Robbie Fulks describes the emotional territory of Now Then, his 2025 album on Compass Records, as “70% pensive, 20% droll, and 10% angry,” and he brings that reckoning to Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, November 12. For anyone who has been following his work since the alt-country underground of the 1990s, that self-accounting sounds about right.
About the Show
Now Then arrived in September 2025 on the far side of a significant life shift: Fulks had left Chicago, where he built a name in the alt-country underground, and relocated to Los Angeles, where he found new collaborators and, as he put it, “the specific environment of Los Angeles and, more generally, the outlook of older age.” The album’s subjects are wide — aging, family, marriage, the American Dream, childhood memory, the unsettling arithmetic of looking backward and forward at once — and its instrumentation follows suit, with banjo, fiddle, guitar, and lap steel, recorded at Groove Masters, Jackson Browne’s Santa Monica studio. Musicians on the record include Pete Thomas and Jay Bellerose on drums, Jenny Scheinman on fiddle, Wayne Horvitz on keys, and guitarists Kevin Barry and Duke Levine. Americana UK gave it a 9 out of 10, calling it an “inspiring multi-genre collection” with “well-crafted lyrics.” Variety was perhaps the most direct: Fulks is, they wrote, “one of the best singer-songwriters in American roots music over the last quarter-century” and “one of the best writers in America, period.”
Opening is Henry Ferland, a 23-year-old fingerstyle guitarist from the Hudson Valley. Ferland plays melody, rhythm, bass, and percussion simultaneously, often while singing — a technique that takes years to make feel effortless. He won the 2025 International Home of the Legends Thumbpicking Double Grand Champion title in both the traditional and contemporary adult categories, graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2024, and has performed with Tommy Emmanuel and opened for Martin Taylor and Stanley Jordan. He is currently finishing his first studio album. Two guitarists, two generations, one room that rewards close listening.
Venue & Logistics
Caffe Lena sits at 47 Phila Street in Saratoga Springs, a 110-capacity folk club and listening room that is among the capital region’s natural homes for a night like this. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; the show runs 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets are $29.28 for members, $32.53 for general admission, and $16.27 for children and students, with all fees included. A livestream through Caffè Lena TV is available for $5. Buy tickets