Holiday Cheer for FUV 2024

Seattle's folk rock ambassadors The Head and the Heart, alt-country individualist Margo Price, sonic adventurer Bartees Strange, and the harmonious New York sibling quartet Infinity Song will join WFUV at New York's Brooklyn Paramount on December 11 for the 18th annual Holiday Cheer for FUV concert.

Adam Weiner, dynamic frontman of Philadelphia's rocking and rolling Low Cut Connie, will host the evening.

"We couldn't be happier or more grateful for this year's stellar lineup of artists and bands we've admired for a long time here at WFUV," said Rich McLaughlin, FUV's program director. "Also, we're doing our first Holiday Cheer ever in Brooklyn, at a venue that has as much history as FUV. That mix of music and legacy is important to us — as is looking to the future. This year's Holiday Cheer is guaranteed to be an unforgettable night."

Tickets for this annual station benefit go on presale beginning Wednesday at 10 a.m. through Thursday, September 19 at 10 p.m. via Ticketmaster.com using the code WFUVCHEER. Tickets go on general sale on Friday, September 20 at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster and in person at the Brooklyn Paramount box office (Live Nation charges a $5 fee at the venue). A limited number of VIP tickets are available for $500 each for a VIP party at Ella's Lounge, located in the loge of the Brooklyn Paramount, which will include a special acoustic performance by the captivating Ottawa songwriter Kathleen Edwards. Write for more information on VIP tickets via Theresa Lynch.

The last handful of Holiday Cheer concerts — in 2023 at the Beacon Theatre with The Gaslight Anthem, Grace Potter, Iron & Wine, and Thee Sacred Souls; 2022, rocking with Spoon, Lucius, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, and Say She She, hosted by CBS News's Anthony Mason; and 2019's stellar lineup of the legendary Mavis Staples, Mumford & Sons, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Yola — not only resonated with FUV's listeners, but music fans across the five boroughs and beyond.

Thanks to Live Nation, the Brooklyn Paramount, and Sound Mind Live for their support of 2024's Holiday Cheer for FUV.

About the Artists:

The Head and the Heart

The Seattle-bred folk rockers first played Holiday Cheer for FUV back in 2011, not long after they had released their self-titled debut album, sharing the bill with Mavis Staples and Dawes. Since their start in 2009, The Head and the Heart has been beloved for their warm, earthy roux of pop, Americana, and classic roots rock. Songs such as “Honeybee,” a luminous duet between Jonathan Russell and Charity Rose Thielen, and the rousing “Shake,” show off the sextet’s intuitive knack for lush harmonies and dreamy melodies. The Head and the Heart makes music on their own terms, surviving the difficult departure of a founding member with renewed purpose and drive. There’s now a sixth album on the horizon, led off by the October 17 release of a first single, “Arrow,” already appearing in the band’s live sets. The Head and the Heart’s headlining performance for 2024’s Holiday Cheer for FUV, which dovetails with the group’s own 15th anniversary, is cause for celebration. “The sun is shining bright on these smiling faces,” wrote the band on Instagram in September, and FUV is lucky to be part of The Head and the Heart’s ever-evolving story.

Margo Price
The songs and fierce spirit of Margo Price hooked FUV immediately. This gifted Nashville-based musician’s songwriting chops, candor, and strong sense of community justice has made her not only a beacon of artistry, but activism, with passion projects that include Farm Aid and gun control. She first visited FUV back in 2017, to talk about her second album American Made, which followed her breakout debut, 2016's Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. Five albums (and one memoir) later, Price has a new album in the works and a wistful new duet with Billy Strings, called “Too Stoned to Cry,” which Price described on Substack as “a homecoming back to the country music that feeds my soul.” A year after Price impressed an FUV audience in a concert performance at Rockwood Music Hall, Price returns to play December’s Holiday Cheer for FUV for the first time.

Bartees Strange
British-born, Oklahoma-raised, Washington, D.C.-based Bartees Strange released his debut album, Live Forever, during the Covid lockdown in 2020 — and discovering this adroit guitar player’s muscular, insightful music, a kaleidoscope of ideas, was a salve. On 2022’s Farm to Table, Strange inventively entwined threads of surreal, funked-out rock, psychedelic R&B, snaky synths, and biting confessions of regret. In July on 2024, he dropped a new single, “Lie 95,” which Strange said is all about “searching for love all across the Northeast corridor (I-95).” Strange, joined by Anjimile and Kara Jackson, has also contributed a track, “Wolf Like Me,” for the forthcoming TRANSA benefit album, supporting transgender awareness, due out November 22. Strange, who played a concert for FUV in 2022, also makes his Holiday Cheer for FUV debut this year.

Infinity Song
An alumnus of FUV’s features “NY Slice” and “NY Slice Sessions,” the New York — by way of Detroit — sibling band Infinity Song went viral in 2023 with their singles “Hater’s Anthem” and “Slow Burn” which appeared on their Metamorphosis EP. This year, Infinity Song followed up their 2020 debut album, Mad Love, with Metamorphosis Complete, and made their Madison Square Garden debut, opening for Lake Street Dive in September. FUV has enjoyed getting to know Infinity Song’s Abraham, Angel, Israel and Momo Boyd and their impressive background based in classical, gospel, and jazz music (their parents founded the Boys & Girls Choirs of Detroit). The talented family brings their mellifluous harmonies to the Brooklyn Paramount to open Holiday Cheer for FUV.

Kathleen Edwards
Since the release of her debut album, 2003’s Failer, Kathleen Edwards has been a part of FUV’s legacy core of artists. The Canadian singer and songwriter made her first visit to the radio station in 2008, and we can honestly say that we missed her when she took a hiatus following 2012’s Voyager. When she returned in 2020 with her fifth album, Total Freedom, we celebrated with a “Marquee Live at Home” from her own Quitters Coffee in Ottawa which brightened everyone’s spirits during the pandemic. Fortunately, Edwards will follow up Total Freedom and her 2022 acoustic EP, Dogs and Alcohol, with a sixth album, produced by Jason Isbell. Edwards will play an intimate set at FUV’s VIP party ahead of Holiday Cheer for FUV.

Low Cut Connie's Adam Weiner
Few frontmen can rip off their undershirts onstage with more casual charisma and commitment than Low Cut Connie’s indefatigable Adam Weiner — or play the piano with more rock ‘n’ roll ferocity and showmanship. We’ve been privileged to have Weiner and his Philadelphia bandmates grace FUV locales over the years, from our High Line Bash at City Winery in 2023 to a concert at Rockwood Music Hall in 2018 to FUV Live sessions. Weiner has released nine albums as Low Cut Connie, most recently 2023’s Art Dealers, and he’ll take on hosting duties for this year’s Holiday Cheer for FUV.

*Brooklyn Paramount can accommodate accessible seating upon request. They have a dedicated guest services member who escorts all accessibility requests to the designated sections. They encourage people to buy regular tickets and go to guest services night of show for accommodation requests.

For updates, stay tuned to 90.7 FM, streaming online, and follow #FUVCheer on Instagram, Facebook, X (fka Twitter), and TikTok.

LISTEN to past Holiday Cheer for FUV concerts:
2022 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012