Live at Club Cafe in Pittsburgh: Magnolia Boulevard w/ Madison Hughes

Doors 7PM | Show 8PM$15 ADV | $20 DOS21+With a southern rock tinged flavor of soulful americana, and a powerful female vocalist reminiscent of Tedeschi Trucks Band, Magnolia Boulevard has blossomed through devastation since forming in 2017. They pushed through the turmoil of COVID-19 that devastated the music industry, the sorrow following the death of their beloved drummer, and the joys of welcoming Maggies daughter into the world. Much like the band members of Magnolia Boulevard have endured the highs and lows of the past few years, so has their music. The bands emphatic and empowering anthems of love, self-discovery, grief, and uncertainty serve as a lesson to us all about lifes unpredictable nature and how to better live in the moment so we can appreciate everything and everyone around us before theyre gone. If patience is a virtue, then the current state of Magnolia Boulevard plays right into the long-held notion that sonic grandeur evolves in its own time and place one where the Lexington, Kentucky, rock-n-soul act is aiming to break into a national audience ready and roaring for the quintets soaring talents. Formed in 2017 by Noelle and Allen, the band came together when other creative endeavors werent fulfilling the artistic desires and professional expectations of what the duo were envisioning. It was time to push down the gas pedal on the possibility and potential of what Magnolia Boulevard could be, and ultimately has become in sonic design and in the live realm. The sound has been described as Appalachian Soul, and I really like that because of our Appalachian roots, Noelle says. You get a taste of folk with the songwriting portion, but you also have that rock and soul foundation. Madison Hughes will make you feel like someone finally said the thing out loud. Not loudly. She doesnt need to be. Her voice carries the kind of weight that sneaks up on you, warm and unhurried, until a single line stops you mid-drive and you sit in the parking lot a little longer than you planned. She grew up in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, idyllic by every measure, rooted in the same coastal Southern soil that gave the world Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tom Petty, the Allman Brothers, Tedeschi Trucks Band, and Ray Charles. Music was in the air before it was ever a choice. Her fathers folk-rock records: Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Gillian Welch. Her mothers soft devastation: Dido, Sarah McLachlan, the Cranberries, Norah Jones. The grit and the tenderness both took root. She started writing songs in high school because heartbreak cracked her open and she couldnt say the hard things any other way. That instinct never left. Her sound refuses to sit still, grunge-folk grit threaded through country soul, blues-pop hooks bleeding into indie Americana, all of it held together by feel rather than formula. In high school she was the girl who sat with everyone at lunch, allergic to the idea that you had to pick a side. Thats still who she is. The genre-crossing isnt a strategy. Its just her nature.