Line-up

Headliner
Guster Last time in Portland: 8 months ago

Venue

Merrill Auditorium, Portland City Hall

20 Myrtle St., 04101, Portland, ME, US

tickets.porttix.com/public/

Capacity: 1,900

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Additional details

Doors open: 20:00

On The Ocean 2026.

w/ the Portland Symphony Orchestra

Concert in your area for Indie & Alt and Rock.

Find out more about Rock.

Guster biography

Guster is an Americanalternative rock band from Boston, Massachusetts. The band consists of Ryan Miller, Adam Gardner, Brian Roseworcel and Luke Reynolds.

Guster was formed in 1991 when the members met each other at a freshman orientation at Tufts University in Boston. A year after their formation they booked their first gig as Gus, later independently releasing their first album entitled “Parachute.” Shortly after, they renamed the band to Guster due to another artist who already took the name Gus.

In 1996 Guster again independently recorded and released their second album entitled “Goldfly,” which was later re-released when they signed with Sire Records in 1998. A year later they released a third studio album with the title “Lost And Gone Forever” followed by television appearances such as on the Late Show with David Letterman. After the release of their fourth studio album, they also released a live album/DVD from their performances in Portland, Maine.

Led off by the single, “Manifest” Guster released a fith studio album in June 2006. Later that same year the band won the Album of the Year award at the Boston Music Awards. Continuing their string of success they released “Easy Wonderful” in October 2010, and before setting out on tour, it was announced that Joe Pisapia would be touring with k.d Lang and would be replaced by Luke Reynolds. By 2014 they worked on and released an album entitled “Easy Wonderful” which was released on their independent label, Ocho Mule label.

Live reviews

Although Guster started playing underground shows during the early years of the band, they soon found themselves breaking into the musical mainstream playing to huge audiences that were dying to hear them live.
Guster is able to get rich atmospheric sounds live with crisp, pristine acoustic guitars shimmering over their ornate soundscape. The band’s main songwriters, Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner, have excellent dynamics on stage with Adam usually singing the chorus in a deeper vocal range and Ryan singing a harmony in a higher pitch to create a rich sound. Their vocal harmonies are also interesting because Ryan and Adam are often singing different lyrics when they are harmonizing. The band’s drummer, Brian Rosenworcel, also has a unique style of performance often playing with his bare hands and using different drums than a usual drum kit such as bongos. Brian’s drumming style was so unique and entrancing that his fans have labeled him as the “Thundergod”.
The band wants the environment of their performance to be very open and friendly so they do not enforce any restrictions on live taping and allow the audience to freely record their live performances if they want. The band also follows unique traditions during their live performances such as letting the drummer sing obscure cover songs for the encore. During their performance of “Airport Song” the audience has a tradition of throwing ping-pong balls onto the stage after the end of the song. Guster is also known for performing hilarious antics on stage as well as maintaining a close relationship with their audience. Guster is well loved by their fan base and have impressed numerous of respectable musicians that they have toured with such as Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds, and Pete Yorn. You never know what to expect at a Guster performance. You could hear a cover of the Cheers theme song or you might see the band dancing with KFC buckets on their heads (all things which the band has done), but you can definitely expect to be in awe of their immense talents and their catchy music.

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