Fairfield Street Band
Rock the Patio
Parkville Market
Hartford
Aug. 9, 2025
I would dare say that Fairfield Street Band is the perfect cover band, because they know how to approach their craft, based on my three rules for making it work.
Parkville Market’s Rock the Patio summer music series hosted Fairfield Street Band this weekend, a five-piece cover band ensemble out of Manchester. The band consists of Tara Micale on lead vocals, Jack McCartney on lead guitar, Matt Holmes on bass and vocals, Kyle O’Connor on guitar and vocals, and Wes Orred on drums.
Three factors determine how good a cover band is.
1) How they make you feel about the classics you don’t know.
Believe it or not, I’d never heard Radiohead’s song “Creep” before this performance. I know it by reputation, but I didn’t even realize it was “Creep” until the third or fourth refrain.
Instead, what kept me entranced was the power of Tara Micale’s voice. She built up over the course of the song, gradually increasing the force behind her voice until she erupted at the end. “Creep” is the kind of song that demands emotion in its performance, and Micale’s voice overflowed with longing and regret. I immediately added the song to my list of new music when she finished.
2) How they make you feel about the classics you do know.
Of course, the fun of a cover band is seeing how they take our favorite songs and reimagine them. When Fairfield Street decided to take on the disco-era classic “I Will Survive,” I wondered how they would make the instrumentation work. I should’ve known that the three guitarists and the drummer would keep the groove funky and the rhythm moving, even without the synths of the original.
In particular, Jack McCartney took the hook of the song and turned it into a mini-solo, shredding on the electric guitar in a way that made the song sound more like a rock anthem than a dance staple. And you know the music is banging because the bros, with their backwards hats, beers in hand and open-toed sandals, started dancing along too.
3) How they make you feel about the standards.
There are some guitar riffs that, no matter how much you weren’t into early ’90s rock and roll, you still know by heart. The eight-note riff that starts Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” are immortal, for instance.
What I appreciated about Fairfield’s rendition of the song was that they didn’t do much to it at all. It was for the most part a one-to-one performance. That’s part of stage presence, too — knowing when not to push the envelope or reinvent the wheel. The vocals and guitar on “Sweet Child” are already perfect. Sometimes all you want is to hear it performed live, exactly the way it should sound.
Not only is Fairfield Street Band talented, but they know how to play the music they’ve decided to recreate, utilizing an excellent mix of traditionalism and imagination to bring the songs to life.
