Driftwood Performs At The Opera House October 24th

Americana-Folk-Rock band Driftwood will be in performance at the Pocahontas Opera House Friday, October 24^th.  I recently spoke with bass player Joey Arcuri about the band.

“We’ve been together 17 years now,” said Arcuri. “The band started about 2008 and I joined in 2011. We were a 4-piece [band] from 2008 to 2017, and then in 2017, we got a drummer.”

He says they were once considered a bluegrass band, albeit not a traditional one.

“We still are an acoustic band, but we now have drums and we are more of folk-rock band,” said Arcuri. “We’re unique because we don’t have just one band leader. We have three singer-songwriters that contribute their songs, so everybody gets the spotlight in Driftwood.  I also sing one song, but it’s more of a feature I get.”

The band hails from Binghamton, and Ithaca, NY and got it’s start when founding members Joe Kollar and Dan Forsyth began making music as high schoolers in the basement of Joe’s home.  Dan plays guitar, Joe plays guitar and banjo. The group also includes Claire Byrne on violin and drummer Sam Fishman. Dan, Joe and Claire share most of the vocal duties.

Music from “Up All Night Blues”

Their tour will take them to another popular venue in West Virginia, the Purple Fiddle in Davis.  From there, they’ll perform at venues in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Virginia, and Vermont.  You’ll find a full list of their schedule at their website, www.driftwoodtheband.com/#tour.  All the members have day jobs, but Arcuri says the tour is manageable because the performances all fall on the weekend.

He talks about what you’ll hear at the Opera House Friday night.

“We are going to play songs from our latest album release, December Last Call,” he said. “Others will be from prior albums.  We have new songs that aren’t even on an album yet that we’re going to do, I’m going to sing a tune.  We don’t really have any covers, we have all original music, we’re a song-driven band, but we also have moments of the songs where we improvise and jam; we’re not a jam band, but we definitely sprinkle that in.”

You can hear this unique mix of song and instrumentation Friday, October 24^th at the Pocahontas Opera House in Marlinton.  The show begins at 7pm, and tickets are $10.00 for anyone 18 and over.