With special guest Split Screens. $5 door.
Take the train from San Francisco to Oakland. Walk through the parks and by the lake, the places where the turbulence of city life blurs into the serenity of redwood groves and peaceful birdsong. There you will find Waterstrider. Woven through with pop sensibilities, their songs are imbued with a sense of environment, with a weight and a presence that ushers you into the little worlds they create.
Waterstrider, now a rumbling and thundering five-piece, is led by Nate Salman, whose transfixing falsetto is at the core of the band’s sound – it rides atop a tidal wave of booming toms and congas, twists itself around guitar licks and then rises, alone, to new heights.
In great bounds and on quiet tiptoes, Salman’s songs explore what it means to detach – from the city, from our expectations and from ourselves. His songs aren’t statements – they are questions. Open-ended, mysterious and heartfelt, they are for us as much as for him – a chance to step back and get lost. A chance to wonder.