Cigarettes @ Sunset bring "Possum Rock" to The Blue Note in April

The Boone, North Carolina band, fresh off a Lost Highway debut EP and two new singles, plays Columbia on Wednesday, April 28.

If your playlists have been drifting toward fiddles lately, the band you have been looking for has a name that reads like a punchline and a sound they had to invent a word for.

Cigarettes @ Sunset play The Blue Note on Wednesday, April 28, 2027, at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster. The date was announced October 27, and The Blue Note holds 835.

Cigarettes @ Sunset are an Appalachian rock band from Boone, North Carolina, and the word they use for what they do is "Possum Rock": fiddle-driven Appalachian folk run into gritty indie rock with a punk streak. The lineup is Garrett Dellinger on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Wells Whitman on bass, Ethan Moore on drums, Sarah Vann on violin and vocals, and Ryland Bagbey on lead guitar.

This has been the year the band stepped up. In March they made their Lost Highway Records debut with Possum Rock, a six-song EP, and they have kept releasing music since. "Gasoline," out at the end of July, is a rock song about post-breakup wreckage. "Carolina Shakedown," released September 30, is described by uDiscover as a freewheeling counterpart to their hometown song "Appalachian Raised." It was produced by Taylor Kimball, whose credits include Wyatt Flores and Koe Wetzel, according to BroadwayWorld.

Fiddle-driven Appalachian folk, gritty indie rock, and a genre name they made up themselves.

They are on the road right now, too. The band's fall tour opened at The Mill & Mine in Knoxville and closes November 14 at Duling Hall in Jackson, Mississippi, and their own tour page is the place to watch for what comes next. The Columbia date is a long way out, which is often how it goes for a band whose profile is climbing: book the spring room early, before the next single lands.

Why see them at The Blue Note? An 835-capacity room is a good size for a five-piece with a fiddle in the front line. It is big enough for a band to really dig in and loud enough to do the punk side of their sound justice, and small enough to still catch the details of a violin part.

What to know: it is a Wednesday, 8 p.m. start, so it is a weeknight out. Tickets are already on sale through Ticketmaster, and buying early is the simple way to make sure you are in the room. Between now and April, spend some time with the Possum Rock EP and the two singles; you will get more out of the night if "Carolina Shakedown" is already stuck in your head.

Five months is a long time to wait for a show. Put it on the calendar now, and by the end of April you will be ready to hear what Possum Rock sounds like at full volume.

Sources: Carolina Shakedown: Cigarettes @ Sunset pioneer Possum Rock (Artistrack) (artistrack.com); Cigarettes @ Sunset release new single Gasoline (BroadwayWorld) (broadwayworld.com); Listen to Cigarettes @ Sunset's Carolina Shakedown (uDiscover Music) (udiscovermusic.com); Cigarettes @ Sunset release new single Carolina Shakedown (BroadwayWorld) (broadwayworld.com); Cigarettes @ Sunset tour (cigarettesatsunset.com); Tickets (Ticketmaster) (ticketmaster.evyy.net); JamBase listing (jambase.com)