Giving local music enthusiasts a preview of what was to come, Cort Armstrong helped christen the Field Arts & Events Hall during its Community Days Celebration in July 2023 as a solo acoustic act.
This time around, he’s bringing friends.
FarmStrong, led by singer-songwriter Jim Faddis and backed by Armstrong, dobro/banjo picker-singer Rick Meade, and John Pyles on stand-up bass, takes to stage at the Field Arts & Events Hall, 201 W. Front St., Port Angeles, at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 30. Formed as an Armstrong-Gaddis duo in the early 2010s and as a group in 2013, the FarmStrong quartet collaborate in an acoustic quartet that puts singing at the forefront of their sound.
“A very simple and distinctive instrumentation accompanies the band’s smooth vocal sound and brings the songs they perform to life,” concert organizers note.
“Like a fine whiskey, FarmStrong’s sound is pure distilled magic. [The band] taps deep into the roots of the bluegrass and country musical genres, as it reaches beyond the surface to a vast array of American roots based music, from folk and rock, to Motown and blues.”
Tickets are $15-$25; get them at fieldhallevents.org/tickets/#/events/94747.
FarmStrong has its roots in bluegrass but more than allows for traditional country, country rock, blues, folk, Motown and more.
The group has added more of Meade’s banjo playing into the performances.
The upcoming Field Hall show will feature a lot of Faddis’ original songs which Amstrong said is “the heart and soul of FarmStrong.” A large portion will be dedicated to the band’s original bluegrass pieces, along with a portion for country (“we never really play a show without playing some Merle Haggard songs,” Amstrong said) and followed up by more modern pieces.
Just a few days after the group released the “FarmStrong 4” album in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Armstrong said the Olympic Peninsula music scene has recovered and is close to what it as pre-pandemic, though FarmStrong isn’t playing as many local shows. However, he said there’s positive to that: “We feel there’s a right amount to play in a given area.”
And a great place to play that out, he said, is the Field Hall.
“It’s a really wonderful space; I’ve seen a couple of acts there,” Armstrong said. “For this show, we really reached out to people outside the area come in and check out the space. One of the really beautiful things about the Field Hall is that it draws people to Port Angeles.”
FarmStrong will be hitting the road for several bluegrass festivals this summer while filling up their calendar with private events here and there.
“We’ve got a lot of new material,” Armstrong said. “It’s always been fun, but now it’s sort of crystallizing into something new again.”
For more about the Field Arts & Events Hall, visit fieldhallevents.org.
