Philly's Boat House Row brings 'yacht rock' to Irwin's Lamp Theatre

Put on your Sperrys and Ray-Bans and sail away to the smooth sounds of yacht rock.

Boat House Row will cruise from Philadelphia to The Lamp Theatre in Irwin for a show at 8 p.m. April 15, celebrating the soft rock that filled the airwaves in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“Yacht rock” comes from an eponymous 2005 internet series that parodied the genre through the lives of some fictional soft rock stars of the era.

Boat House Row plays the hits from artists who embodied the term, like Hall & Oates, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross, Steely Dan and Toto. Others commonly associated with the name include The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, Robbie Dupree, Fleetwood Mac and Rupert Holmes.

“Most of the band is in their 40s, so we grew up with this music, hearing our parents play it,” said Brian Anderson, who sings and plays piano with Boat House Row. “It was ingrained in us from when we were kids, so nostalgia is definitely a huge element of this, for sure.”

The band’s favorite yacht rock group is one possibly lesser-known to listeners.

“By far our favorite is one of those bands that doesn’t quite jump off the page by just the name, but when you hear the songs, you know them,” Anderson said. “That’s the band Ambrosia.”

The Los Angeles-based band had hits like “How Much I Feel,” “Biggest Part of Me” and “You’re the Only Woman.”

“They were great at pushing the boundaries of R&B and jazz into a more mainstream deal, like a lot of these artists do — great melodies and great harmonies that just fit us.”

Anderson notes that yacht rock has burgeoned in popularity in recent years, with Sirius radio and music streaming services dedicating stations to it.

“We were always fans of this music anyway, so the fact that it was now more commercially viable was exciting for us,” he said.

Clothing and attitudes

The band has been playing the soothing sounds of the ‘70s for about five years.

The core members are coming up on 20 years together in September, the majority of that time in the alternative pop band, Fooling April.

“It’s like April Fools, but Fooling April,” Anderson said. “We were an original band going back into our 20s. We had some moderate success and toured the U.S. for a while, but then life settles down as you get into your 40s and 50s. We had kids and families, so it led us to this music.”

The six members of Boat House Row all perform under stage names. Anderson’s is Kenny Trout.

“There’s kind of a formula to the names, whether it’s your pet’s name and the street you grew up on or something along those lines,” he said. “It’s just something that’s fun. Kenneth is my middle name and Trout is the street I grew up on.

“We bring in the clothing and the attitudes (of the era) and things like that. It’s kind of inherent in the way the founders created the genre and the tone they had when they did it,” Anderson said. “The music itself is taken very seriously, even though we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Boat House Row has played from Boston to southern Virginia and as far west as Ohio. This will be their first show at The Lamp, although they’ve been nearby in Pittsburgh at the Hard Rock Cafe and Club Cafe.

“When the pandemic hit, we were really just a year or two into this, so we took that opportunity to go online and stream, not just for the band’s sake but for our own sanity,” Anderson said. “For the band and the connection to the fan base, it was tremendous. We really built an audience out of those streams, and that really translates now into people coming out to the shows.”

They’ve also been invited to play cruises with some of the artists they cover.

“It absolutely seems like the natural progression,” Anderson said. “It just hasn’t worked out from a scheduling standpoint yet, because it’s such a long commitment.”

Group members are not among the yacht set themselves, he added. The name is “just the perfect link between the genre and our hometown.”

The name derives from Philadelphia’s Boathouse Row, a historic site on the east bank of the Schuylkill River with 15 boathouses housing social and rowing clubs dating back to 1860.

Tickets to the show at The Lamp are $28. To reserve, call 724-367-4000 or visit lamptheatre.org.