Hollywood Nights brings nine pieces of Bob Seger to Penn's Peak

The New Jersey tribute, a regular on Lehigh Valley stages, plays the mountaintop room in Jim Thorpe on Saturday, Nov. 7.

Some songs need a saxophone, and the people who love those songs can tell when it's missing. That's the case Hollywood Nights makes for itself. When the Bob Seger tribute plays Penn's Peak in Jim Thorpe on Saturday, Nov. 7, it'll bring nine players: backing singers, sax, piano and organ on top of the usual guitar, bass and drums.

Penn's Peak bills the night as Hollywood Nights – The Bob Seger Experience. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 8. The venue's event page lists advance tickets at $27 and day-of tickets at $32, which is a modest price for a full band in a room this size. Resale sites are asking more, so buy from the venue.

The venue describes the band as a nine-piece based in New Jersey, so this isn't a hometown show in the strict sense. But Hollywood Nights has spent enough nights in eastern Pennsylvania that it might as well be. It played Musikfest Café in Bethlehem on March 6 this year, and it's been a fixture of summer park concerts around the region, including a Pennypack Park show in Northeast Philadelphia that WHYY covered. Lead vocalist Rick Murphy handles the Seger parts.

The original records weren't just one guy with a raspy voice; they were the Silver Bullet Band

That's what sets a tribute like this apart from a bar band working through a Seger medley. The original records weren't just one guy with a raspy voice; they were the Silver Bullet Band, and the horn lines and keyboard parts carry as much of the song as the vocal does. Murphy's job is the voice. The other eight make it sound like the record.

Penn's Peak is a good fit for that. The venue sits up on Maury Road above Jim Thorpe and holds about 1,800 people, according to its own description, big enough for a nine-piece to spread out without turning a Saturday night into an arena trip.

If you caught the band at Musikfest Café in March, Nov. 7 is a chance to hear it on a bigger stage. If you haven't, a week from Saturday is a cheap way to find out whether nine people really can make Seger's records come alive. The drive up the mountain in early November isn't a bad part of the night, either.

Sources: Penn's Peak: Hollywood Nights - The Bob Seger Experience, Nov 7, 2026 (pennspeak.com); WHYY: Hollywood Nights, Bob Seger tribute band, rocks Pennypack Park concert (whyy.org); ArtsQuest: Hollywood Nights - The Bob Seger Experience at Musikfest Café (artsquest.org); Ticketmaster: Hollywood Nights, Jim Thorpe, Nov 7, 2026 (ticketmaster.com); Silver Bullet Band - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)