Back pOrchEstra

Name: Back pOrchEstra
Start: 2026-03-21T20:00:00-0700
End: 2026-03-21T22:00:00-0700
Location: The Back Room

Sat, Mar 21, 8pm - 10pm PDT

The Back Room

Berkeley CA, United States

The Back Room

4485 followers · Contact host

Description

Please join us for an Album Awareness party for Back pOrchEstra's new release, "Stories In The Heart" (LP & CD & digital). Hot news: the new album is #1 on four Roots Music Report charts this week:

#1 Country album , #1 Country Song (for "I'm Wild About My Lovin'"), #1 Americana Country Album, #1 Americana Country Song (for "I'm Wild About My Lovin'").

Back pOrchEstra plays indie and roots rock and the American Roots that inspired it (country blues, Americana, cajun, western swing, TexMex, Cuban) w/ Candy Girard (Delaney Bramlett, Tanya Tucker, Clint Black, Jerry Garcia) on violin, Gary Potterton (NRPS, Texas Chainsaw) on guitar and dobro, Tim Eschliman (Etta James, The Blues Project, Commander Cody, Jesse Colin Young, The Christmas Jug Band) on vocals & resonator guitar, Bowen Brown (John Lee Hooker, Tommy Castro, Rhythmtown-Jive) on drums, and Jen Rund (Jenerator, Lumination) on bass.

Back pOrchEstra has songs from all over the map... originals and reworked classics by
Hank Williams, Taj Mahal, Dan Hicks, Big Bill Broonzy, Bob Wills, Jimmy Reed, Joseph &
Cleome Falcon, and Buddy & Julie Miller.

Their last album, "Voices In My Head (Genre Whiplash)," made the Top 100 Albums of 2022 on the Alt.Country Specialty Chart. You can listen here: https://orcd.co/dw640r4

"It's one fine album" - Ben Fong-Torres (Rolling Stone, Almost Famous)

"...What sets 'Stories In The Heart' apart is its sense of balance. Resonator guitar, violin, bass, drums, percussion, dobro, and Telecaster create a flexible, roots-forward palette that allows Back Porchestra to move between styles fluidly. The songs echo traditions without reenacting them, keeping one foot in the past and the other firmly planted in the present." - Vince's Hot Picks (Best of 2026) New Releases Now

"...Born in the midst of pandemic chaos, the collective transformed isolation into a creative engine. And what an engine it is... An explosive mix of roots rock, Americana, Cajun, western swing, and blues, with that touch of grit reminiscent of Californian highways and the sultry nights of New Orleans. The guitars slam like saloon doors, the violin traces lines that oscillate between melancholy and jubilation, the rhythm section moves forward with a tranquil groove that never rushes but never falters... Back pOrchEstra delivers a luminous, earthy, profoundly human record. An album that makes you want to sit on a porch, watch the sunset, and let the stories do their work...." - Fred Delforge, Zicazine (translated from French)

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door general admission; $15 for students with ID/low-income individuals. Children under 12 are free. Advance tickets are available here, or if the show is not sold out, you may purchase your tickets at the door before the show.

Doors open 30 minutes before show time. We accept cash or Venmo only at the door.

The Back Room is an all-ages, BYOB (for those 21+) space, dedicated to (mostly) acoustic music of all kinds. You are welcome to bring your own food and beverages. The venue is ADA accessible. If you need more information or have any questions, please call us: #510-381-1997.

To join our mailing list, please click here.

Please refrain from using your phone during performances, and if you use your camera or video, please disable the flash.

Although masks are no longer required, we strongly encourage their use to keep everyone safe in our intimate space.

Thank you for your support!

Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity

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The Back Room

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When, as a young man in 1981, Sam Rudin moved from his native Philadelphia to the East Bay, he quickly fell in love with the Freight & Salvage, Berkeley’s quirky little 87-seat concert hall.

Filled with comfortable thrift store furniture and an informal ambience of appreciative attentiveness, the Freight was a perfect fit for performers of modest renown and acoustically-based music.

As a solo (albeit high-energy) pianist, Sam’s music fit the bill, and the Freight became Sam’s home base. In the absence of other Freight-like rooms, Sam turned his solo performer attention to the outdoor fair and festival circuit, and later started the jazz/blues band Hurricane Sam & the Hotshots.

Now, maybe it’s all the energy he put into becoming a master piano teacher, or maybe the fair and festival circuit just doesn’t have the right ingredients to nurture a high-profile career. Whatever the reason, despite critical acclaim, four CD’s, and a whole bunch of happy audiences, years later Sam was still a performer of modest renown, and he missed that great little room.

As the Freight grew and expanded, ultimately arriving at the gorgeous 420 seat theater that it occupies today, Sam started to feel that maybe it was up to him to recreate that wonderful small space. No longer a young man, it would be his late-life adventure.

Eventually, he found the perfect spot: a beautiful space with brick walls and vaulted wood ceilings right by the Arts District in downtown Berkeley. As of April 2016, it is open for business, complete with the requisite thrift store furniture.

The space is actually the back room of a larger building, so of course it is called The Back Room, and the tag line on its logo says it all – “an intimate place for music.”

The site, at 1984 Bonita Ave., also functions as Sam’s teaching studio, so if you’re looking for “The Piano Lessons You’ve Always Wanted,” now you know where to find them.