Dogs In A Pile come back to the Crown Room for the first time since 2023

The Asbury Park jam five-piece returns to Crystal Bay on Wednesday, Jan. 13 — their first North Shore date in three and a half years.

Mid-January on the North Shore usually means ski traffic on 28 and a quiet weeknight at the state line. On Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2027, the Crown Room at the Crystal Bay Club has other plans: Dogs In A Pile are back, their first Tahoe show since July 14, 2023, in the same room.

The basics, per the Crystal Bay Casino's own events calendar: Crown Room, 8 p.m., 21 and over. The date was announced Oct. 13, and tickets run through the casino's Tixr page. The room holds about 550, which for a band that plays this long and this loose is close to ideal — big enough to dance, small enough to see the hand signals.

If you haven't caught them, Dogs In A Pile are a five-piece out of Asbury Park, New Jersey: guitarists Jimmy Law and Brian Murray, keyboardist Jeremy Kaplan, bassist Sam Lucid and drummer Joe Babick. Venue write-ups around the country describe them in the jazz-funk and psych-rock corner of the jam world, and the number that comes up again and again is the workload — roughly 130 shows a year since 2022. That's a band that has spent its last few years learning its own songs in front of crowds, and it shows in how the sets stretch.

What has changed since 2023 is mostly on record. Their latest release, Distroid, is a 10-song collection that finally put studio versions on some of the songs fans had only known from the stage. Promoters have billed it as the band's third album. For a group whose reputation was built on tapes and live streams, getting those staples down in a studio is a marker — the live versions now have a fixed point to push away from.

The touring footprint has grown too. Their 2026 calendar ran from a Stone Pony Summer Stage date at home in Asbury Park in August to Milwaukee's Turner Hall Ballroom a week later, with a December stop at the Vogue in Indianapolis still ahead. A midweek January date at Crystal Bay reads like a band that has the following to fill rooms off the weekend.

The Crown Room has long been one of the North Shore's homes for this kind of music — a casino showroom that books like a club, where jam bands and funk acts get a room that feels like a party rather than a concert hall. Coming back to the same stage they last played gives Tahoe fans a clean comparison: same room, a band with another record and a few hundred more shows under its belt.

Practical notes: it's a 21-and-over show, so leave the younger crew at the cabin, and it's a Wednesday, so plan the drive back around the lake accordingly. With the date announced in October and nearly three months of lead time, there's no reason to wait until the week of — small rooms for touring jam acts tend to go quietly and then all at once.

Same room, a band with another record and a few hundred more shows under its belt.

Three and a half years is a long gap for a band that plays this often. Tahoe's turn comes back around in January.

Sources: Crystal Bay Casino — Events (crystalbaycasino.com); Crystal Bay Casino on Tixr — Dogs In A Pile (tixr.com); Jefferson Theater — Dogs In A Pile (jeffersontheater.com); Pabst Theater Group — Dogs In A Pile 2026 (pabsttheatergroup.com); Stone Pony — Dogs In A Pile (stoneponyonline.com); Forty5 Presents — Dogs In A Pile, Indianapolis 12/19/2026 (forty5.com); The Motet Live at The Crown Room, Crystal Bay Club on 2018-02-18 (archive.org)