“Hello everybody!” James L. Dolan shouted into the microphone in front of about 100 people who had arrived early at the Amway Center for an Eagles concert.
Most of the crowd had never heard of the opening band, J D & The Straight Shot, so Dolan introduced the group. “We’re a band from New York City,” he said.
That much was true. But what Dolan did not mention was that, in addition to being the band’s rumble-voiced lead singer, he is the president and chief executive of Cablevision, and the owner of the Knicks.
As Dolan’s band performed here on Saturday, a night after performing at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, his basketball team, the second-most expensive in the league, was in the midst of another dispiriting loss. The Knicks are a shambling, desultory group these days, stumbling through an opening month that has been worse than even pessimistic fans feared.
But as the Knicks fell to the Wizards in Washington and their fans burned, Dolan and his band fiddled through covers of ’70s songs like “Let It Roll” and “White Bird.”
“This is someone wealthy who is having a good time,” Randy Sturdevant, a retired electrical contractor, said to his wife during the show. “This is some rich guy’s hobby.”
The band plays a mixture of blues and rock. In 2011, The New York Times’ pop music critic, Jon Pareles, described Dolan as a “karaoke-grade singer.” Dolan’s son, Aidan, plays guitar in the band. But the other band members are seasoned musicians who have played with Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Bon Jovi, among others.
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