Strand of Oaks’ Timothy Showalter takes his Winter Classic Residency to Johnny Brenda’s.
Two things you can always count on for the holy December holidays is that Macy’s holds a big light show with its organist roaring through Christmas classics, and that homeboy Timothy Showalter will come home for the season to play at South Philly’s Boot & Saddle in his earnest guise as Strand of Oaks.
However…
With Boot & Saddle closed at the top of the pandemic, Strand of Oaks’ annual December homecoming, his “Winter Classic,” hits up Port Fishington’s Johnny Brenda’s for two nights, December 9 and 10.
Go ahead. Sing out “tradition,” like you’re Tevyah in Fiddler on the Roof.
In Philadelphia for a celebration of his still-Springsteen-ian, doubly glorious new album, “In Heaven”, Showalter is in a ruminative, yet not-forlorn, metal-driven mood as was his sorrowful last album, 2019’s “Eraserland”.
“That’s the small, short story of the album,” Showalter told me back in 2019. “The full story is how much love was put into it by others, how it was created, and that it even exists. The album is one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given in my life. There is an arc, and within that arc – those bookends – it is just like life, something with a lot of roller-coasters.”
The rollercoaster is on the way upwards, if we believe Showalter’s most recent reflections on “In Heaven”. In its press notes, Showalter shares, “In Heaven was created with so much love and my greatest hope is that it connects with people and provides a momentary space for reflection, joy, catharsis and whatever else someone might be looking for in their life. Music is magic and I feel like the luckiest person in the world that I’m allowed to share it.”
And isn’t sharing – the singalongs, the rare songs, and the anthems – all part of Strand of Oaks’ Winter Classic?
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