’Tis the season for Bethel Park’s See the Summer
Ashley, left, and Brittany Thomas perform during See the Summer’s June 11 show at the Peterswood Park Amphitheater in Peters Township.
Dylan August gets ready to start a new song during See the Summer’s June 11 show at the Peterswood Park Amphitheater in Peters Township.
Ashley Thomas, left, joins Dylan August and Brittany Thomas as See the Summer performs June 11 at the Peterswood Park Amphitheater in Peters Township.
Ashley, left, and Brittany Thomas
Harry Funk / The Almanac Ashley Thomas
Harry Funk / The Almanac Brittany Thyomas
Harry Funk / The Almanac Brittany Thomas
Dylan August and Ashley Thomas
Dylan August and Ashley Thomas
Dylan August on mandolin
Harry Funk / The Almanac See the Summer
Music and summer always have blended well. Just ask the Beach Boys.
Or ask the members of the Bethel Park trio See the Summer.
“We looked at a Dylan Thomas poem, and the first line was, ‘I see the summer,'” Dylan August – he’s named after the late Welsh poet – explained. “We thought, that’s cool. We’re all teachers. We love the summer. We look forward to summer.”
His bandmates, Ashley and Brittany, are twins who happen to have the surname of Thomas. And they happen to be Dylan’s sisters-in-law.
All three are 2006 graduates of Bethel Park High School. Dylan and Brittany both teach in their home school district, while Ashley is just down the road in Upper St. Clair.
As far as the music, See the Summer takes mainly an upbeat, acoustic-based approach full of tight harmony vocals that fits right in with the band’s name.
“We grew up listening to folk and Southern rock,” Dylan said, by way of their parents’ collections, “so that’s the stuff that we like to play.”
The band’s instrumentation tends to produce a much fuller sound than you’d expect from a three-piece. Dylan plays kick drum to go along with his guitar or mandolin, producing a booming bottom.
“We were playing for a while with just Brittany on the djembe,” he said about her handheld percussion instrument, “and we decided we wanted that really low, solid kick. The low end is really helpful, and it blends well, too. With the hand drum, it’s almost like we have a whole kit.”
The setup emulates the British folk-rock group Mumford & Sons, with leader Marcus Mumford doubling on bass drum.
In See the Summer, Ashley plays guitar and ukulele, and Brittany also takes turns on guitar. The three band members share vocal duties, often trading verses of songs.
“There’s no lead singer or backup singer,” Dylan said. “We just all sing lead and harmonize.”
Their abilities to sing harmony are evident on a cover of Steve Young’s “Seven Bridges Road,” a Top 40 hit for the Eagles. Other vintage material in See the Summer’s repertoire include tunes by the Beatles, a nod to Janis Joplin with Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns’ “Piece of My Heart,” and a rendition of “Folsom Prison Blues” that is eminently effective as sung a few octaves higher than Johnny Cash’s bass-baritone.
More recent performance selections are from the likes of the Indigo Girls, Zac Brown Band, the Lone Bellow, Old Crow Medicine Show and Brandi Carlile. And if audience members are lucky, they’ll be treated to original compositions by Ashley and Brittany Thomas.
For more information, visit www.seethesummer.com.