Two Fields Over

Name: Two Fields Over
Start: 2026-06-27T20:00:00-0700
End: 2026-06-27T22:00:00-0700
Location: The Back Room

Sat, Jun 27, 8pm - 10pm PDT

The Back Room

Berkeley CA, United States

The Back Room

4473 followers · Contact host

Description

Two Fields Over (Jared Matt Greenberg and Chris Travis) return from Los Angeles and Chicago to the Bay Area to join guest artists Sherri Canon, Adam Kahn, Darin Smith, and Owen Travis, in celebrating the release of their debut album, Grains of Verse (indie-folk/rock, and Americana).

Orca Sound describes the work as, “layered harmonies and vividly thoughtful lyrics [that] infuse the album with a distinct voice and profound emotional depth, showing a rare sincerity and artistry that many seasoned musicians aspire to. Together, Greenberg and Travis have created an album that lingers, inviting you to get lost in its beautiful, reflective spaces.” Themes include family, love, struggle, mental health, beauty and darkness, with an environmental angst and sensitivity, while acknowledging the very limits of lyrical expression—has drawn comparison to Kings of Convenience, Nick Drake, Great Lake Swimmers, Iron and Wine, and the Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Two Fields Over brings together two childhood friends. Noted multi-instrumentalist Jared Matt Greenberg’s long musical career includes The Paper Sea, Charles Atlas, and Whale Fall. He was a founding member of the early ’90s San Francisco shoegaze band The Rosemarys, and has played with John Vanderslice, Primitive Painters, Dart, Sutro, An American Starlet, Carta, and others. Since 2011, Greenberg has garnered critical acclaim for his cornet and keyboard work as part of Los Angeles post-rock quintet Whale Fall and for his solo project The Paper Sea. Vocalist and guitarist Travis, also a poet and literature professor, crafted the lyrics.

Tickets are $23 in advance and $27 at the door. 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

Host information

The Back Room

4473 followers

Contact host

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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.