Article Contributed by Philip Andrews
Published on 2026-09-12
Organ Fairchild | Richmond, Virginia | September 10, 2026 - photos by Philip Andrews
Organ Fairchild rolled into Richmond, Virginia, for the first time on September 10, 2026, and by the end of the night, it felt less like a debut and more like a reunion. Local band Lucid Evolution opened the show and got the crowd warmed up before the headliners took over. The Buffalo, New York, organ trio played The Camel to a crowd that had clearly been waiting for this show, and the band gave them every reason to keep dancing.
For anyone new to the group, Organ Fairchild is Joe Bellanti on keyboards, Corey Kertzie on drums, and Dave Ruch on guitar. That’s it: three guys, no bass player, no horn section, and somehow a completely full sound. The band has been together since 2020, but the chemistry goes back decades. Bellanti, Kertzie, and Ruch first played together in a Grateful Dead cover band called Wild Knights back in the 1980s, and that history was written all over Thursday’s set. Glide Magazine once described their sound as sitting somewhere between Booker T. & the M.G.’s and Phish, and that comparison held up all night at The Camel.
From the opening notes of “443,” it was obvious this was going to be a special one. The band was smiling from the first song to the last, and that energy never let up. Watching Bellanti and Ruch lock in during a jam, trading glances back and forth, is the kind of chemistry you can’t fake. Find a partner who looks at you the way Joe looks at Dave when they hit a nasty groove together.
The set moved through “Driven to Tears,” “Morning Coffee,” and “Yum” before settling into “Seepin’.” Each one gave a different member room to lead. Kertzie’s drumming on “Yum” kept things light and bouncy, while “Seepin’” slowed the pace just enough to let Ruch stretch out on guitar. Then came a cover of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Dreams,” which the band folded seamlessly into its own sound without losing what makes the original great. “Leisure Suit,” the title track from the band’s album of the same name, was pure jam bliss, and the transition out of it into “Bobby Pins” felt like it took the whole room to another planet.
That’s really the thing about Organ Fairchild. Songs have a structure on paper, but once the band starts playing, it’s the musicians, the crowd, and the room that decide where they actually go. Watching the three of them push each other during a jam is like watching teenage boys try to outdo one another. Usually, that ends in broken bones. In Organ Fairchild’s case, it ends in some of the most complex and fluid jamming you’ll hear from a three-piece.
The encore brought a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “The Music Never Stopped,” which certainly remained true for the crowd dancing in front of the stage, and closed with “Chamelonious Monk,” played at the request of someone in the audience. It was the kind of encore that makes you wish the night could keep going.
A few other things are worth mentioning. This was the first-ever Organ Fairchild show to use a dedicated sound engineer. Before this tour, the band handled everything itself. The members still do their own load-in, setup, and load-out with no outside help, which says a lot about a band that’s been doing this together for a long time. Every show they play is recorded live and mixed by Kertzie before going up on Nugs.net, so if you want to relive Thursday’s set—or catch what you missed—it’s there.
Bellanti’s playing all night had me thinking Page McConnell had better watch his back, because the title of Chairman of the Boards might have some competition. This is the band every dad of a millennial secretly wishes he’d been in.
After the show, the band spent a long time with fans, taking photos and talking with anyone who stuck around. For a band making its first appearance in Richmond, Organ Fairchild left no doubt that it will be welcomed back with open arms whenever it returns.
