The Roslindale Porchfest has been an institution of the neighborhood for well over a decade now, bringing live music directly to your doorstep throughout the Roslindale neighborhood.

In the past, the concert was put together through sponsorships and business partnerships, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, things shifted and diversified a bit, and now at least a good portion of the fundraising is done through the (un)Porchfest Fundraising concert that took place last Friday in Roslindale Square.

Hundreds of residents came through the Square to see a total of 18 musical groups playing the Roslindale Substation, the Square Root, Distraction Brewing Co., Midnight Morning and the Birch Street Plaza. According to Porchfest Board member Andrew Greathouse, the fundraiser met its goal of $5,000 pretty early on.

“This year and last year, we were full most of the night and we had a lot of people bouncing around,” he said. “We do one big fundraiser per year to help us support the fall Porchfest. The money goes to logistics, the website, marketing for Porchfest, recruiting hosts, recruiting performers and providing stipends for performers who want to play but have financial difficulties.”

Greathouse said he really enjoyed getting to hear everybody at Porchfest and at Friday’s fundraiser.

“That’s the best part of it – hearing all the live music,” he said. “I just popped out to see some music from this guy Sal Weston, who I discovered last year during Porchfest. He signed up to play a porch, and I was making the playlist on Spotify and listened to some of his tracks. I thought he was just incredible, so I got him to play the afterparty at Porchfest and got him back for this at Midnight Morning. He’s just so good. Really, really good.”

Greathouse said working on Porchfest’s Board has been an amazing experience and really opened him up to what it means to be a part of the Roslindale community.

“It’s a great community here, I mean I’ve been doing the door and when I’m telling people coming in what we’re raising money for, there is no hesitation,” he said. “People love supporting the community and love supporting live music… It’s amazing, I live down the street here and it’s a great community and a real cross-section of the community. I’ve gotten to meet people that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Board members Kate Schlegel and Jess Nieuwenhuizen were roaming around the venues and said they were amazed to see the response in Roslindale, and they really like that it brings a wide swath of people together.

“I been seeing people meeting each other, we just met people who just moved to Jamaica Plain from Utah meeting people here, and I just met some neighbors who lived down the street from each other for years but only met tonight,” said Schlegel.

“It’s just an incredible night of community,” said Nieuwenhuizen. “We really, really like to see this happening.”

Resident AJ Crowe said his band, Louder than Milk, plays Porchfest most years and said that he wanted to come out and support the concert in kind.

“This is my third stop and Brasserisk is great, and I just saw Slow Boat Home before that and they were awesome,” he said. “It’s just been really good, and I saw some young bands, and it’s been a good breadth of music here.

Residents Jacob Seibert and Sam Nota said they came out to support their friends’ bands.

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“I came to see my friend’s band Avanza Flamenco and they’re just great,” said Seibert. “I am usually working during the main Porchfest, but I try to take off for the fundraiser.”

“We try to go to Porchfest and (un)Porchfest as often as possible to support the bands and the local businesses,” said Nota. “I’m a local business owner here too, I own NOTANOTA, and it’s a design studio on Belgrade here. It’s stuff like this that’s the reason we moved here. I moved here six years ago and didn’t know anything about Roslindale and just really fell in love with it because of things like this.”

Residents Ken Brooks, Jim Ellis, Dawn Tesorero and Pat Race said they came out because it was Ellis’ birthday and wanted to celebrate with some good music.

“We all live in Roslindale and we all have hosted Porchfest in the past,” said Brooks.

“We really like local music too,” said Tesorero.

“We’ve been to the Substation and Distraction early and now we’re here for the bluesgrass group,” Brooks said.

“And it’s just great to see so many people out,” said Ellis.

“There’s vibrancy in the music for sure,” said Race.

Performers on Friday included Sal Weston, Wendy Lucas, Naomi Soleil, Sam Newcomer, Double Star, The Heather Mumford Project, Slow Boat Home, Hatchback, Avanza Flamenco, Sid & Sonia, Bob Cenci’s Orange Guitar, Eric Royer, Sado-Domestics, Fusk, The April 10th Jazz Quartet, DJ Ticco, Poluck Blues Band and Brassterisk.

For more information, go to https://roslindaleporchfest.org