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 &[…]
Features · Upcoming shows · Videos
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,[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
Concert reviews · Features · Videos
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[…]
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[…]
Commentary · Concert reviews · Videos
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[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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.[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
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[…]
Features · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
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[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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,[…]
Breaking music news · Concert reviews · Videos
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[…]
Breaking music news · Concert reviews · Videos
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[…]
Commentary · Features · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
Features · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
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[…]
Breaking music news · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
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[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
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.[…]
Commentary · Features · Videos
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.[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
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[…]
Breaking music news · Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
This summer’s garden party just got a whole lot more interesting. Soul singer and hometown hero Al Green, blues legend Bonnie Raitt (with Mavis Staples), reggae icon Jimmy Cliff, jam[…]
Breaking music news · Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
Today’s anti-summer weather might not scream shorts and hula hoops, but live music’s favorite time of year is on the doorstep as evidenced by this week’s Grand Rapids festival announcements.[…]
Concert announcements · Upcoming shows · Videos
The Fuzzrites, The Boss Mustangs 9:30 p.m. Wednesday $5 Charlie’s Bar & Grille, Grand Rapids This week’s BIG radar-jamming shows will divide fans into two distinct rock camps and ne’er[…]
From pop phenoms to jazz veterans to bluegrass jammers, it’s time for Part II of my quarterly Local Spins roundup of new album releases by local and regional artists. (If[…]
Miniature Tigers 7 p.m. Thursday (doors open at 6:30 p.m.) $10 advance, $12 day of show The Intersection, Grand Rapids Inventive Brooklyn indie-pop band Miniature Tigers brings its Modern Art[…]
For several decades, Grand Haven’s Bill Chrysler has worked with the best of ‘em, quite literally: John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Bob Seger, Paul McCartney, Maroon 5, Tom Petty, Roxy Music[…]
Breaking music news · Concert reviews · Videos
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page surely would have approved. And had they been alive to see it, I’m betting iconic bluesmen Junior Kimbrough and Son House would have left smiling,[…]
