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[…]
Quirky doesn’t begin to describe the opening night of Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park’s 10th summer concert series. How about abnormally wet and extra-terrestrially weird? Not only was Friday[…]
Grand Rapids’ Festival of the Arts will raise the curtain on summer entertainment this weekend with dozens of bands, dance groups and solo artists playing several stages over three days.[…]
2012 Festival of the Arts Noon Friday-7 p.m. Sunday Free Throughout downtown Grand Rapids I literally ran out of gas on my way back into town on Monday, but there’s[…]
Amid all of the new music venues and nightlife concert opportunities that Grand Rapids has spawned in recent years, there’s now some sobering news to report: Jukes Bar on Leonard[…]
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Billed as the “youngest blues band in America,” the Homemade Jamz Blues Band will launch the 2012 edition of the LAV Budweiser Blues on the Mall series on June 13.[…]
Shannon Stephens 7 p.m. Friday Free Schuler Books & Music, Grand Rapids (28th Street) Seattle singer-songwriter Shannon Stephens plays a bluesy folk-rock with her “Fabulous Friends” that’s earned attention from[…]
For the second year, Grand Rapids’ ArtPrize will accept original songs as entries as official artworks in the international competition. And this year, St. Cecilia Music Center is offering $10,000[…]
Singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards isn’t afraid to speak his mind on stage or in his songs. Starting with his Vietnam War-era hit, “Sunshine,” in the early 1970s, the singer has long[…]
Jonathan Edwards 7 p.m. May 15 and 16 $32-$180 Seven Steps Up, Spring Lake For tickets, click here or call 616-678-3618 Tune into News Talk 1340 AM at 10 a.m.[…]
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Boasting 17 of Michigan’s most dynamic bands and performers, 2012’s edition of the Tuesday Evening Music Club series at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is sure to pack the[…]
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Bonnie Raitt’s done it again. For the second straight time, the blues guitarist-singer’s scheduled concert at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park has sold out on the first day of[…]
Caroline Herring 7:30 p.m. Monday Free, donations to KidsFirst One Trick Pony, Grand Rapids Grand Rapids is always looking for an excuse to party. This week, it doesn’t need one.[…]
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How about a Rock ‘n’ Roll Draft? With the over-hyped, prime-time-powered NFL Draft under way tonight, I couldn’t help but wonder what the selection process might look like if rock[…]
If the turnout Saturday at just two of West Michigan’s most popular independent record shops is any indication, Record Store Day had things spinning toward its biggest success story yet.[…]
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Jim Avett 7:30 p.m. Monday Free admission, $10 donation suggested for In The Image SHOES program One Trick Pony, Grand Rapids If you thought last week was nuts, take a[…]
Singer and Grand Rapids native Anthony Kiedis won’t be inside his customized ’58 Airstream trailer when he rolls into Cleveland with his Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmates for Saturday’s Rock[…]
