Live Music in Charlottesville
April in central Virginia is screen door weather.
It’s a time of the year when heat is optional and air conditioning is way off in the hazy future. It’s also the perfect time for hanging out on a front porch with good friends, good tunes, and some cold beverages.
Fortunately, Charlottesville has The Front Porch, a kind of communal gathering place for the musically inclined. The locally based nonprofit was started in 2015, with a mission to connect people through music. The Front Porch offers outreach to underserved communities through its Root and Wings program and has a wide range of musical education opportunities, including private lessons, group classes, and summer camps.
The Front Porch also offers jams three nights a week that are free and open to players of all skill levels. Musical genres include old time, bluegrass, and Americana. In the summer, it hosts a popular outdoor concert series on Saturdays, Rivanna Roots, in conjunction with Rivanna River Company, that takes place on the tree-covered banks of the river. The 2024 season schedule is set to be released in early April.
Right now, the spring concert series is in full swing. The Front Porch operates a listening room-sized venue on Water Street, and it’s one of the best places in town for a small concert experience. April’s lineup includes an evening with Scott Miller on April 12, Kyshona on April 27, and an April 28 fundraiser for Hospice of the Piedmont featuring Devon Sproule and Clara George.
Miller, a Staunton native, is one of the sharpest singer-songwriters around and he also happens to be a cattle farmer on his family’s Augusta County spread just over the mountain in Swoope. Farming is an occupation that lends itself weary real-world observations, and Miller has an eye for detail and a flinty sense of humor that comes through in his writing, whether it’s a historically based story song, a painfully honest relationship song, or an upbeat raisin’ hell song. He reminds me of Robbie Fulks, another gimlet-eyed, insanely talented singer-songwriter who mines a similar vein of Americana material. The two are even playing together for a few shows in May.
Miller got his start in the early 1990’s as a member of the V-Roys, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based power pop-twang rock group that was one of the best of the early wave of alternative country outfits. He went on to front another great band, the Commonwealth, but now focuses himself as a solo artist. Expect a lively show.
And don’t forget that Fridays After Five opens its 2024 season on April 12. There are three shows this month: Joslyn and the Sweet Compression on April 12, the No BS! Brass Band on April 19, and Drew Pace on April 26. Each band has a local opening act.
