Shortly after Yacht Rocket formed in the summer of 2022, the band booked its first gig — a yacht rock cruise aboard the Gateway Clipper. Tickets sold out in 10 minutes.
The 10-piece, Pittsburgh-based band devoted to yacht rock — the late-1970s and early-1980s soft rock and pop genre that members describe as “the exhilaration of escape and everything smooth” — had barely practiced a full yacht rock set together, but they knew immediately they’d struck on something. Their first show featured genre standards with hits from Steely Dan, Toto, The Doobie Brothers, Christopher Cross and Hall & Oates, and a blended rendition of Carol Bayer Sager’s and Michael Jackson’s “It’s the Falling in Love” (an experiment the band might return to).
“It was incredible,” said guitarist and vocalist Brandon Lehman.
Yacht Rocket isn’t the only way Pittsburghers have embraced the smooth sounds of yacht rock. The genre’s national resurgence has been brewing for years through streaming playlists, tribute acts and a viral 2024 HBO documentary that helped put it back on the map. Once considered superficial because of its smooth, ultra-polished sound and “tunefulness,” as Yacht Rocket’s Jacob Pleakis described it, the genre has been reclaimed in recent years by fans old and new. (The phrase “yacht rock” wasn’t even used in the 1970s, but coined in 2005 by the creators of a satirical web series of the same name.)
At the Gateway Clipper show, Yacht Rocket fans danced wearing tropical shirts, sunglasses, Panama hats and even the classic captain’s hat that’s become associated with yacht rock.
For Pleakis, a keyboardist and vocalist, starting the band with a riverboat cruise was also on the nose.
“It’s a fun way to tie in the music — to be literally on the water,” he said.
The next year, cruise tickets sold out even faster.
Locally, yacht rock is having an especially busy summer with events ranging from the Clipper’s annual yacht rock cruise and a new weekly brunch series to tribute shows and concerts featuring local and national artists.
Christopher Cross — who played to a roaring crowd alongside Toto and Men at Work at the Pavilion at Star Lake a year ago — returns to Pittsburgh on June 27 at the Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall. On Aug. 8, Yacht Rock Revue, a festival headliner and among the genre’s biggest touring acts, returns to Stage AE.
Yacht Rocket has five upcoming shows, including one of their largest-ever — a Father’s Day “Dad Rock” concert at Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater on June 21, part of the Allegheny County Summer Concert Series.
“Is that an all Steely Dan program?” Pleakis joked with Lehman.
Other Pittsburgh musicians have joined in the yacht rock renewal. AstroSonic, a five-piece dance band that blends yacht rock with funk, has been performing for three years. Lead singer Terry James Brennan estimates they’re one of about five local yacht rock bands working and are still in demand.
“I could see yacht rock was having this moment. People were interested, and (the band) just developed from there,” Brennan said. “It’s been a steady thing. So far, we have had the privilege of only working bigger rooms.”
AstroSonic — whose members perform “bathed in blue LED light just to give that groove look,” Brennan said — has also played riverside at Paradise Beach on Neville Island. Their next show is at Seven Springs Mountain Resort on June 27.
Part of yacht rock’s draw locally, Brennan thinks, is its mellow, feel-good aspect, which diverges from the usual Pittsburgh classic rock show.
“People need good things,” he said. “And it’s a soft, groovy sound that is not sharp-edged or political or societal. It’s all just whatever it was — the breeze, having a drink by the ocean.”
While yacht rock has long appealed to baby boomers and Generation Xers who first heard it on the radio, Brennan has seen a multigenerational crowd with millennials eager to dance to the music they grew up hearing from their parents.
Heidi Matthews, music hall director at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall in Carnegie, said after booking Yacht Rocket for a July show, people began coming up to her to share their yacht rock memories.
“A lot of the folks that are here for our various concerts and library programs heard about it, bought tickets right away, and approached me, telling different stories about connection to that music, how excited they are and how they’re going to bring their friends and have a night out,” Matthews said. “Something that comes through is the nostalgia for when they were hearing those songs for the first time. People light up and get really excited.”
Yacht rock’s reach has gone beyond concert venues to breweries and restaurants.
To celebrate its anniversary in June, Inner Groove Brewing in Verona released two yacht rock-themed beers: Nobody’s Poet, a tropical piña colada-inspired sour ale (after Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”) and Lido, a strawberry pretzel salad sour (after Boz Scaggs’ “Lido Shuffle”).
Hoping to draw diners back after a year of Market Square construction, Revel in Downtown Pittsburgh launched a Sunday yacht rock brunch in April.
The “Smooth Grooves & Brunch Moves” series lets diners get their fix over bananas foster French toast and mimosas, but with an added twist. A rotating series of DJs have been spinning yacht house, a subgenre that blends the yacht rock staples with modern house music beats (think Christopher Cross’ “Sailing” remixed with a dance beat).
Pittsburgh’s DJ Midas (whose real name is Angelo Long) has played at about six yacht rock brunches, playing a four-hour set featuring remixed Fleetwood Mac and Michael McDonald songs. Long said he’s noticed increasing interest in yacht rock, particularly after the rise of yacht house artists like the electronic music and DJ duo Party Pupils, credited for pioneering yacht house.
“It definitely feels like it’s popping up more, (and) for such older music to become relevant again is interesting,” Long said. “I especially like yacht house, taking the older stuff and remixing it to make it more palatable to people today.”
Yacht Rocket’s Lehman also points out that, beyond subgenres like yacht house, the sounds have begun reappearing in pop music, providing another bridge for younger generations.
“There’s a lot of throwback in Chappell Roan, Jonas Brothers, Sabrina Carpenter — all the top pop acts,” Lehman said. “There’s just little sprinkles of yacht rock and jazz chord changes we’re starting to hear. So it’s making its way into modern music again.”
A millennial, Long, 40, also said not to underestimate yacht rock’s nostalgia factor, in addition to its danceability.
“It’s popular right now, but, to me, it’s always felt popular,” he said. “You heard it from your parents when you were growing up, so maybe there’s something there.”
Lehman and Pleakis of Yacht Rocket, both in their 30s, said they’ve also come to embrace the genre, once considered uncool, as they’ve aged into it.
“Yacht rock is one of those strange things that started very much as a tongue-in-cheek thing: ‘Oh, we like this music ironically,’” Pleakis said. “Now we’re at the point where people are like, ‘No, I just like it.’”
The musicians point out that, despite its smooth sound, yacht rock remains complex, jazz-infused music requiring enormous technical skill to play.
Both Lehman and Brennan of AstroSonic said, as playful as it might come across, they feel it’s their job to reproduce the music as authentically as possible.
“We take it seriously in that we want to convey and play the songs as well as we can. And it is fun and silly and can be cheesy at times,” Lehman said. “But once we get past the musicality and we really do the songs justice, then we have fun and it’s a whole experience.”
“It’s the music of the summer,” Pleakis said. “What else would you rather listen to?”