NorthShore Original Open Mic (NOOM) in the Sky Room at Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre

Dave Rowe (daverowemusic.com) will be the featured performing songwriter during the NorthShore Original Open Mic (NOOM) on Wednesday, September 27. Co-presented by the Cinema Arts Centre and the Folk Music Society of Huntington in the Cinema’s Sky Room (423 Park Avenue, Huntington), the open mic runs from 7-10 p.m., with the featured artist performing a 30-minute set beginning around 8:15 p.m.  Sign-up starts at 6:30 p.m.  Although NOOM is free to attend, donations will be gratefully accepted.

Dave is a traveling troubadour from Maine —a singer-songwriter and interpreter of traditional and modern song— who has graced stages all over the eastern seaboard and throughout America’s heartland during his 35-year career. Armed with a guitar, a dream, a quick wit, a soaring tenor voice, and the heart of an entertainer, this charismatic performer has enthralled audiences everywhere he’s gone — bringing them from raucous sing-alongs to laughter to tears and everything in between. 

In recent years, Dave has traversed the eastern continental U.S. by boat — traveling the Great Loop, the Atlantic and Gulf Intracoastal Waterways, and waterways in between, and singing songs along the way. Dave’s journey aboard has taken him through 24 U.S. states and one Canadian province. His trusty guitar; his yacht, Stinkpot; and his first mate, Stacey, have traveled well north of 12,000 nautical miles since first casting off in 2018 on this odyssey on the water and the stage. 

As he has voyaged, Dave has been playing to new audiences from yacht clubs to waterside coffee houses, pubs, and taverns—making friends and fans along the way. While traveling the Florida Panhandle, the producers of ABC’s America’s Funniest Videos came into possession of a video of “the captain” in a lighthearted moment on stage and decided it needed to be on the show. With the boat safely docked in Pensacola, Florida, they flew Dave out to Los Angeles where his video placed second on the show, being narrowly edged out of the top spot by a Canadian toddler who desperately wanted cake.

Dave’s music is handmade and heartfelt. It springs from deep roots borne out of the song traditions of Ireland and the British Isles, cultivated in the roots music of North America, and filtered through the musical sensibility of a classically-trained musician who is as at home directing a choir or wind ensemble as he is standing with his acoustic guitar in front of a large audience singing songs together. His original songs come from the heart of a poet and the soul of a maestro — examining subject matter as varied as Dave’s interests, from songs of the sea to historical sketches, from songs of abiding love to social commentary.

A natural entertainer and storyteller, Dave comes to it by birthright. Both grandfathers were professional jazz musicians, his mother a professional singer, and his father, Tom, was a much revered and talented linchpin of the popular folk trio, Schooner Fare. They all made sure Dave was classically trained, gifting this renaissance man the musical foundation to bloom and carry on the family musical tradition. 

(Dave Rowe photo by Stacey Guth)