Acoustic Syndicate Plays Two-Nighter at Dragonfly Friday and Saturday

Story by Anna Oakes

Acoustic Syndicate returns to Boone for two nights of music at the Dragonfly Theater this Friday and Saturday, November 6 and 7.

Want To Go?

Dates: Friday and Saturday, November 6 and 7
Time: 10:00 p.m.
Location: Dragonfly Theater, Boone
Cost: $17

After a sold-out show in Boone last spring, Acoustic Syndicate returns to the Dragonfly Theater for back-to-back performances this Friday and Saturday, November 6 and 7, at 10:00 p.m. each night.

The shows are 18 and up and tickets are $17—cash only. Advance tickets are encouraged. For more information, call the Dragonfly Theater at 828-262-3222.

The regional favorite is based in North Carolina, performing a tailored blend of bluegrass, folk, reggae and funk that Steve “Big Daddy” McMurry and company have been honing since the band’s formation in 1992. WNCW listeners recently voted the band as No. 6 in the Top 20 WNCW Artists of the Last 20 Years.

“Our genre—[people] had a hard time finding a good name for it,” McMurry said. “I don’t think anybody ever did.

“The music has a lot of soul. That’s really the cut of who we are,” he said.

Acoustic Syndicate consists of Steve McMurry on acoustic guitar, mandolin and vocals; Jeremy Saunders on sax; Bryon McMurry on acoustic and electric banjo, six-string banjo and vocals; Jay Sanders on acoustic and electric bass; and Fitz McMurry on drum set, congas and percussion.

With plans to hit the studio this winter to record a new album, Acoustic Syndicate is firing on all cylinders again after a two-year hiatus from 2005 to 2007. Prior to taking a break, the band had been touring heavily across the nation.

Since returning to the stage in 2007, the band has reeled in its concert schedule to just the Southeast and only on weekends, working around day jobs and the touring schedule of Sanders, who also tours with Donna the Buffalo.

“All the stress is gone now; we don’t have to play to make a living,” McMurry said. “We do it because we enjoy doing it.”

After the band started to play again, McMurry thought it would be slow going in rebuilding its fan base.

“I thought we’d be starting back from zero again, to be honest with you,” he said. But the band’s family of fans returned—almost instantly.

“It’s just like it never ended. I was so amazed that, when we first started back, it was like we turned the switch off and turned it right back on again,” said McMurry. “We take a lot of pride in the fact that the folks still come out.”

The material for the new record will be “probably more retrospective if anything else,” McMurry said. “It won’t be more progressive than the last record [Long Way Round, 2004]. I think we’re going to be going back a little bit to why the fans were there to start with.”

McMurry said the band plans to take its time with the record, with hopes to release it by the summer—“but I don’t want anybody to hold me to that.” The band will likely increase its number of tour dates in support of the album.

The band is eager to return to Boone, where Acoustic Syndicate performed its earliest and most successful gigs.

“That’s where we started,” McMurry said.

To hear music by Acoustic Syndicate, click to myspace.com/AcousticSyndicate.