It may rock, but Michigan fave Kid Rock’s “In Detroit” theme for the 2012 season doesn’t even mention the Detroit Lions. What about kicking off the season with reworked classics[…]
Live jazz downtown is still kicking: HopCat calls it quits after more than a year, but SpeakEZ to feature Randy Marsh-led jazz beginning next month. Don’t close the book[…]
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Grand Rapids’ Celebration on the Grand, Wheatland Music Fest, Rock for Crash’s and first Harmonica Summit top this week’s must-see list. The heat is on. Summer’s still burning the[…]
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Check out video highlights of Spins on Music’s picks for best concerts of the summer, with links to mini-reviews and a preview of fall’s must-see shows. Ah yes, September means[…]
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Ralston Bowles, Sweet J Band, ‘mystery guest’ Brian Vander Ark, Lux Land, Peter Mulvey create perfect musical ending to Tuesday Evening Music Club (video) GRAND RAPIDS TOWNSHIP — An[…]
New West Michigan releases by The Hawktones, The Concussions, Bronk Bros., Roosevelt Diggs, Chain of Lakes, Roger MacNaughton, Eric Kehoe and more. Officially, three weeks of summer remain. Plenty of[…]
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West Michigan concert hoopla continues in earnest as Labor Day approaches with Grand Rapids’ Soul of the City, Wynton Marsalis, Ralston and more. Ralston & Friends, Peter Mulvey: Tuesday Evening[…]
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The first Rockford Barnstormer showcased bands Potato Moon, Hannah Rose, Nicholas James & The Bandwagon and many more, family fun and a good cause: aiding area refugees. It may[…]
Country star Miranda Lambert draws a huge and enthusiastic opening-night crowd for downtown Grand Rapids’ Rock the Rapids festival. On Monday, the “Fastest Girl in Town” helped make Rock[…]
Veteran Grand Rapids rock band Mid-Life Crisis takes over One Trick Pony on Sunday to conduct a music video shoot for original song being entered in ArtPrize. Sitting through a[…]
Bonnie Raitt delivers a near-perfect bluesy performance on a near-perfect night at Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids. The instant Bonnie Raitt takes the stage pretty much anywhere, something magical[…]
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals deliver one of Meijer Gardens’ best concerts of the season on Thursday after rain passes through. (Photos, video) In the end, Grace Potter &[…]
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Deadstring Brothers’ Kurt Marschke tells Spins on Music about shelving solo act and going full-bore with a full band again. The group hits Grand Rapids Thursday. The Deadstring Brothers,[…]
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A bracing week of West Michigan concerts: Grand Rapids’ City Lights Music Festival, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Bonnie Raitt, GRandJazzFest and Hoxeyville top the Spins on Music list. Grace[…]
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Expanded Cowpie fest on Shagbark Farm south of Grand Rapids survived rainy opening night; thrives Saturday with fine mix of Michigan bands. Video, photos From Mudpie to Cowpie … just[…]
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Summer roundup of West Michigan CD releases, Part II: Vertical Bridge, Potato Moon, Delilah DeWylde, Detour, Dave Hardin, Suitcase Just like today’s rain, the deluge of new regional music continues.[…]
Michigan guitar prodigy Joe “LittleEdge” Heemstra, 13, shows off his instrumental prowess yet again in YouTube video, playing classic Pink Floyd solo LittleEdge has BigTime talent. Just take a look[…]
Summer roundup of West Michigan CD releases: REVUE music sampler, Karisa Wilson, Igby Iris, The Outer Vibe, Lucas Wilson, The Go Rounds, Lindsay Lou. As Peter Gabriel once sang (in[…]
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Seattle indie-folk/rock band The Head and The Heart revved up an exuberant, young crowd on Thursday. (Review, photos, video) For 19-year-old John Vouaux of Bay City, driving clear across the[…]
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Rock the Rapids in late August will bring six days of concerts and some unusual street entertainment to downtown Grand Rapids. Alice Cooper, one of Rock the Rapids’ 2011 headliners,[…]
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West Michigan’s concert guide for July 30-Aug.5 includes the Coast Guard Festival. Elsewhere in the state, there’s Coldplay, Sugarland, Chicago, Matt Giraud. David Thom Band 9:30 p.m. Monday Free The[…]
Lyle Lovett gives subdued performance in Grand Rapids with smaller Acoustic Group; remains the ever-gracious Texan despite unexpected 27-minute delay. Outdoor amphitheater as listening room. Make that, GIGANTIC listening room.[…]
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Late July’s live music scene is firing on all cylinders as Spins on Music’s West Michigan concert guide shows. And the Detroit Tigers are now fired up, too. Edye Evans[…]
Annabelle Road, The Wallace Collective 7 p.m. Tuesday Free, with regular admission Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids Township What say we take a different tack this week.[…]
If Fiona Apple is the queen of the avant garde stage shtick then Andrew Bird is certainly the prince of instrumental invention. Less than a week after Apple brought her[…]
It’s “you make a better door than a window” vs. “get up and party to show the band you care.” Right about this time every year, in the midst of[…]
For once, a familiar classic rock act stood out from the pack. On a week when Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is hosting daring and edgy younger acts Fiona[…]
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Creedence Clearwater Revisited 7 p.m. Wednesday $51 ($49 for Meijer Gardens members) Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids Township Get ticket information here. In the late ’60s and[…]
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GRAM on the Green will turn into GRAM in the AC tonight after all. With the temperature soaring to record-breaking triple-digit levels, Grand Rapids Art Museum officials this afternoon (July[…]
It was a Fourth of July to remember. On the hottest day of the year thus far, with the temperature reaching a searing 99 degrees, thousands flooded the banks of[…]
For four days or so, Electric Forest was an escape from the real world. More than 25,000 jam-band and electronic music fans – the more outrageously colorful and silly the[…]
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Huey Lewis & The News, Katie Todd 7 p.m. Monday $75 ($73 Meijer Gardens members) Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park It’s so hot, chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs. Sorry,[…]
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The sun was searingly hot and the crowd was small when The Crane Wives kicked off their set Sunday afternoon on the Tripolee Stage at Electric Forest, but by the[…]
The Ottawa Tavern’s tenure as a jazz club is ending … suddenly. Just six months after making the much-celebrated conversion of the downtown watering hole into a place where live[…]
Everything is different in the dark. Way different. In daylight, Electric Forest sweats with a sun-splashed milieu that sort of celebrates Michigan’s great outdoors – concertgoers gyrating and hula-hoopers hooping[…]
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Gary Clark Jr. made it all worthwhile. Cranking out the raw blues-rock of “Bright Lights” in the brilliant sunshine at Double JJ Resort in Rothbury with undulating, brightly bedecked Electric[…]
The temperature was in the 90s at showtime, but nothing was hotter than Warren Haynes’ guitar work as Gov’t Mule made its Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park debut on[…]
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It doesn’t have the big-name headliners of Rothbury past – Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Snoop Dogg – but this weekend’s Electric Forest at Double JJ Resort some 24 miles[…]
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Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials WLAV Budweiser Blues on the Mall Series 6:30 p.m. Wednesday Free Rosa Parks Circle, downtown Grand Rapids June’s final week builds nicely to quite[…]
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Gov’t Mule 6:30 p.m. Thursday $40 Frederik Meijer Gardens, Grand Rapids Township Gov’t Mule may have started as an Allman Brothers’ side project in the mid-1990s by guitarist Warren Haynes[…]
It was a celebration worthy of John’s Day. No, I didn’t see any guys strolling around with bushy oak-leaf crowns, but I saw plenty of unusual headgear at Saturday’s Founders[…]
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As complicated as it may have been to renovate an old, long-dormant tavern and convert it into a keen new music venue, Ted Smith concedes that adjusting and reconstructing attitudes[…]
It’s nowhere near his biggest hit, but when Al Green sings “Tired of Being Alone,” he fuses all of the elements that have made him a Grammy-winning superstar of soul:[…]
Al Green 7 p.m. Monday The concert is sold out. Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids Township I fondly recall many things about soul singer Al Green’s much-ballyhooed[…]
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Country superstars Miranda Lambert and Toby Keith will play the six-day Rock the Rapids music festival in downtown Grand Rapids in late August. Lambert, touring behind her latest album, “Four[…]
Vincent Hayes Project Huntington Rogue River Blues Series 7 p.m. Tuesday Free Garden Club Park, Rockford I mentioned the Carnival of Madness tour in a recent post. Well, it’s festival[…]
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The “leaks” have begun. As is Rock the Rapids’ habit, the first two of six dates of the August downtown Grand Rapids music festival were announced today: Shinedown, Papa Roach,[…]
It was a day to celebrate summer … about two weeks early. With the mercury in the upper 80s and the sun broiling West Michigan, it was also a day[…]
It makes perfect sense. That Pink Floyd visionary Roger Waters at one time studied to be an architect before pursuing his music career really paid off with the crowning achievement[…]
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Roger Waters’ “The Wall” 8 p.m. Wednesday $66.50-$214.35 Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids Let’s hope the sun keeps smiling as it did on Festival Sunday, because outdoor summer music hoopla[…]
