Live Music: Brandon Holder and Toma Fuller @ Lost Province Downtown

Many musical performances in the Boone area take place behind closed doors; musicians sitting knee to knee on a front porch, standing beside a campfire, or perched on the edge of a couch with lyrics pulled up on an iPhone. Toma Fuller and Brandon Holder often spend their nights in these familiar locations trying to remember the chords of a Norman Blake or John Hartford tune they “knew really well” a couple of months ago.

While most weekends you can find them playing sidemen in any number of Boone’s rock institutions (Dead of Winter, Dave Brewer’s Foscoe Four, Hilltop Riot, Mission in the Rain, Spoonbread), it is difficult to receive an invite to the barn where the boys hole up with acoustic guitars trying to impress each other with recently learned Doc Watson licks. A couple times a year, the acoustic duo brings their ever-changing setlist to a couple of local watering holes. Bluegrass standards, 70’s b-sides, Todd Snider hits, and the elusive original song are all on the table when Toma and Brandon get behind a PA system and in front of a willing audience.