A Former Friend
May 5, 2023 @ 8:00PM — 10:00PM Eastern Time (US & Canada)
The Buttonwood Tree Performing Arts Center: 605 Main Street Middletown, CT 06457 Get Directions
A Former Friend is known to challenge genre boundaries through the classic medium of American songwriting. His songs speak to a time when the intersection of popular music drew from country, gospel, jazz, blues, and Appalachian folk. A time when the only necessary genre designation was purely "music".
Arizona-born musician Robert Tobias moved to New England from Kentucky in late 2018 after years of touring all over the world. A Former Friend began performing regularly in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island until and was about to hit the road for a multi-week East Coast tour in spring/summer of 2020 when a global pandemic forced venues to close and prevented travel. Never in his adult life had the consummate musician gone even a few weeks without performing live so he turned his focus to recording his expansive catalogue of songs and writing new music that speaks to the modern zeitgeist. The self-titled debut “Just A Former Friend” was re-released in January 2021, followed by “This Television Will NOT Be Revolutionized” in February of that same year. The two EP's are available individually for streaming or together on a 12" vinyl record.
Several of the songs from the record have corresponding videos with cartoon and stop-motion animation illustrated and filmed by Tobias. A Former Friend's current lineup is comprised of veterans of the greater New England music scene on Bass, Drums, Fiddle, Flute, and vocals.
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