Fenway’s Rooftop Series steps up to plate for local acts
Like the rest of Boston, soul singer Jesse Dee knows Fenway Park is hallowed ground.
“I grew up in the area and have been going there since I was a little kid,” Dee said. “I get it, I understand the magic.”
For musicians who love the Red Sox, playing Fenway Park has always been a dream. But until recently, only the city’s icons — acts such as Aerosmith, the J. Geils Band and New Kids on the Block — got a chance to perform in Fenway. Recently that changed with the Fenway
Rooftop Sessions, a series of concerts in the Vineyard Vines Club atop the park.
“It’s a really cool little corner of the roof of Fenway and we had a beautiful evening with good energy on the bandstand and in the crowd,” Dee said of his set at the Sessions earlier this month. “If you’re a music fan, you get to see this cool, alternative space for a concert. And if you’re a baseball fan, well, the experience speaks for itself.”
The Rooftop jams came out of the friendship between Boston singer/songwriter/guitarist Will Dailey and Red Sox team president Sam Kennedy. A few years ago, Kennedy caught a Dailey set — Dailey has become a fixture at the annual Hot Stove Cool Music charity concerts. He dreamed up the concerts in 2017 and, with the Sox, launched the first official series last summer as performer and curator.
“Sam Kennedy has been looking to find ways for Fenway to be more inclusive and I’m always looking for ways to support the arts in this city,” Dailey said. “This was a chance to put art, put music, in the Vatican of Boston. I had to try to make it work.”
And so far it has. This year the space, which fits about 300, has been packed for each show, and Dailey expects the remaining shows to do as well. Dailey booked himself for July 28 (before a Yankees game) and later in the summer country singer/ songwriter Annie Brobst, rock phenom Carissa Johnson and Cambridge roots heroes Session Americana and Ali McGuirk will all play sets. Each ticket includes the pregame show and a ticket for the Red Sox game that day.
Dailey has made sure not to just include his buddies on bills, but rather to explore sounds from a range of genres.
“The acts need to be able to sell tickets so they tend to be established artists but beyond that I want it to be a mix of rock, folk, hip-hop and country,” he said.
The acts also need to be local. Dailey is serious about using the series to boost the Sox and scene.
“I don’t care if you have the best ballplayers, if you don’t have art in your town, everything is going down, property values, quality of life, everything else,” he said. “Art is important and this is a great way to remind people of that.”