The indie power duo The StereoFidelics will appear at the Tryon Movie Theater Sunday, November 7, at 7 p.m., in a benefit concert for the Upstairs Artspace. This will be the first major Tryon show by Chris Padgett and Melissa McGinley, who moved to Tryon two years ago and bought a house near Tryon Elementary.

The concert is a way to give a welcome home to one of the hardest working bands on tour today theyve performed 500 shows on the road in the last three years.

Ninety percent of what they perform is original StereoFidelics material. Ten percent is covers, which rotate quickly through their sets. Everything they do is completely live and nothing is recorded. There are no back up tracks at all.

Padgett and McGinley met as students at Indiana University, internationally renowned for its outstanding music department, where McGinley was majoring in classical violin. Padgett was playing in a band chosen to record a Best of Bloomington compilation CD. During the recording session for that CD, Padgett met McGinley and they began a personal, though not yet musical, relationship. They graduated from Indiana in 2005, moved to Asheville, and were married in 2006.

One of the bands McGinley played in was quite successful and demanded most of her creative energy so that, interestingly, she and Padgett didnt start making music together until after they were married. The StereoFidelics finally gave their first live show in November 2006 and now play between 150 and 200 shows a year throughout the United States.

McGinley grew up in Wheeling, W.V., and started playing violin at the age of four. She was an accomplished classical and bluegrass musician as a child and, from her dad, inherited a positive appreciation of iconic groups like the Beatles, Steely Dan, and other classic rock groups. Her dad, a wood-turner, is an artist in his own right, so the creative gene runs in the family.

Indianapolis was home for Padgett, where he grew up listening to everything popular to include to name just a few Leo Kotke, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Charlie Parker, Charlie Pride, Igor Stravinsky and many others. He majored in public affairs and environmental science at Indiana University, where he also played in local bands and interned with the Indiana State Fish and Wildlife Division.

In addition to giving stage performances night after night, Padgett and McGinley do everything themselves. They serve as their own booking agent, their own manager, their own marketers, their own web designers and their own roadies. They also started their own record company Rubberneck Records, out of Asheville.

McGinley and Padgett consciously chose Tryon for their home because they were looking for a small town to raise a future family. Its safe, quiet, pretty and has nice people, said Padgett. Its also close to Asheville and the markets we like to play in. Charlotte. Tennessee. The Upstate.

Their other job, when theyre home, is remodeling their new house in Tryon. And they say they enjoy hiking around the foothills.

As for the bands goals, Padgett said they hope to be playing for increasingly larger audiences, which would be more like 500-600 people a night. But right now, he said, were having fun. Its humbling to thinking we can eke out a living at this. Its been great, especially in this economy, to be able to give people music, to make their lives a little better than they might be otherwise.