A Songwriter’s Show, Properly Framed
John Ondrasik doesn’t do arena tours. He never really did. Five for Fighting was always a songwriter’s project wearing the clothing of mainstream radio success — piano-driven, emotionally direct, built for the kind of listening that doesn’t happen when you’re 40 rows back from a light rig. So when the Paramount Theatre in Rutland announces Five for Fighting with String Quartet for a Tuesday night in September, the format makes immediate sense. An 838-seat historic house built in 1914, the Paramount is the kind of room where this catalog finally gets to breathe the way it was written.
The show is set for Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 7 p.m. No opener has been announced.
What John Ondrasik Actually Built
It is easy to reduce Five for Fighting to “Superman” — a reflex, understandable, annoying to anyone who followed Ondrasik’s arc beyond 2001. But the reduction understates the durability of what he created. “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” was Grammy-nominated in 2002 and became, in the months after September 11, something closer to a communal document than a pop single. “100 Years” and “The Riddle” followed, filling out a platinum album (America Town) and a gold follow-up (The Battle for Everything) — and a catalog that has since appeared in more than 350 films, television shows, and advertisements.
The string quartet arrangement is the right call for material this melodically dense. Ondrasik’s piano-based writing has always sat between rock and orchestral pop, and presenting it with strings rather than a full band strips away the stadium-rock impulse that occasionally softened the catalog’s edges on record. If you want to hear these albums the way they were always capable of sounding, an 838-seat room with acoustic character is where that argument gets made.
Tickets and Details
Tickets go on sale Friday, April 17 at 10 a.m. Pricing is $40, $50, and $95 (plus taxes and fees). Theatre Members get early access beginning Thursday, April 16 at noon Tickets will be available through paramountvt.org.
The Paramount Theatre is located at 30 Center St, Rutland, VT. For more shows in the region, browse the full North Country concert calendar.