Chatham County Line's Winter Wilder Tour lands at Haw River Ballroom, Dec. 12

The Raleigh trio returns to the Saxapahaw mill a year after their last December visit, with a Saturday show presented by Cat's Cradle.

For a lot of Triangle families, December includes a drive out to Saxapahaw, and this year Chatham County Line is a reason to make it. The band announced the Winter Wilder Tour on Oct. 20, and its stop in the area is Saturday, Dec. 12 at the Haw River Ballroom, 1711 Saxapahaw-Bethlehem Church Road. Cat's Cradle lists doors at 7:30 p.m. and the show at 8 p.m.

This is close to a December tradition. Setlist.fm has the band at the Haw River Ballroom on Dec. 13, 2025, almost exactly a year before this one, and the band's winter shows go back further: in 2013, Port City Daily wrote about their annual Electric Holiday Tour, the plugged-in version of a band known for gathering around one microphone. Whether the Winter Wilder shows go electric, the announcement doesn't say. Either way, it's a hometown crowd in late December.

Chatham County Line started in Raleigh a little more than twenty years ago, and the current lineup is the trio of Dave Wilson, John Teer and Greg Readling. Their most recent album, Hiyo, is their tenth and the first without banjo player Chandler Holt. Before it came *Strange Fascination* (2020) on Yep Roc. The songs sit between bluegrass, folk and country, the kind that work with fiddle, upright bass and three voices, whatever the setup.

A Triangle band, a December night and a mill on the river.

The room matters too. The Haw River Ballroom holds about 700 in a converted mill on the river in Saxapahaw, a short drive from Chapel Hill and Carrboro and an easy trip from Raleigh. Its FAQ says shows presented by Cat's Cradle sell through Etix and that Etix tickets can't be transferred, so buy them in the name of whoever is going. The ticket link is on this page.

When to buy: now. It's a Saturday in mid-December, the room is 700 people, and the band has been coming back to it often enough that regulars will already have it marked. Dinner in Saxapahaw before the show is part of the night for a lot of people, so plan for it.

Every December has a night everybody in the Triangle remembers. This year, a good bet is Chatham County Line at the mill.

Sources: Cat's Cradle: Events (Chatham County Line, Winter Wilder Tour, Haw River Ballroom) (catscradle.com); Cat's Cradle: Haw River Ballroom (catscradle.com); Haw River Ballroom: FAQ (hawriverballroom.com); Haw River Ballroom: About (hawriverballroom.com); Setlist.fm: Chatham County Line setlists (setlist.fm); Port City Daily: Chatham County Line plugs in for Electric Holiday gig (portcitydaily.com); No Depression: Album review, Chatham County Line roams new frontiers on 'Hiyo' (nodepression.com); BroadwayWorld: Chatham County Line to release Strange Fascination (broadwayworld.com); Our State: Saxapahaw River Ballroom (ourstate.com); Wikipedia: Chatham County Line (en.wikipedia.org)