The Groves play Gasparilla Music Festival at Curtis Hixon Park in Tampa, Florida on March 10, 2012.
The end of Crowbar’s lease in 2026 looms inside the hearts of local live music fans, and it’s driven one band from that emerged on the scene 13 years ago to get back together for a one-off, 12 years after breaking up.

“Tom [DeGeorge, owner of Crowbar] and I were chatting at the soundboard about life and the business and how it’s all evolved. He expressed that he was nearing the end of the Crowbar era of his life, and wanted to get some OG bands that he loved and had hosted in the past, to play there again before he ‘retires,”” frontman/guitarist J.T. Brown told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. So he asked his bandmates—including bassist Jana Jones, always the heart and soul of the group, but now Portland-based—and they were all in.

They’ve been rehearsing old songs (Southern rock with texture, psychedelic touches and a hint of dirt-road gospel) on Arrowhead Farms where The Groves had its first practice. “It’s where we wrote the first record, and it feels pretty cool to be fine-tuning the songs a decade later in the same spot. Full circle moments,” Brown added. “We have some surprises in store, some twists on the songs to update them a little, and we’re doing it all with way better gear, so the shit is gonna sound massive and tight.”

Mark Etherington’s cosmic folk project The New Dawn opens alongside Mellencamp-esque Bay area songwriter Blake Daniels.

Tickets to see The Groves and more play Ybor City’s Crowbar on Saturday, Dec. 23 are still available and cost $15.

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Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...