Ian Noe

This is a MainStage Lounge concert event. You'll sit on stage with the artist in a casual, intimate setting and enjoy a unique perspective looking into the theater.

Ian Noe draws on the day-to-day life of Eastern Kentucky on his debut album, Between the Country. Recorded in Nashville with unhurried production by Dave Cobb, these 10 original songs introduce a number of complicated characters, diverse in their own downfalls but bound together by Noe’s singular voice. Noe absorbed these harrowing experiences through people he’s met or stories he’s heard. Not yet 30, Noe was raised as the oldest of three children in Beattyville, Kentucky, where his parents still live in the house he grew up in. His father is a longtime youth social worker, while his mother has been employed by the same local factory for more than 20 years.

Set for release on March 25th, his new album River Fools & Mountain Saints is both an expansion and a deepening of the hard-nosed storytelling he introduced on his first. Unlike the pitch-black balladry that defined Between the Country, Noe was intent on including at least a few halfway-cheerful tunes this time around. Roadhouse country-rockers like lead single “Pine Grove (Mad House)” and “Burning Down the Prairie” exist alongside wistful down-tempo narratives like “Lonesome As It Gets” and “Ballad of a Retired Man.” The latter is Noe’s clearest homage to date to his hero John Prine.

Tickets: $40 (VIP) / $25