By Nicholas David and Sydney Williams

An orange spotlight beams on the theater screen. Instruments line the narrow stage, framed by a delicate arrangement of flowers. Groups of friends enter the theater and fill the well-worn velvet seats. The City feels impossibly small.

In the era of expensive, sold-out stadium tours and digital streams, small intimate shows scattered in the Richmond District offer music lovers something rare – a close and unfiltered connection between the artist and the audience.

For local musician Joey Goodman, half the battle is won.

“I mean, a bunch of money would be nice,” Goodman said, “but feeling a part of a community where you can prioritize stuff that you like and meeting people who are like-minded, I think that’s already a dream come true in itself.”

Goodman fronts Inner Richmond-based indie rock band Starfish Prime. He organized a bill at the 4 Star Theater on Wednesday, March 5, bringing in two other local acts – Things Lucky and Jakob Akira – friends through various connections in the local music scene.

“I went to college with Jakob (Akira Alesandro, stage name Jakob Akira). And then Michael (Finley of Things Lucky) was a regular here, and he met Nathan,” Goodman said, taking a sip from an iced latte at Hi-NRG, a Clement Street pop-up cafe co-owned by bandmate Nathan Kruse.

After an unplanned run-in with bandmate Ben Stolz, the two sat together for an impromptu group interview following their 4 Star gig. For Stolz, connections and encounters like these are what it’s all about.

“We may not have much time to practice before this next Starfish show. Maybe we get one practice in,” Stolz said. “In the meantime, Joey and Nathan are at home together fiddling around while Alex (Wolfert) and I are practicing together in a different band. We’re still having that chemistry. And when we come together again, it’s not like we just sat around for a month and a half and then came back. We were all still hanging out. As silly as it sounds, all of the bands feel like one big thing, which is kind of cool.”

Stolz plays drums in Starfish Prime and plays in various capacities in several other local acts.

“I think the biggest thing for me, playing in multiple different bands, or projects, or whatever you want to call them, in this circle, is that they are all within this circle,” he said. “And I think that’s what allows it to work harmoniously.”

Bassist Alex Wolfert, who plays in other bands and overlaps with Stolz on many projects, echoed that sentiment.

“It’s almost as if the community is like its own label,” Wolfert said. “Everyone’s doing it together.”

Wolfert, Stolz and Goodman all expressed admiration for rock bands past, taking their cues from music in the pre-internet era.

“I have this nostalgia for something that I wasn’t even around for,” said Stolz. “If we build our base via our friends and our community rather than, like, posting on TikTok, you don’t get forgotten because you run into your friends on the street, and they’re like, ‘Oh I saw your show last week, it was awesome.’”

Goodman agreed. “One person stopping you on the street is worth 10,000 streams,” he said. Literally nothing feels real except for your friend just saying, ‘We saw your band.’”

Wolfert sees the 4 Star as one among a few venues in the City safeguarding the spirit of live music.

“The venue itself just feels like a refreshing, inviting space that conjures the energy of what I imagine SF used to be like back in the musical breakthrough periods of the ’60s and ’70s,” he said. “Everyone is there not to make money off of one another but to put on a good show.”

Intimate shows are drawing neighbors and music lovers together in community. Audience members that attend local shows often get to know not only the other frequent attendees, but the band members themselves.

“I think it’s something really special and unique happening in the Richmond right now,” said Avery Reed, Goodman’s girlfriend. “I feel like there’s a burgeoning art scene happening within the music community that includes photography, music, writing, that we lost post-COVID for a little bit, but it’s coming back full force and it’s a really great way to meet friends and create new bands. It spans across the entire city, and it’s cool that you can go out and walk around the farmer’s market and be like, hey, I saw you at the show. Or like, hey, you’re in my friend’s band.”

Sydney Peterson, 4 Star’s venue manager, put Goodman’s bill on the schedule and worked the March 5 show. They said they feel connected to the community in their work.

“Getting to see that sort of network map of people come together in a space is always really interesting to me and just reminds me how interconnected we are all in the City through art,” Peterson said.

On the 4 Star, Stolz said, “Whenever we play there, I feel like we have home court advantage.”

Bassist for Things Lucky, Margot Sease, said, “I feel like (4 Star) encapsulates the romantic San Francisco all in one building. To be a part of it for a night was really cool.”

Jakob Akira opened the March 5 bill with a solo acoustic set. Laughing, he introduced his first song.

“I was looking at the crowd, and all my friends supporting me, and I felt like, ‘Oh man, I can really do this. I have so much support,’” he said. Akira grew up in the South Bay and recently moved back to the Bay Area after working as a professional songwriter in New York City.

Friends of Akira traveled from San Jose to see him perform his set at the 4 Star. They were there to support Akira, but also other local bands around the neighborhood.

“I think showing up to shows builds the community,” said Tracy Dawn, a friend of Akira. “I feel like these kinds of settings are so much different than bigger things. It’s so intimate, which is amazing and so fun. And it’s so cool to see how people interact and how they connect with everybody else because of how intimate it is.”

Michael Finley’s “Baroque-Lo-fi-Pop” project Things Lucky followed Starfish Prime. Finley moved to San Francisco from Boise, Idaho, and found community in the City through music, as well as at the Inner Richmond’s own Scenic Routes bike shop.

“I feel really committed to trying to figure out how to stay (in the City),” he said. “I’ve been super lucky to get involved with a couple of different community spaces that really took me in and made me feel like a regular somewhere, specifically the bike shop. And that’s been a really good launching off point to feel confident enough to do music stuff.”

Finley also praised the 4 Star as an institution.

“It’s cool to think that something like the 4 Star could be a real incubator for musicians to grow as musicians. And rather than just be a venue that makes money off of touring acts and like ticket sales, it’s like, ‘How can we be a resource to people who have more desires out of their creative process,’” he said.

“They are doing something that I think is extremely valuable, to be so transparent and open to bring in musicians who do not have a following, or pull, or anything that’s, on paper, going to pencil out for a venue. They’re just like, ‘There’s some cool people that are doing music. Let’s get them in the room, no questions asked, to play a show.’ That’s really valuable.”

Finley was joined on stage by Sease on bass, Brooke Ley on synth and flute, and Ava Lynch on drums.

“You have this moment where you’re like, oh, OK, this is what the City needs. This is what we’re looking for,” said Sease.

Lynch grew up in San Francisco, and has worked at various venues and theaters, including the 4 Star.

“When you’re up there performing to a space that brings so much cultural joy to the community, it definitely feels like you are a part of something bigger than just the music,” said Lynch.

Finley also enlisted friend and neighbor Elise Manlove to arrange flowers for the show. Manlove runs Her Urban Herbs, a flower shop in the Lower Haight.

“I love seeing the shadows of flowers in the shop here, and then having them projected on the stage, I was just like, this looks really, really cool,” Manlove said. Beyond aesthetics, Manlove also sees flowers as another layer of community-building, recalling giving flowers away after shows and encountering familiar faces.

“It’s interesting to see who’s drawn into the flowers. It ranges from all different ages, genders,” Manlove said. “It’s nice meeting people that way, where I don’t see them immediately, but it comes back around.”

Manlove’s shop has recently become a venue for Sease, Finley and Goodman. Over the past month, Sease wrote material and organized the members for a new project, born out of connections with booking venues like the 4 Star.

“Here are people doing stuff that I like and admire. I want to do that. We can all just be making that happen. I think that exists, and I think it takes effort to be a part of it,” Finley said. “I think the path will build itself in front of you if you just ask people who are down to do stuff.”

The new trio, Cowboy Beauty Queen, played a show at Manlove’s Her Urban Herbs on March 19.

As new collaborations and performances emerge, the community is maintaining a healthy amount of uncertainty.

“I don’t ever want to know exactly what direction we’re gonna go in, because the thing that’s so cool about it is being able to say, ‘Hey, we’re here holding space and if this resonates with you, show up and let us figure out how to make it happen,’” 4 Star’s Peterson said.

Many see this scene as a fertile ground for larger opportunities in the future.

“I just feel like there’s enough talent and now enough resources where there’s going to be a lot of really, really good acts that have the ability to break through and become bigger and known outside of the Bay Area,” Akira said. “I kind of feel like that’s a possibility for me, and especially my friends.”

Wolfert said, “I feel like there’s something brewing right now. I think this little scene is about to really explode over here.”

The 4 Star Theater is located at 2200 Clement St. Visit Instagram to learn more about Jakob Akira’s work @Jakobakira, Starfish Prime @starfishprime999 and Michael Finley/Things Lucky @themichaelfinley.