Tom Keifer spent the 1980s writing some of arena rock’s most genuinely felt songs. As the frontman, guitarist, and primary songwriter for Cinderella, he guided the band through four studio albums that showed more range and ambition than the genre typically rewarded — particularly the 1988 record Long Cold Winter, which drew heavily on blues and roots rock rather than the glossy hard rock template the band had started with. Keifer’s voice, a raspy, blues-inflected instrument that suggested decades of whiskey and cigarettes despite his relative youth, became one of the more distinctive sounds of the era. He brings that voice and catalog to Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe this May.
Keifer has been touring as a solo act for over a decade, performing the Cinderella catalog alongside material from his 2013 solo album The Way Life Goes and subsequent recordings. The solo shows tend to be more intimate and more musically exploratory than the arena-circuit Cinderella tours of the 1980s and 1990s — Keifer leans into the blues roots that always underlined the music rather than the commercial polish that sometimes obscured them.
Penn’s Peak is an ideal room for this kind of performance. The Pocono Mountain venue has the right acoustic character for a singer-songwriter with a band rather than a full production spectacle, and Keifer’s material rewards listening rather than spectacle. Fans who love the hits — “Nobody’s Fool,” “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone),” “Shake Me” — will hear them. Fans who want more will find it.
Tickets are available through Ticketmaster. Showtime is 8:00 PM.