Opera House: Carbon Leaf

24 Sep Opera House: Carbon Leaf

Eclectic folk-rock, Americana, Celtic rock. Concert Wednesday, October 1, 8 p.m. at Sheridan Opera House

The Sheridan Arts Foundation is proud to Carbon Leaf live in concert at the historic Sheridan Opera House on Wednesday, October 1. Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 day of show. The seats are out and the show will be general admission. Music starts at 8 p.m.

Virginia natives Carbon Leaf weave their signature indie-rock blend of Celtic, Appalachian, folk and country into a rousing new brand of music best described as “ether-electrified porch music.”

The five-man band’s steadfast arrangement of guitar, bass, drums and mandolin is rounded out with more exotic instruments like the bouzouki, fiddle, accordion and penny whistle, all tied together by lead singer Barry Privett’s bold, straightforward baritone.

Long beloved in their hometown of Richmond and known for high-energy live shows, the group entered onto the national scene in 2002 by winning an American Music Award with the Irish-tinged hit “The Boxer,” a narrative about a fighter who’s at the top of his game but scraping the bottom of love’s barrel.

Pioneering dreams, broken hearts, love’s renewal traverse the American landscape and show up as themes in Carbon Leaf’s music, reflected in the dark, bluesy “Another Man’s Woman” and “Miss Hollywood,” a Southern-twanged ballad.

With a steady stream of independent releases in the works for 2013, Carbon Leaf’s autonomous “Voyage” has come full circle – recording and producing from their own studio and releasing their music directly to fans – starting with Ghost Dragon Attacks Castle in February, a 12-song collection of Celtic-inspired, original tunes.

Irish folk and Gaelic influences have peppered the band’s songs and albums for years – not to mention their energetic live shows – but Ghost Dragon fully embraces those traditional roots from start to finish, giving the Carbon Leaf fan who loves the band’s Celtic-influenced songs (“The Boxer”, ”Desperation Song”, “American Tale”, “Toy Soldiers”, “Home”…) a new, full-blown album of all-original Celtic folk, rock and instrumental dance tunes to celebrate.

“Some call Carbon Leaf’s music, Southern, others label it Celtic and still others say it leans toward Bluegrass or some combination of formats. No matter what you take on the band’s sound, almost everyone can agree that Carbon Leaf creates music that just isn’t heard anywhere else–and that’s what keeps fans clamoring for more music.” — Nancy Dunham – Washington Post

2013 was Carbon Leaf’s most ambitious year yet as a fully independent band, releasing two full-length albums, Ghost Dragon Attacks Castle and Constellation Prize six months apart from each other.

For 2014, the band is taking a quick breath to look back at their 2004 album, Indian Summer, by celebrating it’s 10-year anniversary with a complete re-recording and a 50 city tour this fall.

Lead vocalist Barry Privett:

“The timing was perfect since we had just come off of 5 album releases back-to-back since leaving the label in 2010. We were ruminating on what the next batch of songs would look like when we realized Indian Summer was going to be 10 years old this fall! We gained a lot of new exposure with “Life Less Ordinary”, making it to #5 at AAA and #28 at Hot AC radio, so we wanted to acknowledge the album’s anniversary, as it was a fan-favorite and a very seminal album for us. There was only one problem – our former label owned the master recording, so we were pretty limited as to what we could do. However, we owned the songs, and after doing a little digging through the contract, we found a work-around that opened up an opportunity for us to simply re-record the album anew, so that’s what we did. Now, we have a great way of celebrating an album that helped us widen our audience, while putting Indian Summer back under the band’s wing again.

“We left our label in 2010, partly so that we could adopt a more rigorous release schedule and not wait to release an album every 2 years. We wanted to see how far we could push ourselves musically so we set about a rigorous agenda for writing, recording, releasing and touring. With 5 projects released since 2010, plus the Curious George II soundtrack for Universal and U.S. tours behind them all, it’s been an intense time to say the least, so looking back at some of the music that shaped our career earlier on, while trying to crawl into that creative space you were in back then but with fresh eyes and ears, is very gratifying. We think fans are going to really enjoy Indian Summer Revisited.”

Tickets for this show are $15 in advance and $20 day of the show general admission.

Tickets and additional event information are available at sheridanoperahouse.com or 970.728.6363 x5.

For a preview of the group in performance, watch this short video.

The Sheridan Arts Foundation was founded in 1991 as a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization to preserve the historic Sheridan Opera House as an arts and cultural resource for the Telluride community, to bring quality arts and cultural events to Telluride and to provide local and national youth with access and exposure to the arts through education. The Sheridan Arts Foundation is sponsored in part by grants from the Telluride Foundation and CCAASE.