A path paved with consistency leads to a sweeter way of seeing the world, at least for one local performing pair.
For Rose Coloured Glasses, made up of Darby Patterson and Sam Rothberg, the bright side is inevitable, as long as you put in the work. Their band name came from that driving force through both of their lives. As Rothberg explained, “We try to see the sweet and the rosy in every situation. And I think we bring that energy to each gig we play.”
With Rothberg on keyboard and Patterson on vocals, the duo said their greatest strengths are their song repertoire and the pure joy they find in music.
“I feel like I’m the helium that keeps us floating, [and] Sam is the engine that keeps us moving forward,” Patterson said.
Rose Coloured Glasses primarily plays cover songs, and they don’t have genre discernment. Patterson described their style as “kitchen sink.” At their residencies at Bad Martha’s Brewery in Edgartown and Noman’s in Oak Bluffs, they’re known for asking for song requests from the audience. If a song exists, the pair might already know it. But they go into gigs knowing one thing for sure: They can learn.
“We love knowing tunes. We love trying tunes out,” Patterson said.
Rothberg said “the request portion” is a “big part” of their identity as a duo.
The pair met in 2017, when Rothberg was playing the keyboard with Patterson’s father, Geoff Patterson, who is also a local musician. According to Patterson, her father invited her to sing with them that night with the pretense, “You’re going to meet this keyboardist. He plays the way that we like.”
“We had a great time from gig one,” Rothberg recalled.
It was around five years later when the duo made their debut as Rose Coloured Glasses. Besides their duo, Patterson and Rothberg perform together in the wedding band the Dukes. Rothberg co-owns and operates the Dukes with Maria Stukey. He also founded Lime Entertainment, a talent agency that books entertainment on cruise ships. Rothberg said he books everyone from jugglers and circus performers to dancers and musicians, and travels frequently because of his job. “It’s allowed me to connect with lots of performers around the world,” he said.
Patterson is mainly a musician, and also works as a flower farmer at Fire Cat Farm. She’s always cooking up a new project. Right now, that’s a residency in the American Repertory Theater in Boston in the musical “1972.”
She also recently performed with Steve Winwood, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame musician and former member of the band Traffic. Winwood was named as one of the musicians Patterson grew up listening to in a 2020 article about her music career in The Times. Six years later, she shared a stage with him.
Both Patterson and Rothberg described their lives as a constant wheel of motion. Their performances as Rose Coloured Glasses are a way for them to do the music they love the most; a lot of the time their preferences overlap. Although they had to find their groove as a duo, just like every other band or pair of musicians, they’ve harmonized with each other since the first note they played.
“When it comes to being a duo, that really strips everything bare, and you have to be able to support each other and be confident and take chances,” Patterson said. “And follow through when something goes a little dicey. I think we both had to build that muscle together.”
“It didn’t feel like a lot of work to play together, or to talk to each other,” Rothberg added. “I think onstage that all came pretty naturally.”
At their Bad Martha residency, which is on Sunday afternoons through the summer, Rothberg and Patterson get to relax into that rhythm they’ve built with each other. For the busiest Island season, each of them are filling each of their days with the demands of a community driven by an influx of tourism. “Classic Island,” Patterson noted.
By Sunday, they said, they’re exhausted. Playing together, however, kicks them into a different gear: playfulness and joy. Performing innovative covers, interacting with the crowd, and joking around with each other on the patio is a perfect “bookend,” Patterson said.
“We love ending with that gig,” said Rothberg.
Now that the wheels of work are turning more slowly in the off-season, Rose Coloured Glasses said they’re looking forward to the holiday season. Both of them love Christmas music and holiday themes, and said that they’re hoping to do a tour around the Island come December.
Their expectations of the coming performances are built on years of experience. No matter what happens, they’ll see the bright side.
“One aspect of our duo partnership that I think is really remarkable is there’s just, I would say, [we have] complete trust in the other person. Like it’s either going to be funny, or it’s going to be good, or some combination of the two,” Rothberg said.
