San Diego folk band The Midnight Pine will take the stage for the final time on August 21 at Music Box in Little Italy, closing out a run that began in 2011 with a show built entirely around its acclaimed second album, Buried. The performance, titled 'Buried: The Final Midnight,' will feature the band playing the record start to finish, including songs it has never performed live before.
The show is billed as a special final performance, according to KPBS, with doors opening at 7 p.m. and music starting at 7:30 p.m. at the venue located at 1337 India St. Tickets are priced at $26.10 and the event is restricted to those 21 and older. Opening the night is The Color Forty Nine, a San Diego group also performing at the event.
A Band Built On Local Roots
The Midnight Pine was founded in 2011 by vocalist Shelbi Bennett and lyricist and percussionist Alfred Howard, and the band has released four studio albums during its run, per KPBS. The group's sound has been described as a soundscape of spectral folk and haunting Americana, a sonic identity that helped it stand out in San Diego's roots and indie scene over the past decade and a half.
Bennett began singing in church as a youth and started The Midnight Pine at age 20 while studying jazz at Grossmont Community College, according to SDVoyager. She later fronted other San Diego acts including The Havnauts and Baby Bushka, and the outlet notes that her first bar show with The Midnight Pine took place at the city's famed venue The Casbah. Howard, meanwhile, got his start performing spoken word in venue parking lots before becoming a prolific presence across the local scene, writing lyrics and recording beats for seven different acts under The Redwoods Music roster, according to Playing For Change. Over two decades, Howard has written lyrics and recorded on dozens of San Diego albums, the site notes.
Buried's Path From Studio Record To Farewell Centerpiece
Buried was originally released in June 2014 as The Midnight Pine's second full-length record, and it went on to win Best Americana Album at the 24th annual San Diego Music Awards that October, according to the San Diego Music Awards. The band's earlier debut, 2012's Awake Now, had already picked up Best Local Recording at the San Diego Music Awards in October 2013, per the San Diego Reader, cementing early critical recognition for the group not long after it formed.
The band's reach extended beyond San Diego stages in early 2015, when its track “Caution” was featured on the Bravo series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce, according to the San Diego Reader. That same year, “Caution” became the debut release for The Redwoods Music, an independent San Diego record label collective that Howard co-established in April 2015. Its first release was a 7-inch Record Store Day vinyl single of the song, built as a creative collective for overlapping local musicians working across soul, folk, and psychedelic genres.
Opening Act Brings Its Own Indie Pedigree
The Color Forty Nine, opening the farewell show, features San Diego multi-instrumentalists who have previously recorded and toured with prominent indie groups including The Black Heart Procession, The Album Leaf, and Pinback, according to Darla Records. Members Matt Resovich, Phil Beaumont, Jason Hooper, and Scott Mercado bring wide experience from previous West Coast indie projects, per the label. The band's songwriting is led by frontman and elementary school principal Phil Beaumont, whose work draws thematic inspiration from daily life and cross-border dynamics between San Diego and neighboring Tijuana, Mexico. The group's arrangements incorporate baritone ukulele, violin, and custom effects pedals.
The farewell concert unfolds inside a venue built for the occasion's scale. Music Box's tri-level, 13,000-square-foot layout can accommodate audiences of up to 750 people, according to BizBash, and the contemporary Little Italy space sits between downtown San Diego and the waterfront. For a band that helped anchor the city's roots revival for a decade and a half, it offers a fitting stage for one last night.
