Antlers and Acorns: Mary Gauthier with Jess Klein

Friday, September 12, 2025 at 7 PM / Doors open at 6:15 PM
Standard – $45

All Ages (children under 17 admitted with parent/legal guardian)
All Seating is Reserved.
Sales tax and fees applied at checkout

Back for the third time to Antlers & Acorns, Mary Gauthier is a Grammy-nominated American folk singer/songwriter and author whose dark atmospheres and tales of marginalized people draw on her early experiences with addiction and recovery and growing up gay in Southern Louisiana. She made her initial mark in 1999 following her self-released sophomore effort, Drag Queens in Limousines, which had critics comparing her self-described “country noir” to the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, John Prine, and Lucinda Williams. The success of the LP led to main-stage shows at festivals around the country and eventually the world, followed by a string of well-received albums. In 2018 she released the acclaimed Rifles & Rosary Beads, which she co-wrote with military veterans and their families, and in 2021 she published the memoir Saved by a Song. Dark Enough to See the Stars, Gauthier’s 11th studio effort, appeared the following year.

Embraced by critics, folkies, and No Depression fans alike, Gauthier’s warmly candid treatment of her fringe-dwelling subjects rings true — it never verges on sentimental — her characters’ downtrodden lives are never coldly exploited. Instead, these are people she knows, whom she met after dropping out of her Louisiana high school and stealing the family car at the age of 15, only to find herself in detox at 16 and jailed in Kansas City at 18. Her own wayward path led her to culinary school and, eventually, she opened a successful restaurant in Boston’s Back Bay — Dixie Kitchen — which she sold after her music career started to take off.

Jess Klein came to this world to pull firebrand power and childlike joy from our darkest shadows. Her acoustic-driven, hook-laden story songs revel in the polychrome of human experience – joy, rage, sensuality and resilience. The New York Times calls her “A songwriter with a voice of unblinking tenacity.”

Jess has toured the globe performing in pin-drop listening rooms, cozy theaters and at raucous festivals in front of tens of thousands of fans.  She has toured nationally and internationally supporting Arlo Guthrie, Josh Ritter, Damien Dempsey, John Fullbright and Jonathan Byrd and has opened for such legends as Ani DiFranco, Steve Earle and Alejandro Escovedo.  Jess has appeared on Good Morning America and NPR’s All Things Considered and has performed at the Newport, Winnipeg, Falcon Ridge and Philadelphia Folk Festivals as well as Fuji Rock Festival in Japan.

Jess’s live shows are known for their intimate and soulful atmosphere. Whether solo with just her guitar or backed by a band, Jess performs with a raw, emotional intensity.  Her emotive vocals, and poignant storytelling invite her fans on a journey through themes of love, loss, and resilience.

The Bluegrass Situation hails Jess’s work as “one part grassroots social activism, two parts alt-country guitar rock — a combo we can certainly get behind.” Klein’s newest album, 2023’s When We Rise, harnesses this potent combination with themes of empowerment and the joy of overcoming set to a dynamic and deeply introspective roots-inflected soundtrack.