Full Cord @ The Mousetrap - Saturday, October 10th

Full Cord - Grand Haven, MI

https://fullcord.net

A good bluegrass band can light up a room with speed and precision. A great one makes it feel like you’ve been invited into something an inside joke, a shared history, a community. Full Cord has that rare combination of jaw dropping musicianship and easy, welcoming chemistry, and it’s been the engine behind their steady rise from West Michigan favorite to national touring standout.

Full Cord formed in 2008 in Grand Haven, Michigan, and their name comes from a perfectly on-brand moment: at one of their early gigs, Eric (guitar & also a sawyer) noticed their instruments stacked in a corner and said it looked like a “full cord of wood.” The phrase stuck and so did the band’s reputation for bringing heat, whether it’s a listening room set, a packed theater, or a festival main stage.

Their breakout year came in 2022. First, Full Cord won the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Contest, a stage tested proving ground with a track record of identifying tomorrow’s headliners. Then, the International Bluegrass Music Association named them Momentum Band of the Year, recognizing the band’s combination of performance power, songwriting, and forward drive.

The band’s recorded catalog tells the same story: roots forward, creatively restless, and built to be played live. Early releases Choreomania (2019) and Hindsight (2021) established their voice, and their Dark Shadow era has amplified it. Signed by Dark Shadow Recording, Full Cord has been praised by the label for “great songwriting, tight picking, and excellent vocals,” a clean summary of what audiences hear within the first song or two. Their Dark Shadow album Cambium arrived in November 2023, following singles that earned strong radio attention and chart activity.

Musically, Full Cord is bluegrass at the core, with the confidence to let other colors seep in touches of jazz, western swing, and rock ’n’ roll attitude without ever losing the drive and clarity that make bluegrass hit so hard.

At the center are Brian Oberlin (mandolin/vocals), Eric Langejans (guitar/vocals), and Todd Kirchner (bass), musicians with deep experience and a shared sense of timing that makes their grooves feel inevitable. Full Cord often expands into a powerful five-piece onstage with elite banjo and fiddle firepower; recent performances and tours have featured award winning banjoist Max Allard and Chase Potter on fiddle, and the band’s broader lineup history includes notable collaborators in the banjo and fiddle chairs.

The result is a show that’s high energy, harmony rich, and built around songs that stick whether you came for traditional bluegrass, progressive edges, or simply the thrill of a band that knows exactly how to lift a room.

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