If you haven’t connected with Adam Ezra Group yet, these are just a few examples to help you understand how this underground, Americana songwriter and his bandmates seem to have popped out of nowhere, establishing a connection with their fans unlike any other, and are suddenly selling out theaters throughout the Northeast.
- He takes a month out of each year to visit the living rooms of his fans around the country…
- His band and nonprofit organization RallySound host a free festival every summer that raised $161,000 for homeless veterans in 2025…
- He live-streamed for 500 nights in a row during the pandemic…
- They co-produced an album with 163 fans…
Adam Ezra will joke with you that while the “nowhere” part might be accurate, nothing has ever just “popped” for this folk musician, activist. Without resources, connections, or any kind of clue how the music world works, Ezra began playing shows over 20 years ago. When music venues wouldn’t hire him, he played bars, bookstores, fields, and parking lots, often raising money for causes he cared about; a practice that grew into his nonprofit organization RallySound.
“We’d play 5 hours a night,” Adam reminisces, “more often than not, in danger of outnumbering the audiences we were playing for…”
So how did this band operating so far outside the traditional music world come to win New England Music Award’s “Americana Act of the Year” in 2023? What could have happened to inspire John Oates to call Adam and invite him to begin a songwriting friendship that would lead to John producing their co-write, “Hold Each Other Now”? What happened to catch the attention of The Wallflowers, who recently invited AEG to join them on their spring tour, or SPIN Magazine who recently proclaimed, “This Independent Underground Folk Band Is Blowing Up Without Selling Out”?
If you ask Adam, he’ll tell you: “One person at a time, over many years and thousands of shows, decided to turn their heads to listen. One person at a time decided to share our music with folks they care about. That’s always been our story. It’s no fairytale, but it sure makes me proud and humbled when I look out from the stage to watch theaters full of people singing along to our music.”
These days you’ll find Adam and his bandmates, Corinna Smith (Fiddle), Poche Ponce (Bass), and Alex Martin (Percussion), constantly out on the road. If you look at their tour schedule now, you can buy tickets to see them at festivals, rock venues, and theaters around the country, but you will also see their tour continuously peppered with activism and grassroots events; a testament to an artist who will never forget where he came from, and whose mission is about much more than music.
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SEATS
This event offers assigned seating at theatre-style and table seats on our main floor.
FOOD & BEVERAGESDoors open early for dinner and drinks. Guests can enjoy food and beverages by ordering at one of our two concession counters in the lobby. Tickets do not include a meal and menus are available online at
flyingmonkeynh.com.
It’s difficult to impart the roots-steeped, road-trippin' essence of the Adam Ezra Group into a single word, but front man Adam Ezra nonetheless keeps one in mind as something of a mantra: COMMUNITY.
To the musicians at the heart of AEG, community is epitomized by a belief they all share, one that has long doubled as a mission statement for the group: namely, that making music together is itself a form of grassroots organizing, capable of nothing less than changing the world.
Such a groundbreaking concept makes all the sense in the world for a musical collective like AEG. After all, as Ezra sees it, the fans are really part of the band, active members of their movement who’ve always exercised a critical role in AEG’s ability to carry out its mission. This inclusive approach to musicianship, centered about respecting and celebrating their listeners above all else, Ezra insists, is what has allowed the group to explode out of their Boston-area origins to emerge as one of the most uniquely powerful, relentlessly entertaining live-music experiences in the country.
For their most recent studio release, Hurricane Wind (5/2017), AEG galvanized their community partnership by releasing 23 studio demos to fans, including multiple collaborations with John Oates of Hall and Oates fame. Ezra established an innovative framework through which fans could follow the process of song arrangement and studio tracking, help whittle the album down to just 11 polished final cuts, steer artwork creation, and assist in naming the project itself.
Even amid ballooning success, Ezra says it’s been not just easy, but natural for AEG to stay dedicated to its mission and true to its humble roots. Perhaps no song sums this up more than a fan favorite, selected to anchor that album. Called “I Believe,” it’s a gorgeously layered, nakedly emotional ode to the long path they’ve already traveled as a community - and to the wide-open road ahead.
You’ve got a style, that comes on like a hurricane wind,” sings Ezra on the track, backed by a group of musicians all equally engrossed in the material and attuned to its significance.
“You’ve got a spark, that lights the fire that never ends." With his next lines, Ezra speaks not only to the internal maxim that keeps him moving, but also to the enduring force for hope and change that his band has come to symbolize to its ever-swelling fanbase: “And in the times when hope is gone, you give me the strength to carry on - I know the path is long, but I believe.”
