The Lower Lights are coming. If you’re brand new to the Beehive State, you’re forgiven for not knowing about the huge local band conglomerate that’s steadily grown into a holiday tradition around these parts. You have no excuse if you’ve been here a while. The Lower Lights have been singing and dancing and carol rearranging for the masses for about 15 years now. It’s reached a point where they can’t do it all in one night (with three shows available, you may choose your own adventure). They will sling the holiday magic Dec. 11, 13 and 14, 2024 at Kingsbury Hall.
We caught up with Sarah Sample at her home in Wyoming this week, where she lives in a small cowboy town near the Bighorn Mountains, a space with a lot of wild edges to it. “Drive 10 miles in any direction and you’re still on a dirt road,” she says. While she loves where she’s planted roots with her family, coming back to Salt Lake for this string of shows is never a burden.
It’s a chance for her to reconnect with her musician family and those related by blood, as her mom and sisters still live in the area.
“Whether it’s 50 or 200 people, I think a smaller crowd size is something most of us were used to,” she says. “To have the demand of a Christmas concert grow to the point where we’re playing multiple nights to 2000+ people at Kingsbury Hall is the coolest. It’s a joy I do not take for granted.”
Doing these shows for as long as she has with some friends she’s known for over 20 years has created a palpable sense of comfort. There’s no jockeying, no hogging the spotlight. In the early years, it was a process of trying to find where you fit in the band of 18-20 musicians on any given night. But everyone has settled into their spaces, and beautifully so.
“I’ve learned my role,” she says. “I love to dance and be in my body. That’s bringing something to the show only I can bring, because I will be the crazy mom who is going to dance, whether my teenager wants me to or not.”
Sometimes it even spawns impulsive copycats, as she once spotted a father and his young daughter in the back of the theater, dancing along to the band’s three-part vocal harmony version of “White Christmas.” That’s a reaction she lives for and hopes to see more of.
But the performances do come with a lot of layers. They are more than singing and dancing.
“One part of the Lower Lights I really love is the consistency of relationships through change,” she says, reflecting.
“You know, we all have aged and changed, and our lives and religious standings are different. We’ve had children, we’ve been married, we’ve been divorced, and still, it’s a collective of musicians who care about one another, who show up and basically say, ‘Come as you are. We would love to have you as part of this group.’ And what I hope is that people in the audience feel that same invitation, to come as they are. Whether they’re heartbroken or really excited for the season, we will take them as they come and hope they feel something when they’re at our shows, that they’re welcome to be there regardless of what their lives look like.”
“Hopefully that makes people more comfortable. Our concerts are not perfect. It’s not like we never miss a note … it just doesn’t matter if we do. You’ll still have a great show.”
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- Who: The Lower Lights
- Where: Kingsbury Hall
- When: December 11, 13-14, 2024
- Tickets and Info: The Lower Lights
Read more: Christmas Music Revival: The Lower Lights
