SAM SHABER plays eighty numbered streets Monday, December 18th, 2023

Sam Shaber returns to Club Passim after a long absence to play her 2003 album eighty numbered streets front-to-back on its 20th anniversary. The album was produced by Shawn Mullins (“Lullaby”), and came early for Shaber who would eventually rack up 12 independent albums and over 200,000 miles on the road, both solo and with her bands; LA indiepunk group The Happy Problem, Brooklyn dance-rock trio The Bashful, and Brazilian-American rock-reggae project The Good People of Planet Earth.

For these anniversary shows, Shaber plays the album in track order because, as she half-jokes in a jab to modern music subscription models, “People used to have this thing called an album, and that album was played in order. We knew which song was coming next and we felt special because it was ours.”

She admits that this format poses a problem; track 1 on Eighty Numbered Streets is an anthemic fan-favorite called “Eldorado” which is much closer to a finale than an intro. “But I’m a Virgo,” Shaber laughs, “so I have to follow the rules.” To solve the issue, she warms up the crowd by “opening” for herself with a song from one of her other albums.
There are many inside jokes between Sam and the audience during this anniversary show, but anyone in the room can relate to the feeling of returning to meaningful moments in our younger years, romanticizing a “simpler time when life didn’t feel quite so urgent and scary,” says Shaber. Though for some perspective, she points out that she and Mullins started work on eighty numbered streets less than two weeks after 9/11. “Maybe the good old days aren’t so good after all.”

Far from idle during her musical hiatus, Shaber created and hosts the acclaimed podcast IVFU based on her challenging 8-year journey to motherhood. She’s also been active as a live storyteller with The Moth, Upright Citizens Brigade, and others, plus an original storytelling musical Sam Shaber: Life, Death & Duran Duran which earned 5-star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In fact, Shaber has invited Moth Radio Hour storyteller Matthew Dicks to open the Club Passim show. “Since storytelling is such an important part of what I do, I thought it would be cool to incorporate it into this show, instead of having another singer-songwriter open,” Shaber says.

Don’t miss this unique, fan-focused holiday event. Says Sam, “Get your flip phones, your cable TV, and your PT Cruisers; we’re going to party like it’s 2003.”

Sam Shaber with special guest Matthew Dicks, Monday, December 18th, 2023, 7pm, Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Cambridge, MA 617.492.7679. Tickets: https://www.passim.org/live-music/events/sam-shaber/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG9C0VwruXE&authuser=0