Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks Come to Bay Street Theatre Next Month

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts have announced that Gene Casey and The Lone Sharks will return for a A ROCK & ROLL DANCE PARTY CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF RHYTHM AND TWANG on Saturday, February 3rd at 8 pm. Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks, Dan’s Papers “Best of the Best” winner and Long Island Music Hall of Famer will bring you your rockabilly fix with their original hits & upbeat take on classics. The dance floor is calling and you won’t be able to stay in your seat!

Tickets are $37 in advance and $47 the day of the event and are available online 24/7 at baystreet.org or by calling the Bay Street Theater Box Office at 631-725-9500, open Tuesday through Saturday 11 am to 5 pm. 

In the latter part of the last century, Gene departed New York City and its Punk rock/New wave scene for Long Island’s East End. There, he formed the Lone Sharks, “the house band of the Hamptons,” where bars were plentiful and audiences – both the local and the celebrated – were robust and loyal. Over the next few decades Gene and the evolving line-up of Sharks “played – and tore up – every roadhouse, bar, and honky tonk from Manhattan to Montauk” (Bop Magazine), sharing the bill and backing legendary roots rock & roll acts as Wanda Jackson, the Band, Bo Diddley, Sleepy LaBeef, NRBQ, and the Ventures.

Gene’s original music met with great acclaim with local and international indie radio play. Several of his roots-drenched songs have been used in “A Prairie Home Companion” and on the soundtracks to television and feature films, including “Justified” and “Sons of Anarchy”; the 2012 thriller “The Tall Man” starring Jessica Biel, the 2013 release “The Killing Season” starring Robert DeNiro, and Rob Reiner’s “Being Charlie.”

In 2014 Gene and the Lone Sharks were inducted into the Dan’s Papers “Best of the Best” Hall of Fame, having been honored over 20 times. A year later Gene, “the premier barroom troubadour of Eastern Long Island” (author Josh Alan Friedman) received the Long Island Sound Award by the L.I. Music Hall of Fame, “for contributions to the Island’s musical landscape.”

Gene Casey formed THE LONE SHARKS having moved to Long Island's East End in 1988. The Lone Sharks became a mainstay in the late 1990s Hamptons music scene. Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks have shared billing and/or backed-up NRBQ, Link Wray, Sleepy LaBeef, Wanda Jackson, Bill Kirchen, Elvis Costello, the Who's John Entwistle, The Highway QC's, and on one unforgettable night, TINY TIM. Several of Gene's roots-drenched songs have been used on the soundtrack to television and feature films, including FX Network's Justified and Sons of Anarchy; the 2012 thriller The Tall Man starring Jessica Biel, and the 2013 release The Killing Season starring Robert DeNiro. December 2012 brought the release of Gene and the band's latest all-original CD, Untrained an album celebrating the roots of contemporary Americana with 12 original songs that evoke the romantic sweep of 60s pop, classic Country Western, and the raw untamed spirit of early rock & roll. The "main men" joining Gene in the Lone Sharks are Chris Ripley, drums, Paul Scher, saxophone and Tony Palumbo, upright bass.

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is a year-round, not-for-profit professional theater and community cultural center that endeavors to innovate, educate, and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. We serve as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource, and a home for a community of artists.

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