On an unrelentingly rainy day in Charlottesville, a young student band readied to take the stage for the first time at a popular bar on the Corner, Coupe Deville’s. Despite reasonable unease surrounding the performance, the band prepared through suboptimal conditions and began their set. As their tunes echoed throughout the surrounding Corner area and the weather ameliorated, a long line formed to enter this gig. This band, known as The Remedies, seemed to many like the perfect pick-me-up on this rainy day.
The Remedies, a band consisting of seven University students, can be seen playing gigs throughout the bar and fraternity scene around Charlottesville. The band sprang out of the University Records club, an organization known for connecting student musicians on Grounds. In the fall of 2024, when a University student — who is no longer involved in The Remedies — expressed interest in starting a band, lead-vocalist and fourth-year College student Nolan Dawson and keyboardist and second-year Commerce student Hayden Matay jumped at the opportunity.
In addition to Dawson and Matay, the band’s members include bassist and second-year College student Sam Ostrander, rhythm guitarist and second-year College student Kiran Kondapani, saxophonist and first-year Engineering student Laveen Hiranandani, lead guitarist and second-year Engineering student Robel Yaee and drummer and second-year Engineering student Aniketh Punaji.
Dawson said the spring of 2025 consisted mostly of rigorous practice sessions and the common struggles that a young college band faces — finding affordable equipment, searching for new members and securing the ever-so-elusive acceptable practice space. The following fall, The Remedies grew into a band of six members, including a saxophonist, rhythm guitarist, bassist and a drummer. The band has now found their groove and consistently books gigs throughout the Charlottesville music scene with multiple members citing the local bar — Coupe’s — as their favorite location to play.
A few of the band’s idiosyncrasies center around keyboardist Matay, who remarkably plays music by ear and cites Youtube tutorials and iPhone Apps as his main resources when learning new tunes. Matay’s eccentricity as a musician extends to his performance during gigs, as he sometimes ventures into the crowd to dance during a song that excludes his keyboard.
“It's the most amazing thing. He will get up and go dance and hype everyone up,” Dawson said.
This endearing kineticism seems to permeate the band's music as well. Multiple members of the band either struggled with or resisted the task of defining their genre of music. But the term “jam band” appears to be decently apt to this band that constantly incorporates improvisation and plenty of instrumental solos into their sets. The Remedies’ sets burst with musical flavor and intriguing, ear-catching tracks. Kondapani said that the band’s continued desire to challenge themselves as improvisational musicians has led them to playing some jam band staples like The Allman Brothers’s “Whipping Post.”
This band, bursting with talented student musicians with diverse methods of honing their crafts, balances their more unorthodox musical sentiments with a desire to please the crowd with mainstream hits. Ostrander said that there is a certain difficulty to striking that balance, a hurdle that the band found joy in overcoming.
“The more that we're challenged as a band, I feel like the more fun we have,” Ostrander said. “But we also kind of have to play to the crowd, and so that's why we try to balance out genres and popular music versus the more niche, jam-heavy music that's not as recognizable.”
The band’s roster and unique diversity of instrumentation enable them to be more than a traditional cover band, as their sets contain various moments of improvisation and instrumental solos that are particularly effective for live music. In their rendition of CeeLo Green’s “Forget You,” — a song Dawson emphasized as a highlight of their set list — each member of the band gets their own solo.
While this band’s exuberance and infectious energy likely jump out at anyone lucky enough to stumble into one of their gigs, the group’s social cohesion stands out as particularly impressive. Multiple members highlight the band’s post-gig adventures to Cook Out as one of their favorite aspects of the band. Hiranandani mentioned how a trip to Waffle House after his audition cemented the band’s cohesive culture in his mind.
“They kind of created that little sense of community for me, which I really appreciated. From the first day I knew these guys were great people and it was a great community,” Haranandi said.
While musical talent abounds Grounds here at the University, the positive energy spread by the band is refreshingly down-to-earth. This amiable culture aids the band in their navigation of the Charlottesville music scene that can consist of intimate gigs and rowdy crowds, while also lifting the spirits of the group as a whole — something that is no small feat in itself.
At the core of this rowdy music scene, The Remedies are a reminder of the self-starting, interconnected nature of the music and the musicians themselves. With their phenomenal rapport as musicians and band members, The Remedies present a captivating, worthwhile act that breathes refreshing life into the jam band sound that produces energetic, innovative live music.
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