The Biscuits at the Bowl, photo by Jeremy Gordon

New York’s intimate Brooklyn Bowl hosted two underplay performances by major jamband groups this past weekend. Friday night Bob Weir made his first Brooklyn appearance in approximately 20 years as part of Scaring the Children, a trio that features original RatDog members Rob Wasserman and Jay Lane. Brooklyn Bowl founder—and Relix/Jambands.com publisher—Peter Shapiro introduced the musicians himself from the stage, before Scaring the Children launched into an extended segue that included Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm,” “Easy Answers,” “Loose Lucy,” the Beatles’ “Blackbird, “Victim Or The Crime” and Dylan’s “Desolation Row.” Later in the evening Weir’s Furthur drummer Joe Russo—a longtime Brooklyn resident—emerged during a bass/drum jam leading out of “The Other One” and remained behind the kit for the Beatles’ “Dear Prudence” and “Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad.” The following night Weir also sat in with Sonny Landreth at New York’s Roseland Ballroom as part of API Audio Product’s 40th Birthday party. Weir joined Landreth and his band for four songs, including “Key to the Highway,” “Maggie’s Farm” and “Little Red Rooster.”

Brooklyn Bowl also hosted an extremely intimate New York play by the Disco Biscuits Sunday evening. The sold-out performance doubled as the release party for the Disco Biscuits’ new EP On Time. The six-song EP features a handful of songs off the Disco Biscuits’ forthcoming album Planet Anthem, including the infectious dance number “On Time” (a collaboration with the hip hop group TuPhace) and “Loose Change.” Marc Brownstein opened the show by recounting Shapiro’s rise from a twenty-something owner of Wetlands to the proprietor of Brooklyn Bowl, before launching into the second ever version of “Loose Change” (the band held off on playing any songs off its new album and only debuted the number this past Friday). Though the band’s set featured a number of old favorites like “Save the Robots” and “I-Man,” the group focused heavily on new compositions like “Pimp Blue Rikki,” “Minions,” “¿Donde?” and “Mirrors.” The band also played “On Time” for only the second time, with Aron Magner supplying the song’s lead vocals.