By Jim Roberts
Punch Brothers have performed all over Virginia—from FloydFest to Richmond to Wolftrap, but they’ve never been to Hampton Roads.
That will change on May 13, when the Grammy Award-winning bluegrass band performs at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach.
Even Chris Eldridge, the band’s virtuoso guitarist, who grew up in Fredericksburg, only has one memory of performing in Virginia Beach.
“When I was in high school,” he said, “I was in this choir group called the Monroe Singers, and we did something down in Virginia Beach. I don’t even remember what the event was, but some sort of singing thing, which I think might actually be the only time I’ve actually performed in Virginia Beach.”
He does have fond memories of growing up in the Old Dominion.
“I loved living in Virginia,” he said. “I love Fredericksburg specifically. It’s just kind of a perfect town to grow up in. It’s a perfect size. And, you know, Virginia’s got just such a cool music community. I really feel lucky that I got to grow up where I did.”
Truth be told, Eldridge would have been surrounded by “a cool music community” wherever his family lived. His father, Ben, was a founding member of the Seldom Scene and was immersed in bluegrass for nearly 50 years.
“I have a real clear memory of being at a festival,” Eldridge said, “and there’s this old guy with these long white sideburns. When I got older … ‘Oh, my gosh, that was Bill Monroe!’ So it’s pretty amazing.
“It’s like a fish being in water, and the fish doesn’t know what water is,” he added. “When I look back on it … it made music something that not only mysterious other people could do. … I kind of grew up thinking, ‘Oh, this is just the thing that you do. You make music, and you perform it, you share it with people.’ It’s pretty amazing in retrospect.”
Eldridge studied music at Oberlin College and co-founded the Infamous Stringdusters before being recruited by Chris Thile to play with Punch Brothers.
“We started playing together 20 years ago,” he said. “It took two or three years for us to be able to kind of extricate ourselves from all the other things that we were doing and actually be like, ‘OK, now this is Punch Brothers.’
The band has released six albums, including the Grammy-winning “All Ashore” in 2018. They haven’t toured since 2022, but they’ve been writing new music for their “Energy Curfew Music Hour” podcast.
“We come up with at least one, but usually two new Punch Brothers songs for every episode,” he said. “So we’ll certainly be playing some of that material. Beyond that, we’re just going to try and put on a really great show.”
They are also touring for the first time since fiddler Brittany Haas joined the band.
“Brittany is really one of the most extraordinary instrumentalists there is,” Eldridge said. “I mean, she’s a force of nature. It’s been super fun kind of remaking the band around her. We’re just really excited to go play some shows because we haven’t really done that since she joined.
“I feel like I have the best seat in the house,” he added. “For the most part, you know, we play around a single mic, and we may or may not have microphones augmenting our instruments, but we’re all huddled up pretty tight, and we can just hear each other acoustically. It’s a very sensitive ensemble. … The experience of playing music in the ensemble is just really a gorgeous privilege.”
