NAME: Stephen Phillip Covington
FAMILY: Wife Greta, daughters Celeste and Ann Harper and our yellow lab Jerry
HOME TOWN: Greensboro, North Carolina
CURRENT TOWN: Athens (lived here for 20 years -longest I have lived anywhere)
WHAT YEARS AT UGA: UNC Tarheel 1984-1988 (married into a great bulldawg family, Ann Harper graduated from UGA, and many bulldawg friends)
SCHOOL/DEGREE: Economics
PROFESSION: Business Development with Mercer Consulting (1031 exchange capital consultants)
TIES TO ATHENS MUSIC: Huge live music fan – seen many shows in Athens starting in 1992
FAVE BAND YOU HAVE SEEN IN ATHENS: Widespread Panic
1. Bulldog Bite – Clisby Clarke
2. Heavy Action – Johnny Pearson
3. Save It for Later – Eddie Vedder
4. Rein Me In – Sam Fender w Olivia Dean
5. Soulful Strut – The Fame Gang
6. California Soul – Marlena Shaw
7. Midnight Rider – Gregg Allman
8. Whatever Gets You Through The Night – Elton John w John Lennon
9. Hold On, I’m Comin – Sam and Dave
10. Meeting Across the River/Jungleland – Bruce Springsteen
11. Got to Get You Into My Life – The Beatles
12. Son of a Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield
13. Pick Up The Pieces – Average White Band
14. Ants Marching – Dave Matthews Band
15. Sanford and Son – Quincy Jones
16. Suspicious Minds – Elvis Presley
17. Birdland – Weather Report
18. Dixie Lullaby – Tedeschi Trucks Band w Leon Russell & Doyle Bramhall II
19. Compared to What – Les McCann, Eddie Harris
20. Golden Road – Zero
21. Arcadia – Goose
22. Jesus Just Left Chicago – Phish
23. Also Sprach Zarathustra – Deodato
24. Pickin Up the Pieces – Widespread Panic w Branford Marsalis
25. Eyes of the World – Grateful Dead w Branford Marsalis
Backstage & Behind the Bar
On the Setlist: The Southside
Bright, refreshing, and guaranteed to surprise
someone who thinks they don’t like gin.
“The stadium is worse than bonkers.”
I’ve often thought about it, why do we fight traffic, stand in line, sweat through September afternoons, pay too much for tickets and lose our voices for a football game we could comfortably watch at home?
We go because something happens inside a stadium that can’t happen in our living rooms. The team needs the crowd. The crowd needs the team. That’s how a stadium becomes “worse than bonkers.” Together, we create something neither can create alone.
Bruce Springsteen describes that as the essence of rock and roll. The band and the audience come together looking to be transformed, to get to a place that neither of them can get by themselves. Springsteen says it happens when you’re completely present in the moment. That’s when the night just takes off.
Playing in Dreams So Real was where I first recognized it. But as time went on, I realized that I was seeing the same thing everywhere – in my work, in creative projects, in front of audiences. And it turns out you don’t need a stadium or a concert hall to create that kind of moment.
When my wife Rhonda and I sit around at home and have a few drinks and listen to music, we rarely turn it up loud and start dancing. But when we have a few friends over for drinks, the night can take on a wholly different vibe, and it almost always leads to music and people on the dance floor.
Around Athens, football season gives us dozens of chances to bring people together. After all, the same thing that makes Sanford Stadium unforgettable is the thing that makes a great party unforgettable.
For me, the first note of creating that experience is with a cocktail. It kicks off the evening, and it’s the first signal that the night isn’t going to be ordinary.
Yet I never ask, “What would you like to drink?” when we have people over for cocktails. That’s like asking the audience what song they want to hear before you’ve played the first note. There’s no menu, no bottles lined up on the counter. I decide what kind of experience to create.
It’s a lot like putting together a setlist and the opening number is important. It may not be your biggest hit, but you know it will be a crowd-pleaser. It’s one you’re sure they’re going to love.
As the evening goes on, you can change things up just like we might work in a deeper track at a show—light and refreshing becomes complex and boozy. Every drink gets a different reaction. That’s the fun of it — reading the room and deciding what to do next.
By the time this season is over, I hope you’ll have a setlist of cocktails you can pull from just as easily as your favorite songs. So let’s start our setlist with the opening number: The Southside.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made this and presented it to a guest who said, “What’s in this? It’s not gin, is it?”
“It’s gin. Drink it.” They take a sip and their face lights up.
Most people who think they don’t like gin have only ever had a so-so gin and tonic.
But the Southside will change your mind about gin. It’s minty and balanced and just complicated enough to make people think you’ve been taking lessons. And it starts the night off like a song everybody can dance to.
The Southside:
The Southside only needs five things: London dry gin, fresh lime juice, simple syrup, fresh mint and a couple dashes of Angostura bitters. The word fresh matters, as in fresh squeezed lime juice. Bottled juice won’t do it, and fresh mint is a must.
The Southside
• 2 ounces London dry gin
• 1 ounces fresh lime juice
• ¾ ounce simple syrup
• 5 fresh mint leaves
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
Gently muddle the mint with the bitters. Add the remaining ingredients, shake hard with ice, then double strain into a chilled coupe.
Football season gives us dozens of chances to bring people together. What we create with those moments is up to us.
Trent Allen is a founding member of the Athens rock band “Dreams So Real,” whose four albums and years on the road took them from the 40 Watt to stages across the U.S. and Europe. He is a UGA graduate and lifelong Georgia fan who is obsessed with making cocktails and sharing his knowledge with likeminded friends and fans.
