Our friend Richie Ares, who many of you out on the scene know and love as theLionhearted, invited us to take part in Thursday night’s debut show at The Parlor, a new house show venue in Bethlehem.

We’re glad we did — and we’ll definitely be heading there again!

We joined a packed… um, parlor at The Parlor to enjoy performances from five — count ’em, five — artists. For the price of a canned good and a small cash donation, we all got to enjoy the multi-instrumental talents of sister duo Cass & Cayt; the raw punk passion of jaybaby; the alt-rock stylings and beautiful, clean guitar tones of Warwick, NY’s Furnace Creek; the wonderfully erratic, thoughtful spoken word poetry of Michigan native Chris Bernstorf; and the tremendous voice and emotion of singer-songwriter Brandon Bors.

These five emotionally-stirring performances carried — intentionally or not — an overarching theme: community. Artists and music lovers from varying parts of the community were brought under one roof on Thursday night, and this is representative of what is happening in pockets all over the Lehigh Valley. This is the spirit that spurs collaboration, and we were more than happy to watch it right before our eyes.

Speaking of eyes, put yours on a few photos that we snagged below.