mandolin, and the band on Tecate.” Levy then opened a can of Tecate beer into the microphone, which produced a loud, crowd-pleasing whooshing sound effect.
The Brothers Comatose’s set additionally included selected covers, including reverent versions of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” instrumental “Squirrel Hunter” (recorded by John Hartford, Sharon Gilchrist, and Tyler Childers), “Valerie,” The Zutons’ love ballad made famous by Amy Winehouse/Mark Ronson in 2007, and encore, “Y’all Come,” recorded by Arlie Duff in 1953 and Bill Monroe in 1954.
Wolf Jett, led by Stetson hat-wearing frontman/chief songwriter Chris Jones on acoustic guitar and vocals (and occasional harmonica), started the evening’s proceedings and delivered a fine hour-long set of catchy and crafty Americana rock ‘n’ blues songs and jamming, which their website calls “Cosmic Mountain Music.” The band, active now for about six years, featured Jon Payne on drums, Duncan Shipton on bass, Will Fourt on lap steel and guitar, and, rather than long-time vocalist Laura T. Lewis, included vocalist Allyson Makuch, who is also a graphic designer, multimedia artist, and astrologer. Jones and Payne previously collaborated as members of folk-rock band Scary Little Friends.
Early on, Wolf Jett had a tough time due to the CZU Lightning fires in August 2020 that destroyed their studio, which was built during the COVID-19 pandemic. That story was well-documented in the press.
Wolf Jett’s set included “Sycamore Wind” and “Sweet Revival,” two selections from Time Will Finally Come, their new album that features some keyboard session work by Jason Crosby and Alex Jordan and guest mandolin/vocals from AJ Lee. The Brothers Comatose’s Alex Morrison created the album logo, Jones said. Wolf Jett also performed fine covers of Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting in Limbo” and Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.” The band also reached back for Scary Little Friends’ “One Sweet Day.”
