RAHWAY — Sarah Borges will perform at The Loft at Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway on Friday, Oct. 26 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at www.ucpac.org. The concert is part of the on-going Split Level Concert Series which highlights critically acclaimed singer-songwriters in a uniquely intimate setting.
To watch Sarah Borges strut and howl onstage is to participate in rock ‘n’ roll communion, all glistening sweat and high kicks, soul-shaking and sassy antics. She’s a modern-day retro spitfire, red lipstick curled in a smirk as she summons her six-string to conjure a host of fiery spirits, leaving a stunned and ecstatic audience in her wake.
Borges played in her own fledgling indie rock bands in her teens and early 20’s before taking a detour into the newly emerging genre of Americana. “I felt like I had spent all of this time trying to couch everything in metaphor, and when I started writing Americana songs I could finally say it plain,” says Borges.
Those years spent playing in black box rock clubs and rented VFW halls informed Borges’ style, and she soon found a believer in producer Paul Q. Kolderie –who also produced bands such as Hole, Radiohead, Uncle Tupelo — who offered to record some demos, which in turn drew the attention of Texas’s Blue Corn Music at the annual South by Southwest music festival.
The label released her debut full-length Silver City in 2005, which launched her onto the Americana world’s radar, kicking off a whirlwind of touring where Borges and her band opened for greats like Dave Alvin and Alejandro Escovedo.
Borges’ second outing, Diamonds in the Dark, was released on indie label Sugar Hill in 2007, yet another deal garnered on the merits of a South by Southwest performance. With Kolderie once again at the production helm and her touring band—the Broken Singles—jumping into the fray, the resulting album again earned Borges a wide array of critical acclaim.
It was around this time that Borges began to resurrect those rock ‘n’ roll roots you hear on her following album, The Stars Are Out, which was released in 2009 on Sugar Hill. While retaining the honesty of songwriting and sense of tradition that permeated her earlier releases, Borges bid adieu to the confines of Americana with free-spirited abandon and an almost punk-influenced grit and growl, a six-string salute from a woman who continues to defy classification and push musical boundaries at every turn.
For more information, visit the Split Level Concerts website at www.splitlevelconcerts.com.