Back in 2019, Radio Lark released a great holiday track called “It’s Christmastime.”

For those who’ve never heard it, check out the video on YouTube, which features a who’s who of Mahoning Valley musical talent.

While Radio Lark’s Chris Rutushin has sung “It’s Christmastime” a couple of times with The Vindys (Jackie Popovec is prominently featured on the track), the band that recorded it never has played it live.

That will change Saturday when Radio Lark & Friends performs Saturday at Westside Bowl, which will be the band’s first local show since the pandemic. And purely by coincidence, the show falls on the sixth anniversary of the song’s video release.

Radio Lark — Rutushin, vocals, acoustic guitar, melodica and percussion; Scott Burns, bass, cello and vocals; Rick Deak, guitar and vocals; Nathanael Welch, guitar and keyboard; and Roger Lewis, drums and percussion — didn’t plan such a long break. Rutushin said the pandemic and working virtually sapped his time and interest in being creative musically. Deak was increasingly busy with The Vindys, and Welch moved away for a while. The band played its Divergent Sounds concert with members of the Canton Symphony in 2022 (postponed two years by the pandemic), but other dates got canceled.

“That’s a very long, roundabout way of saying we finally wanted to get doing it again, and it took us a long time getting there, just because a whole plethora of adult things and things out of our control,” Rutushin said.

“It’s Christmastime” isn’t the only song Radio Lark has released but never played live, and earlier this week the band still was in the process of whittling down the setlist to a manageable length and to accommodate the “& Friends” that are a part of the billing.

For those who missed the Canton Symphony show in 2022, Radio Lark will be joined by The Silver Lark Quartet, a string quartet using the same string arrangements Kevin Martinez created for the Canton show.

“I remember the first time we did a rehearsal with the strings in Canton,” Rutushin said. “Scott and I, we just stopped. We forgot what we were doing. We’re like, ‘Wow, that’s so amazing. I can’t believe that’s our music.'”

Burns will move from bass to cello to form the quartet (Wanda Sobieska, viola; Krista Solars, first violin; and Josie Sollitto, second violin) and Gregg Horvat will take Burns’ place on bass for those songs.

Other guests include Popovec, Timber Gilliland (8 Balls), Demos Papadimas, Mike Rutushin (Larry Elefante) and saxophone player Jim Metzendorf.

The rehearsals have reminded Rutushin how much pleasure he gets from making music.

“I feel like there is a lot of joy in performing, the camaraderie and just being able to hang out,” he said. “Doing something creative right now is like a beautiful act of rebellion.”

That’s one of the reasons Rutushin expects Radio Lark to be more active in 2026. The band released the song “Ghosts of Tomorrow” earlier this year via YouTube (Rutushin plans to set up a Bandcamp page and yank all of the band’s music from Spotify), and the band has done preliminary work on a couple of additional new songs.

“We’re definitely getting back into writing and recording,” Rutushin said. ” I don’t know what the future is going to look like with shows. I don’t want to burn ourselves out on the brewery circuit. I want to be more mindful about which shows we choose. I definitely want to keep our chops up. So if there is an opportunity for something that comes our way, we’ll do it.

“It’s easy to get caught up in playing locally so much, and I think there’s just a fatigue or burnout with that. How are people going to be excited if you’re playing all the time? I don’t know what the balance is looking like, but I want to be more mindful and more strategic when we play, when we perform.”

Radio Lark & Friends with The Silver Lark Quartet starts at 8 p.m. at Westside Bowl, 2617 Mahoning Ave., Youngstown. Tickets are $15 in advance through Eventbrite or $20 at the door.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.