Concerts in the Park

Description

Concerts in the Park is every Thursday in July (Week of 4th of July excluded) from Thursday, 6/13/24 through Thursday, 8/22/24. Attendees are encouraged to bring a picnic dinner and enjoy the music!

BANDS:

June 13 - Empty Vees

The Empty Vees kick off Concerts in the Park with an 80's dance party! 

June 20 - The Pinkerton Raid

STYLE: DREAMER FOLK/CAMPFIRE POP/RETRO ROCK
The Pinkerton Raid’s Jesse James DeConto hails from New England, with his dad’s guitar and mom’s radio tuned to Soulsville, The Village, Liverpool and Laurel Canyon, now mining foothills-folk in Durham, N.C., for songs AMERICANA-UK calls “anthemic.” Critics hear influences from Iron & Wine to Bowie. “Radiant,” says AMERICAN SONGWRITER. 

The band has opened for Illiterate Light, The Ballroom Thieves and Noah Gundersen. They’ve slotted at Daytrotter and at festivals like Shakori Hills, Albino Skunk, H St. and AVLFest with artists such as Jaime Wyatt, Sunny War, River Whyless and The Bones of JR Jones. 

“A sound for dreamers around a campfire,” says GHETTOBLASTER. “A towering forest of indie rock with a timbre of folk that shadows Langhorne Slim, Cold War Kids and The Killers,” says THE SPILL. “Recommended if you like Wilco and The Band,” says HERE COMES THE FLOOD.

June 27 - Listening Party

Over the last decade, Milwaukee-based band Listening Party has sought to create songs that deeply resonate with their listeners. Their folk and Americana-steeped sound expertly and reverently takes the pulse and traditions of their genre while adding their own charm. Milwaukee-based Shepherd Express even compared the band to The Avett Brothers and The Lumineers. They’ve stayed busy with shows ranging from dive bars to regular main stage performances at Summerfest. Pounding the pavement for over 120 shows a year throughout Wisconsin and the Midwest has led them to a road-tested live performance.

Much like Bob Dylan and Jon Prine and more current contemporaries such as The Avett Brothers and The Lumineers, Milwaukee, WI-based band Listening Party is indebted to the traditions of folk, rock and Americana and taking those styles to new horizons. At the heart of their sound, storytelling and melody reign supreme, with songs seeking to examine stories rooted in the joys and perils of life.

After earning a Music Education Degree, Jacob Wood decided to move from his hometown in Iowa to Milwaukee to focus on live performance. It was there he met Weston Mueller, a Wisconsin-based singer-songwriter. They formed the band in 2013 in an effort to create and perform original music together.

In 2021, the band traveled to Hartland, WI, to record the new songs they had compiled at Axis Studios, a converted 19th century chapel that sits atop a hill, with studio owner Vinny Millevolte. The non-traditional recording space inspired the songs and led to their latest album Been a Long Time Comin,’ released in 2023. It’s their fourth studio album and first in four years.

July 3 - 4th of July Break (Fireworks presented by Festival Foods!)

July 11 - Frank Martin Busch & the Names

Frank Martin Busch grew up on a farm outside the rural community of Cuba City, Wisconsin. He is the youngest of seven children in a musical family. Frank started playing music in gradeschool on saxophone and drums, he even playing a few shows with his fathers Big Band Orchestra.  It wasn't until he left the small town for The University of Wisconsin and commondeered his college roommates Stratocaster, that he truly fell in love with music.  

Teaching himself to play, sing and write songs, Frank's journey has been slow, painful and deliberate.

Upon graduating he founded his first band The Mighty Short Bus, and is a founding member of midwest troubadours WheelHouse.  The two bands have released 8 records and played over 3,000 shows over the past 16 years

The Names is Frank's first foray as a true solo artist.  He has brought back the Stratocaster and is living and dying by his ability to play it,  He marries the storytelling of a country songwriter with the musicality of a bluesman and a sense of humor that rivals your grade school best friends dad. Often telling jokes and citing references you don't get till the next day.  

The music is Americana, which is a polite way of saying it is country music without bedazzled jeans. Drawing its roots from Red Dirt Country rather than Nashville, it features solid rhythms, jangly guitars, honky tonk piano, harmonicas and even some steel guitars.

Frank Martin Busch has won Isthmus Madison's Fave Singer/Songwriter for 2018 and 2019 and is WMMM Project M Songwriter competition season 3 winner. He is the father of 3 and has a dog named Floyd.

July 18 - Sundance

Popular local fav's "Casey and Greg" expand their band to form SunDance, playing all your favorite hits from the 60s and 70's and more! You're guaranteed to have a great time at their show!

July 25 - Mad City Jug Band

We are America’s Most Adequate Jug Band!™

How adequate are we? Really, really adequate. In fact, we sound like the Memphis Jug Band would have sounded if they were white.

We play classic jug band music, blues and pop music from the 1920s and '30s as well as hits made popular during the 1960s jug band revival by musicians like the Grateful Dead, John Sebastian, and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. And then there are the hokum tunes from early 1900s where sly lyrics and euphemistic references earn G-ratings even though the songs tend to be about sex, booze and controlled substances.

Got the Salty Dog Blues? Need some southern eel? How about some jelly roll? We can tell you all about it and right in front of the kids, too.

Jug Band music is loved by people of all ages. The Mad City Jug Band is a hoot and is sure to make you smile, dance and clap your hands. Are you ready to have some fun?

August 1 - Bird Dog Blues Band

Yep...definitely blues.... with attitude.

August 8 - Lost Lakes

Lost Lakes is a collaboration between Corey Mathew Hart and Paul Mitch. The two met during a songwriting competition held by a local radio station. It wasn't until they returned for a duets portion of the follow year's competition that Corey saw Paul play bass and singing harmonies. The first time Corey and Paul played together, they clicked musically and personally. The collaboration has grown over the years, developing into a strong songwriting and production team with a focus on well-crafted tunes and tight vocal harmonies. Lost Lakes' self-titled debut record bears witness to their talents and the fact the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

August 15 - The Mark Croft Band

An acoustic-guitar-based singer/songwriter with Roots, Pop, & Americana song styling, Mark Croft is the classic 'triple threat'; a skilled guitar player, a powerful and dynamic vocalist, and a talented songwriter and entertainer. 

August 22 - Waunakee Big Band

The Waunakee Big Band “WBB” plays live swing, jazz and blues music in and around Dane County in southern Wisconsin. An eighteen piece band, WBB plays music from the 1920s all the way through to the Big Band music of today.
WBB was formed in September 2014, and to date has performed at many private and public functions including an appearance on the Wisconsin Public Radio show Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know?