Category: Nightlife

The Janzen Boys make first New England visit

While anchored by steady acoustic bass, joyful strumming and finger-picked flourishes, the not-so-secret sauce of folk trio The Janzen Boys is their gorgeous harmonizing. The Canadian band — guitarist John “JJ” Janzen and his sons Mick (mandolin and drums) and Simon (bass) — delivers utterly transcendent vocals.

A stellar example is “Flight To JFK,” a single released early in the year. Their blending on the Theo Kandel cover evokes memories of hearing Crosby, Stills and Nash first sing together in Cass Elliot’s Laurel Canyon home in 1968. When it happened initially for The Janzen Boys, JJ was just as stunned by their blood harmony.

“I would cry like a baby the first few times,” he said in a recent Zoom meeting that included Mick. “They’re like, ‘Dad, why are you crying?’ and I’d say, ‘It’s OK … I’m just happy, and sometimes the happy comes out of my face like that.’ Because it sounded so good, and I couldn’t believe it.”

That it happened at all was a product of coercion, albeit gentle.

After living in Japan for most of their lives, the Janzen family moved back to Ottawa in the early 2010s. At the time, they were taking a break from music.

“My marriage was kind of falling apart,” JJ explained. When a busking gig opened up in 2012, Simon wanted to restart the band. This bothered Mick, who felt the initial idea to form a group was his.

However, Mick played drums because, JJ explained, “He hated being at the front of the stage,” and he also didn’t sing. “I saw an opportunity … I said, ‘OK, you can be in, but only if you sing and play, because Simon sings and plays and I sing and play. You have to sing too.’ And then he said, ‘OK, fine.’”

With that, three voices became a breathtaking chorus. Fourteen years later, The Janzen Boys are a mainstay in their home country and recently began touring in the U.S. They’re also readying their first visit to the U.K. later this year. Critics liken them to a male version of The Wailin’ Jennys, as well as fellow Canadians Neil Young and Barenaked Ladies.

A sad truth of the modern music business is that talent isn’t everything. Fortunately, they’ve found novel ways to succeed. Mick is their social media maven, posting compelling mini-clips of the band’s music on social media to drive ticket sales. A recent a cappella version of the Scottish traditional song “The Parting Glass” on Instagram is a good example.

JJ does booking and a few years back found a unique and quite lucrative approach to it that finds them performing in a lot of places that are new to hosting live music. Two such venues are part of their upcoming area run — Bradford’s Town Hall on May 24, and a May 22 date at Peterborough’s Community Theatre that’s already sold out.

Their self-promotion strategy “is not brand new, and we didn’t invent it, but there are not a lot of bands doing it,” JJ said, “but it’s becoming more popular mainly because it can make music possible and profitable in a time where it’s been pretty challenging. We just find a community hall with a stage that rents for a reasonable price, and lets you set up chairs.”

Ultimately, the music carries them, sometimes in unexpected ways. Like the fan in Kentucky who wanted the band to play her daughter’s wedding enough to spend thousands of dollars to clear a months-long visa roadblock, because she believed their harmony could settle down two politically fractious families.

“She actually said, ‘I want you to come sing some peace into the situation,’” JJ recalled. The gathering became an anchor for their first Stateside tour in 2024. “She said, ‘I’m dreading how this wedding could possibly go. Your music makes me feel calm and peaceful, so I want you to come and sing.’”

It’s soothing music, agreed Mick. “A friend of mine said to me, ‘Harmonies are a drug, and you guys are smoking it.’”

All Your Friends

Featured photo: All Your Friends. Courtesy photo.

Post-millennium All Your Friends party hits Nashua

While Napster and LimeWire were treating the record business like termites attacking a wooden house, some decent music came in the wake of Y2K. Late-’90s artists like Radiohead and Bjork inspired MGMT, Passion Pit, LCD Soundsystem and others to merge dance, melodic pop and rock in pursuit of a new sound.

Indietronica, as the loose subgenre came to be known, energized club New York City denizens throughout the 2000s. An upcoming event in Nashua will celebrate it with DJ music, multimedia and dancing. All Your Friends is the latest themed party to come from Brooklyn-based Burwoodland.

The company launched in 2015 with Emo Night Brooklyn and has added a half dozen more events since, including two that have recently been done in New Hampshire: Gimme Gimme Disco and a musical theater costume party, Broadway Rave. They also offer K-Pop and metal nights, along with one for ex-clubbers with kids that ends before 10 p.m.

Best friends Alex Badanes and Ethan Maccoby didn’t anticipate growing to more than 1,200 shows a year while recruiting close to 100 DJs to host events nationally. Or billionaire Mark Cuban making what Music Business Worldwide described as a “seven-figure investment” in the company in January 2026.

“Honestly, we were just looking to have a good time,” Maccoby said by phone recently. He and Badanes always enjoyed hosting parties before going to shows, but decided, “Instead of a pre-game at our apartment, we wanted to throw it at a bar, so that we didn’t have to clean up. Maybe they’d give us some free alcohol. That was really the main motivation.”

The very first Emo Night Brooklyn was held in early 2015 at the 100-capacity basement of the now-closed Cameo bar in Williamsburg. Hundreds of people showed up, and they were invited back. The next bash happened in the Cameo’s larger upstairs area. What began as a free party just kept growing.

All Your Friends, which debuted in 2025, is a fan’s effort.

“We started it because Alex and I also love this music, but we also saw that there was a big demand for it as well,” Maccoby said. “The first two events we had Passion Pit and Matt & Kim at the show with us. They put on a DJ set that was amazing; that kind of kick-started the series.”

“As millennials, we feel like we grew up with these artists,” Badanes told Paper magazine when the event launched. “I was at Berklee while Passion Pit was coming up in the early 2010s, and I still remember seeing one of their first Boston shows, how electric it felt, how new it all sounded. That era shaped so much of our musical identity.”

It became a quick success.

“We only just started like a little less than a year ago and we’ve had, I think, over a hundred or so All Your Friends events, many sold out, all around the U.S. and Canada,” he said. “It’s been really cool, and we’re now excited to come back to Nashua in May.”

The format is DJ-driven, but the production goes beyond a laptop and a speaker stack. Visuals are projected throughout the evening, synchronized to specific songs, and glow sticks find their way into the crowd. Still, they’re careful not to over-engineer the experience.

“We try to keep things raw and lightweight and just authentic,” he said. “Just come out to an affordable, awesome night, meet a bunch of other people who are into the same music.” Affordability is important; average ticket prices run between $20 and $30.

Attendees routinely rave about the events.

“People meet their best friends, their wives, their husbands,” Maccoby said. “People get engaged and we DJ their weddings. It’s really cool, the community these things create, because obviously music brings people together from all different backgrounds.”

All Your Friends
When: Friday, May 15, at 8 p.m.
Where: Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua
Tickets: $26 and up at etix.com

Featured photo: All Your Friends. Courtesy photo.

Chris Stapleton tribute act Traveller hits Riley’s Place

Traveller is not Alec Antobenedetto’s first tribute act. There’s the Allman Brothers-based Peacheaters, now in its 25th year, and Confounded Bridge, which covers Led Zeppelin’s catalog. However, Antobenedetto is particularly suited to songs like “White Horse” and “Parachute,” so his Chris Stapleton-centric band happened almost by acclamation.

For years he’s been a drummer and occasional singer. A few years ago he began to notice crowd members turning to each other whenever he sang a Stapleton song, nudging, pointing fingers, looking at him incredulously.

“People started coming up saying, ‘You sound just like him,’” he recalled in a recent Zoom meeting. “‘It’s scary how much like him you sound.’”

One year ago in April he threw caution to the wind and booked Traveller’s first show — before the band had ever gathered together to play.

“It’s just what I do; I’ll schedule a gig before we have our first rehearsal,” he said. Their debut came last September at Boggestock, a western Massachusetts festival he organizes every year.

“It took off like wildfire,” he continued. Now leading from the front of the stage instead of the back, Antobenedetto brings a few distinctive touches to the band’s performance. He talks with the audience more than the regularly reserved Stapleton, and he doesn’t play guitar. The latter is something he’s cheerfully unapologetic about.

“It hurts my fingers. I don’t like it. The guitar and me do not have a good relationship,” he said with a laugh, adding that it doesn’t interfere with the mission. “People are coming for that Chris Stapleton experience. They’re coming for the songs that they love and want to hear when Chris is not playing the area. I try to fulfill that need.”

That said, Traveller doesn’t simply mine Stapleton’s hits, though “Tennessee Whiskey” is usually a set closer. He’ll ask the crowd for liquid fortification before kicking into the song. “Because if they buy me a shot of Jack Daniel’s, I’ll sing it much better,” he said. Where it’s sold, he’ll drink some of Stapleton’s own whiskey (with the same name as his band).

The set list goes deep, including songs from Stapleton’s early bluegrass band The SteelDrivers, his covers of Vince Gill’s “Whenever You Come Around” and “Shameless” by Garth Brooks, along with the rowdy Rodney Crowell rocker “Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This” as it was interpreted by Waylon Jennings.

Because Antobenedetto knows that every fan has a favorite.

“If I ask the audience, I’ll get a hundred different answers,” he said. His personal choice is a deep cut, “When the Stars Come Out.” He’s also partial to “Crosswind” and “What Are You Listening To?” along with Stapleton’s cover of John Fogerty’s “Joy of My Life.”

Traveller includes Peacheaters bandmates Rick Goode on guitar and bassist Dave Hines, along with Jay Tullio on acoustic guitar and mandolin, Leon Melanson playing keys, pedal steel and guitar, Mike Duca on percussion and Mike Iannantuoni on drums. When he’s unavailable, Peacheaters drummer AJ Vallee fills in.

Standing alongside Antobenedetto at every show on backing vocals and light percussion is his girlfriend, Tina D’Aurizio. “How lucky are you to be able to do music with the person you’re in love with, you know what I mean? I’m very blessed with the guys that I work with.”

An upcoming show at Riley’s Place in Milford is a return. The Peacheaters were there recently, getting two encores.

“They wouldn’t let us get away with just one,” he said, praising the venue’s warm wooden-walled sound. “For anybody that is a true music fan, this is a place that they have to go. You could actually record an album in that room; it would be amazing.”

Antobenedetto remains a bit bemused by the reception he gets as a doppelgänger, but as a fan he welcomes the chance to celebrate Stapleton in Traveller.

“People ask me to sign stuff for them, sometimes they think I’m him,” he said. “But it’s really all about the music. The music is the captain of the ship, in every way possible.”

Traveller – The Chris Stapleton Experience
When: Friday, May 8, at 7 p.m.
Where: Riley’s Place, 29 Mont Vernon St., Milford
Tickets: $15 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Traveller. Photo by Penny Aicardi.

Concord First Friday 2026 unveils six months of music

The rich music scene in Concord will be on display through early November, with the help of a local musician who’s also a local business owner. Eric Reingold was inspired to volunteer for the monthly First Friday series after catching one of its events last year.

Sensing an opportunity to add his expertise to the mix, he reached out to Intown Concord, the organization behind First Friday, Market Days and other downtown events. Reingold has worked with Intown for many years, both as the owner of Endicott Furniture on Main Street, and as a performer in acts like JamAntics, Up and People Skills. Stressing the many hats he wears, Reingold offered his services.

“I’m basically a full-time musician, I know all the bands around here, I run sound, and I can put on a huge festival with equipment I’ve accumulated over the years,” he told them. “By way of shortening the story, they were like, ‘Well, if you think you can do it, why don’t you?’”

That was last summer, and he’s been booking bands since, assembling a lineup that serves as a love letter to the Capital City’s music community.

“I have seen every single one of these bands,” Reingold said. “My opinion is that the music in Concord is incredible. There’s so much good talent here that I’ve been both lucky to be part of and also just experience.”

On May 1, the inaugural First Friday of 2026 will offer live music on two stages. In Bicentennial Square, RGB Trio will kick things off at 4 p.m., followed by Chasing Ghosts from 6:15 to 8 p.m. Over at City Plaza, near the capitol building, Wandering Souls take the stage at 4 p.m.

RGB Trio consists of drummer Ryan King, Gary Smith on bass and a unique eight-string guitar, and singer/guitarist Bob Dwyer. They’re booked at this year’s Strange Creek Campout and are a favorite at Penuche’s and other local night spots. They mix originals and eclectic covers ranging from Phish to Hendrix.

Chasing Ghosts is a young, high-energy ’90s cover band out of Henniker whose drummer once stepped in last-minute for one of Reingold’s own gigs without knowing any of the songs.

“He was a real trooper; it was kind of a legendary move,” he recalled. “They’re young and fresh. They haven’t kicked around too much yet.”

With a setlist touching on the ’90s pop side with songs like Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me,” Wandering Souls is 10-member band that also hosts a weekly jam session at Christ the King Church. “They’ve been supporting Intown Concord for a long time,” Reingold said. “So it was important to continue using them.”

Upcoming in June are Kyle Erickson, Ashborne and Trade, one of two bands including guitarist Scott Solsky that are part of the series. The latter is organ-forward trio J3ST, on a jam-forward Sept. 4 quadruple bill with Supernothing, Bosey Joe and Superbug.

In deference to Intown’s citywide multi-stage street festival running June 27 through June 29, there’s no July event. “I think that’s kind of their big break,” Reingold said. “It’s kind of a mini-vacation after Market Days because they’re so straight out during that weekend.”

August’s First Friday welcomes the return of Senie Hunt, a local favorite who relocated to Tennessee a few years back but comes back every summer for local dates. Celtic rockers Rebel Collective join Hunt on the Bicentennial Stage, while a band of local doctors called No Copay play from 4 to 8 in City Plaza.

In October, Reingold does double duty, performing both in his band Up and with his old JamAntics mate in Lucas Gallo & the Guise.

“Intown told me I could play as much as I wanted, but I didn’t want to abuse my position, especially because I know so many bands that are better than I am around here,” he said. “But it was important to get my ‘Guise’ up there.”

Heather Smith & the Constants and Robin Gaming round out October’s First Friday, with Lee & Dr. G and Andrew North & the Rangers along with Martha Hubbard in November. Reingold’s overall goal is to reinforce downtown Concord as a go-to hotspot: “Cool and inviting to the locals, but also people that want to visit.”

Concord First Friday Music
When: Friday, May 1
Where: Bicentennial Square – RGB Trio, 4 p.m., Chasing Ghosts, 6:15 p.m. / City Plaza – Wandering Souls, 4 p.m.
Full schedule: firstfridayconcord.com

Featured photo: Chasing Ghosts. Courtesy photo.

Orchestral rock and Scorpions music from Uli Jon Roth

On his current Pictures of Destiny tour, Uli Jon Roth balances the music he made with Scorpions and his solo material by playing two full shows in three hours. He begins with the classical rock he began making after he left the group, with his original films and artwork on a screen behind him. The set often ends with a new arrangement of “Sails of Charon.”

Perhaps his best-known song with the German hard rocker band, it’s also a bridge to the fan-pleasing second half. With his full band, Roth does a front-to-back performance of Virgin Killer, to help celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, followed by a best-of from his time in Scorpions. Usually there’s a faithful take of “Sails of Charon.”

Roth is realistic that the Scorpions material made his name, while the more complex work that followed didn’t cross into the mainstream.

“I have a new Uli audience who are more into the new stuff,” he said from a tour stop in Denver. “Then there are those brought up with Tokyo Tapes and that kind of stuff. My performances reflect that.”

For many years Roth chafed at the nostalgia of it all, but he now leans into pleasing Scorpions fans.

“Actually, I do enjoy playing it,” he said — particularly 1976’s Virgin Killer. “It feels really fresh. We are doing it slightly differently from the originals, and it feels like it was written now in some strange way.”

The key, it seems, has been learning to bring his current sensibility to the older songs rather than merely recreating them — “Sails of Charon” is a good example. “That’s undergone lots of transformations over the years,” he said. “Simply because I was never satisfied with the original arrangement; I always thought it was slightly unfinished.”

At his upcoming Tupelo Music Hall show Roth will preview material from Requiem for an Angel, a project he returned to recently after shelving it for two decades. Over the past year strings, percussion, drums and guitar tracks were recorded in the studio, and parts of it were performed on a recent Japan tour.

Requiem for an Angel is a large-scale orchestral tribute to Monica Dannemann, an artist Roth met in the mid-1970s. The two were life partners until her death in 1996. Dannemann was crucial to his creative growth, creating artwork for his records and co-writing songs.

“She was always an inspiration; I was really privileged to have even met her,” Roth recalled. “She is still part of my life, because when she passed away, she’s basically irreplaceable — not just for me, but for all of our circle of friends. She is one of these people who is really sorely missed.”

For the first half of the show Roth relies on computer-backed orchestral music. That’s due both to modern music industry economics and personal preference going back years.

“I’m utilizing technology to the max; I always have,” he said. “We can’t carry an orchestra around with us, but I am playing everything live.”

A multimedia show utilizing film, his projected paintings (also on display in the lobby), and time-synced visual footage allows Roth to bring a hundred-piece orchestra’s worth of ambition to small venues like Tupelo. Not that he wouldn’t like the real thing.

“It would be a lot of fun,” he said. “But nobody would pay for it.”

Roth is equally unbothered by AI’s encroachment on creative fields.

“Unlike most of my peers, I’m not afraid of AI — I love it,” he said, adding that he uses it to refine compositions for his videos and assist in the early stages of his paintings before committing to oil on canvas.

He’s also not worried about things like the recent Spotify dustup when an AI “artist” built up big streaming numbers with human-free music. He welcomes it.

“If the day comes that AI creates a better piece of music, then so be it,” he said. “You know, let the best computer win.”

There is one genre that Roth is not at all interested in, machine made or otherwise.

“I’m really not a heavy metal fan,” he said. “The worst is death metal and black metal. I can’t stand it because there’s no wholesomeness in it. It’s just a bunch of question marks and no answers.”

Uli Jon Roth
When: Friday, April 24, 7 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $50 at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Uli Jon Roth. Courtesy photo.

Sunny Jain’s Love Force hits New Hampshire

For his debut theatrical project, Love Force, Sunny Jain is performing his hypnotic, percussive brand of Bhangra-inspired jazz for a congregation. He’s on a mission to blur the lines between band and crowd, to make them one with the music and capture the energy of the shows he does in sweaty clubs with his band Red Baraat.

“What I’ve always enjoyed about music is that kind of communal experience … where you really rely on the energy in the room as a performer,” Jain said by phone recently. “I wanted to bring that element to a theatrical space … storytelling and narrative just through sound; how that impacts people, and how we vibe off of it.”

The message of Love Force comes from the concept of satyāgraha — the existence of truth. In the early 20th century, it underscored Gandhi’s nonviolent protests against British colonialism in India. It was later adapted by B.R. Ambedkar and, during the U.S. civil rights movement, employed by Martin Luther King Jr.

Jain, who plays drums and the dhol, combines it with music and personal stories of the immigrant experience, using Love Force to confront social oppression.

“You can’t fight back with more tyranny,” he said. “You have to lead with love and just melt away any kind of evil doing.”

The stage is a pulpit, he continued, and music a sermon delivered in a common language.

“I’m trying to really tap into that energy of music really unifying people, putting aside these differences we have,” he said. “Recognizing places of worship, the thing that really unifies people in there is the chants, the mantras, the songs, the hymns, everything that we sing.”

Jain’s Love Force ensemble consists of longtime accompanists Alison Shearer on sax and bassist Almog Sharvie, along with horn players David Adewumi (trumpet) and Jasim Perales (trombone) and with Julia Chen on keyboards. As they play, images flash behind them, as well as word collages — one a phrase that provides a lot of the evening’s energy.

Jain discovered “collective effervescence” after a conversation with Ash Fure, a Dartmouth associate professor of sonic arts, a few years back. The two were discussing Jain’s developing project and his interest in music’s coalescing power. Fure pointed him to Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2006 book Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy.

“Ehrenreich talks about this shared activity, almost akin to religion, that you find nowadays in the rave scene,” Jain said. “Then she points back to Emile Durkheim, the French sociologist, [who] coined the term collective effervescence.” His research found that it was key to the early beginnings of organized religion.

“People came together around a totem … reflective of their group or clan, and stomped in unison to give reverence to one another or to the human being,” Jain said. “Something just stuck to me about that — being engaged with and a lover of Sufi music, especially Sufi dhol drumming. Where the essence is of music and sound enabling you to reach the omnipotent.”

One fun fact learned in the interview was that a different twist of fate might have led Sunny Jain to join a rock ’n’ roll band. When he was 12 his brother took him to see Mötley Crüe and Whitesnake, his first concert. It inspired an interest in percussion, and he enrolled in drum class to learn Tommy Lee and Neil Peart. “Because I loved Rush as well,” Jain said. But his first teacher was a bebop jazz drummer and taught him that instead. “That’s how I fell in love with jazz.”

Does performing Love Force differ from working with his best-known band? “Yes,” Jain said. “There’s a lot more expression. Red Baraat is very much a musical force of the club and festival circuit of like just really amped up party music [and] this has a much more dynamic expression of emotion, just with the fact of the storytelling.”

Sunny Jain’s Love Force
When: Saturday, April 18, 7 p.m.
Where: 5 Pinkerton St., Derry
Tickets: $28 and $33 at pinkertonacademy.org
Also Thursday, April 16, 7:30 p.m., Hopkins Center, 12 Lebanon St., Hanover, $30+ at dartmouth.org

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.