Starting at 7pm on June 18, local music group Wild Flight will be performing a showcase of their original works at The Crystal Theatre in Carbondale. After coming off the high of performing with country artist Hugh Phillips at Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House for the Roaring Fork Rising series, band creators Emily Jurick and Eric Gross are excited to perform the first musical showcase in the Carbondale space since the inception of the Crystal Theatre Alliance. They will be accompanied by bass player Bill Rich and two others to make up a five-piece band. In addition to this inaugural performance, they will be premiering a music video for their song “Road River Railway.”
“I find it thrilling,” Jurick said of performing at The Crystal. “It’s such a wonderful place to be able to play live music because of its intimate size, and to be able to be the
first band to be in there in this era is an honor.”
As a longtime local of the Roaring Fork Valley, Jurick is especially excited to have this performance take place at the Crystal because of the impact it has had on her life over the years.
“With the music video that we’re screening there, it comes full circle,” she said. “If that alliance hadn’t come together, or the good folks before the Crystal Alliance, if they hadn’t refurbished that theatre, it would have gone into ruins, and it would have been something of the past, but somebody stepped in and preserved it. It’s a wonderful thing.”
The music group combines the sounds of jazz, rock ’n’ roll and country in a style which creates a warm, soulful, sensual and powerful sound. They perfectly encapsulate the themes they often sing about, which include love, loss, nostalgia and change. Gross, who grew up on the Jersey Shore before making Carbondale his home over three decades ago, has been playing piano since the age of 7.
Having played in several different bands throughout his life, he said he draws inspiration for Wild Flight’s catalog from his lived experiences in the music scene and from the relationships he had in between his creative experiences.
“I would say many of our songs are relationship-oriented stories of … having intimate relationships, and where that path takes you through time,” Gross said. “We also have a sense-of-place theme in a lot of our songs. We have a song that was KDNK’s original song of the year this year, called “Home is Just a Memory,” which I wrote when I was 21 after I went back to my hometown and observed how much it had changed after coming off the road on all those years of touring.”
He said that he thinks songs such as “Home is Just a Memory,” will resonate with audiences, especially those who have experienced what it is like to leave the place you have called home the majority of your life, only to return and have to adjust to changes that came about in your absence.
“I think it will strike a chord with people who left Carbondale and came back,” Gross said, adding that “Road River Railway” is the theme of the night at the Crystal.
Jurick echoed her bandmate’s sentiments and shared how a lot of her written contributions revolve around her experiences with love and close friendships, and how those relationships hold an equal amount of importance to romance.
“There are a couple few songs that are about the intense feelings I think that come with deep friendships and how those may develop over time,” Jurick said. “I have a number of the songs that I sing with my own voice, because it is my story, [that] have to do with the end of a long-term relationship that had a big influence on me. I was married for 21 years, and it wasn’t a very smooth relationship, but it ended in friendship, which I find to be a good and inspiring thing.”
With this showcase, which is one of the many booked for summer 2026, 30% of
ticket sales and all sales made from concessions will support the Crystal Theatre Alliance.
For more information or to book your tickets, visit crystaltheatrecarbondale.com