Music Features

It’s time for the Illinois State Fair, and that means it’s fairly crazy in Springfield for about 10 days. I promise no puns every year, but that just wouldn’t be fair, would it? And I couldn’t be fairly reporting the music news if I only did the fair without relating some of the other fantastic […]

Heeeere’s August and the last blast of summer time fun before the world moves on toward the autumn season and, dare I say, wintertime. The good news for this week comes in the form of fine weather for this time of year, welcomed by musicians who play in the outdoor conditions and audiences who endure […]

As we spend the last weekend of July cooling off from the recent heat wave (go figure), the Downhome Music Festival looms ahead with bits and pieces of other hip and dyn-a-mite goings on flitting about. Let’s go see what we can see, shall we? First, let’s really cool down with a thought toward New […]

This weekend you will be forced to make choices, simply because there are so many things to do. And yes, it’s wonderful to have such entertainment issues in our community. Thursday, the Levitt AMP music series continues on the Y-block stage with Liz Cooper (not that Liz Cooper, Morris) and the Stampede, known for “combining […]

Ye olde music scene is heating up in more ways than one and it all leads to fun, just not always in the sun, or you’ll be cooked until you’re done. And that’s no good. How about a hip-hip-hooray for the amazing crowd that managed to find a way to make the Y-block work just […]

Hello July. How’s it going? I feel the same way, but here we are anyway. Now give us the goods as we get the summer on with live music galore and then go find some more. Since the paper comes out a day early this week with the Fourth being on our normal distribution day […]

As we float on through the last weekend in June, headed downstream toward Independence Day, a whole bunch of good, live music floods the scene right here in the old hometown. Plenty of local folks went to the recent Rolling Stones concerts in Chicago and I bet even more wanted to and couldn’t, or just […]

Look out ahead, here comes June in for a couple more weeks, with outdoor events all looking at the radar to avoid unwelcome raindrops in large quantities. We’ve dodged a few storms and took a few too, but off we go into the wild world of June music making, heads up and hearts in. We’ve […]

This week brings us a downtown music fest, continued Levitt AMP concerts, a brilliant original recording release and some out-of-the-area singing fun. Plus the usual, and unusual, collection of bands around the town, nearby in other towns and whenever the live sounds take us. LoG Fest (the letters spell “log” as a Lincoln the Railsplitter […]