The Amish Outlaws make Daryl's House their Hudson Valley home base

The Lancaster cover band, suspenders and all, returns to Pawling next Thursday, Nov. 12, for a night that is more party than concert.

Picture a row of beards, straw hats and suspenders on the small stage at Daryl's House, and then picture that band tearing into a hip-hop hit. That is the joke, and also not the joke, of The Amish Outlaws, who return to Pawling next Thursday, Nov. 12.

The show is at Daryl's House Restaurant & Music Club on Route 22, with music at 8 p.m. The club's own listing has doors at 5 p.m., which is the point: this is a dinner-and-a-show room, so come early, eat, and hold your table. Tickets are through TicketWeb.

The Amish Outlaws are not from the Hudson Valley. They are a cover band from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, formed in 2002, and the band's own story is the hook: four of the six original members were born and raised in Lancaster with a strict Amish upbringing. They still play in traditional Amish attire. What comes out of the amps is anything but plain. Listings describe a set that jumps across pop, rock, country and hip-hop, and the band's own site quotes a review calling them "the baddest cover band you have ever heard."

The baddest cover band you have ever heard.

So why call Daryl's House home? Because in our records the Outlaws play the Hudson Valley more than any other market, 21 shows and counting, and this room is where they keep coming back. If you live north of the city and have never seen them, the odds are good that a friend has, and that they told you about it more than once.

The room suits a band like this. Daryl's House is a restaurant and music club built around the idea behind Daryl Hall's web and TV series *Live From Daryl's House*: good food, a small stage and musicians playing close to the people eating in front of them. At about 200 people, it feels less like a theater and more like a very loud dinner party.

That intimacy matters for a cover act. Part of the fun of the Amish Outlaws is the whiplash between what you see and what you hear, and it lands better when you are near enough to watch the reactions at the next table. A wedding-band energy runs through the whole thing, which makes sense: the band's site collects quotes from brides and grooms alongside the clubs and press.

We did not find word of new original music, and that is fine. Nobody drives to Pawling on a Thursday for a deep cut. You go for the songs you already know, played loud by a band in suspenders that clearly loves playing them, and you go because the place will be full of people singing along.

Book a table, order something, and stay for the encore. By the end of the night, someone at your table will be asking when they are back.

Sources: Daryl's House Club: The Amish Outlaws (darylshouseclub.com); TicketWeb: The Amish Outlaws at Daryl's House (ticketweb.com); The Amish Outlaws: Quotes from the Media, Brides and Grooms, and Clubs (amishoutlaws.com); Amish Outlaws (Wikipedia) (wikipedia.com); Daryl's House – Pawling venue listings (darylshouseclub.com); Daryl's House (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org)