Boot Juice books the Red Room at Crystal Bay Club for Thanksgiving weekend

The Northern California Americana band plays the North Shore's 150-capacity room on Saturday, Nov. 28, and tickets are $20 to $25.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving at the lake: the leftovers are mostly gone, the relatives are still around, and somebody needs to get out of the house. Boot Juice has a plan for that night.

Boot Juice plays the Red Room at Crystal Bay Club on Saturday, Nov. 28, at 8 p.m. The show was announced Oct. 15. The room holds 150, and tickets are $20 to $25 through Tixr.

Boot Juice is an Americana band from Davis, California (EverybodyWiki), and it has grown well past the duo it started as. Founders and main songwriters Connor Herdt and Evan Daly now lead a lineup of six or seven players. The band's own bio admits it has been called a lot of things: rock, bluegrass, blues, folk and country (The State Room). Our listings file it under folk. The truth is somewhere in that whole list.

This year brought a new record. Boot Juice released its fourth album, *Keeping Out Of The Ground*, on March 20, 2026 (Grateful Web). The band has been back to Tahoe since, with an Aug. 16 summer date on the schedule at Commons Beach in Tahoe City. A late-November show in a 150-person room is a very different night from a free afternoon on the beach, and that is a good reason to go.

A late-November show in a 150-person room is a very different night from an afternoon on the beach.

The Red Room has a history worth knowing. Crystal Bay Club has two music rooms: the Crown Room for big shows and the Red Room, the intimate one, used for smaller gigs and for afterparties when the Crown Room is busy (Lake Tahoe Travel). The Red Room came first. According to a history posted with an archived Jackie Greene recording, staff started booking music there after persuading a general manager to try it. Those shows sold out quickly, with acts including Leon Russell, Pinetop Perkins and Todd Snider, and the demand led to the bigger Crown Room (Internet Archive). The room's tapes are out there too: Moon Hooch's March 2015 Red Room set is on the Internet Archive.

That's the appeal of this booking. A band that has been filling out its sound with more players, a new record under its belt, and a small room on the North Shore where the stage is right there.

What to know before going: the Crystal Bay Club is at 14 State Route 28 in Crystal Bay, Nevada. Tickets are also available by phone at 775-833-6333 or at the casino cage, per the venue's listing, but the Tixr link above is the easiest way in. With 150 spots on a holiday weekend, don't wait until the turkey's carved.

If the family wants to come, bring them. A crowded room and a seven-piece band is a decent way to spend the last big night of the long weekend.

Sources: Tixr: Boot Juice at Crystal Bay Club (tixr.com); JamBase: Boot Juice at Red Room at Crystal Bay Club (jambase.com); EverybodyWiki: Boot Juice (en.everybodywiki.com); The State Room Presents: Boot Juice (thestateroompresents.com); Grateful Web: Boot Juice release 'Keeping Out Of The Ground' March 20 (gratefulweb.com); Lake Tahoe Travel: Indoor music venues (laketahoetravel.com); Internet Archive: Jackie Greene Live at The Crown Room, Crystal Bay Club, 2021-06-19 (archive.org); Internet Archive: Moon Hooch - Crystal Bay Club, The Red Room, 11-MAR-2015 (archive.org); Travel Nevada: Crystal Bay Casino (travelnevada.com)