Talk about a homecoming.

Drummer Jonathan Priest visits Tampa bay this weekend, but it's not just to drop in on Pop and catch up with pals at The Hub. He has three gigs on Friday night and one on Saturday — all of them, thankfully, under the same roof at Yeoman's Road Pub on Davis Islands.

The big night is Friday (starting at 9 p.m.), when he mans the kit with three bands he helped found or establish in the Bay area: the ska/reggae ensemble Rocksteady@8; Infinite Groove Orchestra, a space-funk jazz outfit; and the marquee event, the reunion of Ghetto Love Sugar, a jam-jazz quartet that burned brightly for less than two years in the early 2000s. Bassist Philip Booth, keyboardist/EFX guy Raulton Reichel and guitarist Joel Lisi round out the unit.

It should be a freewheeling night with lots of movable parts, as the musicians in each of the bands are friends and collaborators. Expect robust jamming. For the capper on Saturday, Priest will join in on the CD Release Party for singer/songwriter Dan Kincaid's The Walk Within.

This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2009.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...