When COVID essentially shut down the concert industry, one creative response to the absence of live music was the “house concert,” an event that has grown dramatically in recent years. Precisely what it sounds like, a house concert books a musician or band at a private home, where guests are invited and often, food and drink is provided. Concerts can be indoors or outdoors, usually dependent on the season. Some hosts pay performers by “passing the hat,” while others charge a small fee or engage a sponsor. Typically singer-songwriters flock to this intimate venue, though the trend emerged in the 1970s with hip-hop and punk bands playing garages and basements. Today, often in the settings of backyards or barns, more adventurous house concerts draw the occasional mosh pit, too.
Indie musicians are particularly fond of house concerts. Bristol-based singer-songwriter Allysen Callery explains, “House concerts are my favorite because people are there to really listen. It’s really relaxed and you’re in someone’s living room or backyard. It’s just really magical.”
Artists and hosts agree that a performance can be more personal, as well. “With house concerts, there’s an intimacy you can’t get in other places. It’s a true listening experience, where the artists know they’ll be heard and appreciated,” says Annie Kennedy from Providence, a concert sponsor for the past several years.
“I was at an album release at a local venue that is absolutely fabulous at supporting the music community and drawing great acts. But a group at the bar was so loud they drowned out the music. You could tell it was bothering the performer, who was trying to share with the world something she’d worked so hard on,” Kennedy explains. “At house concerts, there’s no distraction. Music is the center, every time.”
One veteran of the house concert scene is WRIU DJ Dan Ferguson, who has been hosting shows since 2001. He explains how his Roots Hoot House Concerts, which bring national touring acts to South County, developed: “We began in December of 2001 because I was tired of acts from the roots/alt-country/Americana realm either passing on Providence or, when they did play, no one showing up. I decided to take matters into my own hands.”
“The shows differ in that you have a captive audience in a house atmosphere, which for us is a house full of art and color. It is hard not to come here and be fully engaged with the band, especially when you could be standing just a foot or two away from them. Our audience loves it.”
Ferguson adds, “The fans get an up-close-and-personal show with an artist and even get to hang out in our kitchen with them at times. As the legendary Chip Taylor of ‘Wild Thing’ fame said of the tightly packed room when he played here in the mid-aughts, ‘We are all in this together.’ Win-win.”
Learn more at ConcertsInYourHome.org
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