After their debut gig last month at a tiny club in the Hamptons, producer/musician Andrew Watt and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith‘s pickup covers band Smith and Watt Steakhouse graduated to the sold-out, 600-capacity Brooklyn Bowl in New York last night (Sept. 18), welcoming guests such as Jimmy Fallon, the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, the Roots’ Black Thought and pedal steel guitar ace Robert Randolph throughout the two-hour-and-15-minute jam.
Fallon belted out the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” just minutes before his 50th birthday and was presented with a cake before he left the stage. Robinson took the mic for the Faces’ “Stay With Me” and Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” while Randolph sizzled on guitar and vocals during Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” and “Purple Haze.”
Hailed by Watt as “the man who taught me how to roll a blunt,” Black Thought came onstage for the Roots’ hit “The Seed 2.0,” stuck around for the Ol’ Dirty Bastard classic “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and then offered two freestyles while the band rocked behind him.
Photographer Danny Clinch lent a hand on harmonica during the opening tune, the Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” while Watt’s girlfriend Charlotte Lawrence sang lead on new wave covers such as the Police’s “Roxanne” and the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.”
Longtime friends Watt and Smith, who have played together on numerous albums and are both members of Eddie Vedder’s side band Earthlings, were backed by longtime Saturday Night Live band member G.E. Smith, bassist Ivan Bradley, keyboardist Ben Stivers and a four-piece horn section.
During their Aug. 20 show at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, N.Y., Watt and Smith played nearly all the same songs as they did at Brooklyn Bowl, with the exception of the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There,” which featured a surprise appearance by Paul McCartney.