Updated 2026
The Real Deal
Andrea Gillis first enters the One Way record through Red Chord, the Boston rhythm-and-blues band she fronted with Andrea Gaudette, J. Grimaldi, Emily Grogan, Eamon McKeever and Eric Burke. Red Chord built its reputation through long club nights at the Plough & Stars and Toad, developing a live language that depended on interaction rather than studio polish.
On November 5, 2000, Red Chord recorded Wicked…Live at the Abbey at the Abbey Lounge in Somerville. “Firecrackers” became the band’s contribution to One Way’s Dig the Boston Underground. Another song from the live album, “Taxi,” written by Gillis and McKeever, later appeared during the closing credits of Dawson’s Creek. The national audience heard the performance but not the applause that revealed it had been recorded live.
When Red Chord completed its run, Gillis continued without abandoning the voice or physical commitment that defined the band. Want Another? arrived in 2005, followed by the Andrea Gillis Band and Hey Gillis in 2015. Peter Wolf selected the band to open for the J. Geils Band at the reopening of the House of Blues, placing Gillis before 2,500 people on one of the most consequential nights of her career.
Gillis remained a working presence in Boston rather than becoming a historical name. She has been part of every Joan Jett Night since the series began in 2011, returning to the music that first seized her as a child. Recent Andrea Gillis Band appearances have revisited Hey Gillis with Melissa Gibbs, Michelle Paulhus, Charles Hansen and Bruce Caporal.
Her performance for Live from the David Bieber Archives creates the next bridge. The singer preserved by One Way through a live Abbey Lounge recording returned to make another performance inside the collection itself. Red Chord, One Way, the Andrea Gillis Band and the Archives are therefore not separate careers. They are successive rooms in one Boston story.
