Cigarettes @ Sunset come back to Asheville with two nights at The Orange Peel

The Boone "possum rock" band last played town at The Outpost in 2024. In March they'll play the Peel on back-to-back nights.

The last time Cigarettes @ Sunset played Asheville, it was September 7, 2024, at The Outpost. When they come back in March, they'll need two nights at The Orange Peel to do it.

The Boone band plays the Peel on Thursday, March 18, 2027 (doors 7 p.m., show 8 p.m.) and Friday, March 19, 2027 (show 8 p.m.). Tickets for both nights are through eTix. The Friday show was announced first, on October 27. A week later, on November 2, the Thursday was added. For a band coming up from a High Country club show two and a half years ago, booking two nights in a 1,050-capacity room says a lot about how much has changed.

What changed, mostly, is the records. Cigarettes @ Sunset formed in Boone in 2021, and they've since been putting out singles on Lost Highway Records. "Appalachian Raised" came first. Then "Gasoline," which arrived this summer, takes what Lost Highway calls the band's unruly form of Southern rock to a brutally self-aware look at post-breakup destruction. "Carolina Shakedown" pairs their bluegrass roots with the heavier sound they've taken to calling "Appalachian possum rock."

That phrase is a decent description of what you'll hear. Their management, Red Light, sums up the band's "Possum Rock" style as Americana, indie, Appalachian folk and rock in one pile. The lineup explains how they get there: Garrett Dellinger on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Wells Whitman on bass and backing vocals, Ethan Moore on drums, Sarah Vann on violin and vocals, and Ryland Bagbey on lead guitar. A fiddle next to two guitars and a rhythm section that can hit hard is a mountain sound turned up loud.

The name, for the record, is exactly what it sounds like. "I came up with the band name one night, we were smoking cigarettes at sunset," Bagbey said in an interview with HVNLY.

Two and a half years ago it was The Outpost. Now it's two nights at the Peel.

The band has also put in road time beside bigger names, opening for Rainbow Kitten Surprise and touring with Ole 60 and Dexter and the Moonrocks. That's the kind of stage time that turns a regional favorite into a band that can fill a room like the Peel.

And the Peel is the right room. A Boone band selling Asheville's best-known rock club over two nights in March is a High Country success story, and the crowd will likely be full of people who've driven down the mountain to see it. Expect singalongs, plenty of fiddle, and a set heavy on the Lost Highway singles.

If you want the Thursday or the Friday specifically, pick your night now. Second nights tend to get added because the first one is moving, and neither is likely to sit around unsold until spring. Then put "Gasoline" and "Carolina Shakedown" on rotation before you go, so you know the words when the room starts singing them back.

Sources: Cigarettes @ Sunset — Red Light Management (redlightmanagement.com); Cigarettes @ Sunset Releases New Single ‘Gasoline’ (uDiscover Music) (udiscovermusic.com); Listen To Cigarettes @ Sunset’s ‘Carolina Shakedown’ (uDiscover Music) (udiscovermusic.com); CIGARETTES @ SUNSET Release New Single Gasoline (BroadwayWorld) (broadwayworld.com); Artist Spotlight: Cigarettes @ Sunset (HVNLY) (hvnly.squarespace.com); Tickets: Cigarettes @ Sunset at The Orange Peel, Mar 18 (eTix) (etix.prf.hn); Tickets: Cigarettes @ Sunset at The Orange Peel, Mar 19 (eTix) (etix.prf.hn); JamBase: Cigarettes @ Sunset at The Orange Peel (Mar 19) (jambase.com); JamBase: Cigarettes @ Sunset at The Orange Peel (Mar 18) (jambase.com)