The Utilitarians feature members of seminal Kansas City bands like Pamper the Madman, Otis 13 and Pornhuskers, bring an impassioned quirky punk ethos to their catchy and well crafted pop tunes.

A.M. Merker's country infused Americana will set any Midwesterner straight.

Lonnie Fisher and The Funeral are a Roots/Goth/Indie Rock Band from Lawrence Kansas and Kansas City Missouri. The music has been described as dark and melodic with the sun trying to peak through the clouds.Lonnie's songwriting is moody and full of adventure taking on life's difficulties in a way we can all relate to.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parents or Guardian

recordBar

The Utilitarians,  A.M. Merker and Friends, Lonnie Fisher and the Funeral 

Lonnie Fisher and the Funeral - Ghosts Driving In My Van

Lonnie Fisher and The Funeral

Gigs

Kansas City

Lemonad(e) Park

FK Presents Sabados Vendor and Arts Fair in the Park

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parents or Guardians

Sabados in the Park, Vendors, Music and Art

Mike McCoy's Wood Roses make their Lemonad(e) Park debut with She Said, Lorna Kay's One Night Stand and Alberto.

This is an 18+ event

Wood Roses, She Said, Lorna Kay, Alberto

Wood Roses - Penis On the Line

She Said

Legendary L.A. hardcore band obsessed with big guitars, speedy tempos, poor taste, and cold beer,

This is an 18+ event / Minors Allowed with Parent or Guardian

Fear / Bastard Squad

Fear

Bastard Squad

KC Bones, are one of the premier Grateful Dead cover - tribute bands in the Midwest!

We are a Kansas City band with a passion for Grateful Dead music. The band members are diverse in our backgrounds; The love of The Dead brought us together.

This is an 18+ event / Minors Allowed with Parent or Guardian

KC Bones / Super Massive Blackholes

A versatile American hip-hop group based out of Orange County, California, the Kottonmouth Kings emerged in 1996 with an eclectic -- and cannabis-centric -- sound that integrated punk, psychedelic rock, reggae, and hardcore rap. The group first attracted mainstream attention in 1997 with the track "Suburban Life," which appeared on the soundtrack to the horror-comedy film Scream 2 and became a modern rock radio hit. They continued to brashly beat the rap-rock drum over the next two decades, maintaining a fierce independent streak and issuing a slew of high-charting albums like Koast II Koast (2006), Long Live the Kings (2010), and Kingdom Come (2018).

Stylez and Busty the Drummer

Stoney-Doom is a Kansas-based music project advocating for Cannabis legalization. Although the themes are fairly serious, the message is meant to be conveyed in a fun, engaging, humorous and witty way.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with parent or guardian

Kottonmouth Kings

Make Music Kansas City is a live, free musical celebration on June 21, the longest day of the year, with concerts on streets, sidewalks, venues and parks across the city.

2:00 PM - 2:45 PM

Hohner Harmonica Experience for Beginners

3:00 PM - 3:45 PM

Chris Wenske

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

JaySol

5:15 PM - 5:45 PM

pending

6:00 PM - 6:45 PM

musicbyskippy

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Jass

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parents or Guardian

International Make Music Day

Center Cut Records Summer Solstice Party

  
Featuring

Eddie Moore

Adrian Truth

Effie

Every Day Strangers

This is an 18+ event

miniBar

Center Cut Records Summer Solstice: Eddie Moore / Adrian Truth / Effie / Everyday Strangers

Eddie Moore

Adrian Truth

Effie

​Since first appearing on stage in August 2017, Greg Gagnon (guitars), Leah Sproul (guitars), Brian Werner (bass), and Jessica Salley (drums) have been delighting audiences as Cowtown Country Club with their sometimes surprising take on country and western executed with glittering guitars and 24-karat vocal harmonies. At once both deeply familiar and excitingly fresh, Cowtown Country Club has a reputation for their original interpretations of classic country and western swing, plus a signature brand of countrified covers – re-imaginings of pop hits.

Lily B Moon Flower and Jake Keegan's Moonshroom open the show.

This is an 18+ event

Cowtown Country Club, Moonshroom

Waterfalls

Cowtown Country Club

“You’ve heard our name, you’ve seen our records, our t-shirts and our stickers. We’re probably the favorite band of someone you know and yet maybe we’re still a mystery to you. Well my friend, that’s okay, you’re at the right place to get to know the greatest rock-n-roll band in the world, The Supersuckers.

And the next time you see the ‘Supersuckers’ name, whether it’s in the record store, online somewhere, or on the marquee at your local rock club, know that there’s some quality, honest, ass-kicking, hard working individuals behind it all trying to make your life a little better through the “Evil Powers Of Rock-n-Roll” (and the occasional detour into the country music, of course) and we’d love nothing better than to have you there with us as! Just remember to wear clean underwear, ‘cuz we’re gonna rock the pants right off of you!”

– Eddie Spaghetti, The Supersuckers

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parent or Guardian

Supersuckers / Delta Bombers

Pretty Fucked Up

Supersuckers

The Delta Bombers

The MGDs present a passionate blend of funk and blues powered by the soulful stylings of a music group driven to serve up an electrifying experience to the masses. The seven piece lineup includes a mix of keys and brass complemented by a poppin’ rhythm section that adds a unique flavor to the iconic Kansas City music culture. In what started as a three piece between longtime friends in 2008, the MGDs have evolved into what is now a potent powerhouse group in the high-energy music category. Influences include a variety of classic and modern sounds from New Orleans and beyond.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with parent or guardian

The MGDs / Caveman Television

MGDs - She Don't Know

The MGDs

Caveman Television

Coming straight out of Springfield, MO, Ha Ha Tonka specialize in disarming and effortless anthems that owe as much to high and lonesome Ozarks mountain music as chugging college rock.

Out in front is Brian Roberts and Brett Anderson handles the lead guitar, mandolin and keyboards. Lady-killing Luke Long plays bass, swings from the rafters, takes his shirt off a lot and keeps the low end on the four parts. The band’s versatile recent additions of Hoots &amp; Hellmouth drummer Mike Reilly and The Spring Standards multi-instrumentalist/singer James Cleare catalyzed the group to stretch simple themes into sonic dimensions. As with all great bands, and this is a band, the sum is greater than the parts.

The group’s relentless touring has taken them to the stages of Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, CMJ and nationally as a headlining act, as well as supporting many great bands such as Old 97s, Murder By Death, Langhorne Slim, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Meat Puppets and more.

In 2011, Ha Ha Tonka was a guest on The Travel Channel’s flagship show, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. Check them out, grillin' and chillin' the finer foods of the Show Me State with AB his own bad self. In 2017, they performed on the Conan O'Brien show.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parent or Guardian

Ha Ha Tonka / Me Like Bees / Kid Computer

Ha Ha Tonka - Lessons

Ha Ha Tonka

Me Like Bees

The dawn of 2016, founding member and bassist Scout Matthews began planning rehearsals out of her garage for her and some musical friends and within a short time, Quite Frankly the Band was born & has been committed to perfecting its sound ever since. Writing their own original music and adding amazing covers from all their favorite artists that span multiple decades and genres– truly something for everyone!

This “gotta see” band is incredible, a band holding its own even when opening for national touring acts such as The Greeting Committee, The Darbies, John Corabi, The Jacks, Liliac and even LA Guns! The band members Jolson, Carolyn, Scout, Gavin & Eli have in just a few short years built a very impressive resume.

The band is best known in the Kansas City area for providing high energy, crazy-fun, crowd pleasing performances, gaining attention by being the youngest winners of the Nelson Atkins Battle of The Bands 2018 and for being nominated as Pitch's Best in KC three years in a row. They have played shows at favorite local venues such as Made in KC’s First Fridays in the Crossroads, Starlight Theater, The Rino, The KC Royals, Kansas University Athletics official Tailgates, The Record Bar, Lemonade Park, Plaza Art Fair, Camp Leavenworth & so many more. The band has also performed at Kauffman Stadium, appeared at Sprint Center with Big Slick choir and even Nashville & Chicago have come calling.

The Box Cutters and Killer City open the show.

This is a 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parent or Guardian

Quite Frankly / The Box Cutters

Quite Frankly - is this still even fun?

Quite Frankly - Is This Still Even Fun?

The Box Cutters

Quite Frankly

Head of Femur is a Chicago based band formed in 2001. The ever-changing line up of musicians has featured three core members, Mike Elsener (guitar), Ben Armstrong (drums, keyboards), and Matt Focht (vocals). They have been praised for their willfully weird maximalist pop music “a musical equivalent of what Dorothy might have felt like when first stepping out of her house into Oz” (Pitchfork). Head of Femur’s ambitious music was critically lauded by influential tastemakers such as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, NPR, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Pitchfork, Magnet, Sound Opinions, Stylus Magazine, and others.

Head of Femur has released four studio albums, all of which have been met with critical acclaim. Their debut album, Ringodom Or Proctor, was released in 2003 and was praised for its ambitious and innovative songwriting. Their second album, Hysterical Stars, was released in 2005 and featured a more orchestral sound. Their third album, Great Plains, was released in 2007 and was a more stripped-down affair. Their fourth album, Hear! Hear! Tunemaker, was released in 2017 and was a return to their more experimental sound.

Head of Femur has toured extensively throughout the United States with such acts as Wilco, Deerhoof, Andrew Bird, and Bright Eyes. In 2005, they were the first band ever to play at the Pitchfork Music Festival. The band’s unpredictable live shows could range from three to thirty members at a time, showcasing their hyper-changing musical twists and turns, intricate horn and string arrangements, and flagrantly absurd range of influences from the baroque to the psychedelic to the avant-garde.

The most recent lineup features Darryl Rivers (The Allendales) and Joshua Miller (Powerful Science). The new group crafted a sonically varied novel collection of songs for an upcoming album to be released in 2023. KC's Belle & the Vertigo Waves, Lincoln, NE band, Universe Contest, and recently reunited Minneapolis post-rockers, Houston also perform.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parent or Guardian

Belle and the Vertigo Waves, Head of Femur, Universe Contest, Houston

Head Of Femur - Where's The Fire

Head of Femur - Where's the Fire

Head of Femur

The Steve Miller Experience is a tribute band to the music of Steve Miller, featuring Jeff Nelson, Sean Randall, Larry Garland, Jeremy Beach & Scott Alewel

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with parent or guardian

The Steve Miller Experience, The John Cougar Project, The Doobies KC

“Party Like It’s The 90’s with Soy Bomb & The Dream Team” will be a 30 song, two set performance covering hit songs from all years of the 1990’s. This will feature the core band and a roster of guest musicians.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parent or Guardian

Soy Bomb & The Dream Team

The Black Mariah Theater - record release party with The Sluts and Mensa Deathsquad

This is an 18+ event

The Black Mariah Theater, The Sluts, Mensa Deathsquad

The Black Mariah Theater - Mean to Be Mean

Mensa Deathsquad

The Sluts (LFK)

The Black Mariah Theater

Connecting the city to its artists by crafting experiences.

By partnering with local businesses and brands all across the greater Kansas City area, we craft moments for artists to showcase their work and grow their audience. This makes a natural ecosystem for artistry, businesses, and neighbors (audiences) to thrive in the city

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parent or Guardian

Homieville

The Grand Marquis is a blues, roots, soul powerhouse, weaving old stories in with new tales for the 21st century.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with parent or guardian

Grand Marquis

musician / creative strategy • founder of reality makers co.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with parents or guardians

Dom Chronicles

Dom Chronicles - Hold It Down

My Son the Hurricane is a multi-horn, multi-drummer, multi-singer brass funk beast from Niagara. The 12-piece brass dance crew has toured over multiple countries and played some of Canada, USA, and Europe’s biggest festivals. Over 45 sold-out shows in 2022 prove that there is no live show like My Son the Hurricane. The band features trumpets, saxophones, trombones, drums, guitar, keys, percussion, and a wild front woman…we dare you not to dance! In 2023, the band will take on over 70 dates in Canada, the United States, and Europe-wide tour and share the stage with acts like Foo Fighters, Jason Isbell, and Colin James.

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with parent or guardian

My Son the Hurricane, The Phantastics, Freedom Sounds Collective

My Son the Hurricane - Cookie Monster

My Son The Hurricane - Cookie Monster

My Son the Hurricane

The Phantastics

Freedom Sounds Collective

She Speaks In Tongues presents PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love

This is an 18+ event / Minors allowed with Parents and Guests

She Speaks In Tongues presents PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love

She Speaks In Tongues

From her self titled debut, to Cougars and Beer, Mint Royalty to now post pandemic, Baby B is set to continue her brand of Hip Hop & Rap music for the Kansas City community and abroad.

This is an 18+ event

Baby B

Baby Bkc - Cuttin Corners

Darlingside – Everything Is Alive

Everything Is Alive, Darlingside’s fourth LP, marks a subtle but remarkable departure for the Boston-based quartet NPR once described as “exquisitely arranged, literary minded, baroque folk-pop.” While the album retains much of the lushness and sophistication of Extralife (2018) and Fish Pond Fish (2020), the band’s latest work decisively exposes and differentiates the individual voices of the four songwriters—a daring reinvention for a group known for ubiquitous vocal harmonies. Grappling with change both personal and universal, with quandaries domestic and existential, Everything Is Alive is an album about loss and the struggle for a semblance of redemption.

Comprised of Don Mitchell, Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner and David Senft, four likeminded multi-instrumentalists who first met at Williams College in 2009, Darlingside’s career has been defined by the elegance of their compositions and the unity of their four voices. Their talent for harmony and melodic world-building is part of what garnered praise from outlets like NPR, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, and what has created demand worldwide for their extraordinary live performances. Becoming beautifully unindividualized has, in other words, worked very well for Darlingside in the past. With a vigor and discipline more common to graduate-level writing workshops than to indie rock, Darlingside has, over the years, experimented with all manners of idiosyncratic methods for elevating and upholding a truly democratic process of songwriting—processes that include multiple rounds of group writing and recording exercises—all with the aim of escaping the trap that bands with multiple songwriters often fall into: ego-driven infighting and artistic incoherence.

On Everything Is Alive, then, Darlingside is taking a risk. Nudged by the limitations created by pandemic isolation, as well as through other more voluntary catalysts, the album, which was produced and recorded by the band and mixed by Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket, Sufjan Stevens, Iron and Wine), foregrounds in a sustained and heretofore untried way the individual voices of each member. Where once the harmonies formed a hard-won sonic unification, Everything Is Alive showcases the four singers as they alternate (more or less) song for song, an approach that rewards listeners with a sense of personal ownership and, therefore, a new degree of intimacy and nuance.

Don’t misunderstand: Everything Is Alive is still very much a collaborative effort—many of the same meticulous rituals and exercises went into this effort as went into Extralife and Fish Pond Fish. The difference here is that the band has given itself permission to plumb new depths, to add extra dimension to what was already a highly dialed-in aesthetic. And the results are compelling, not only due to the intimacy itself, but for the way such intimacy is counterpointed or juxtaposed against Darlingside’s trademark lusciousness. Present still are the beds of enveloping harmonies, as in the stunning (mostly) a cappella “How Long Again.” Retained also are the textured polyrhythms, the infectious body percussion, a triumphant horn section to bolster the earworm chorus of “Baking Soda” and a sobering cello quartet to elevate the heartbreak of “Lose The Keys.” The difference is that on Everything Is Alive these moments have been set against quieter, and thus contrasting, depths of solitude and vulnerability.

In this way, Everything Is Alive, which was begun in 2021, seems a continuation of 2020’s Fish Pond Fish. A sequel, perhaps; the second half of a COVID double album. Where Fish Pond Fish built its lush sonic landscape around vibrant images of woolgathering, fruit picking and returning home, Everything Is Alive confronts the multitude of challenges that arise when “home at last” becomes “when, dear god, will I be free of this stasis and grief?” Lose the keys, the marbles, lose a parent/lose the count, lose the plot/it’s the losing that counts/is it not sings Mitchell on “Lose the Keys.” Elsewhere one encounters images of walking in circles, of domestic frustration, and of unabashedly falling apart, all of which work together as an acknowledgment of a despair that must be confronted before redemption can be made possible. “Am I almost out of the dark?” asks Senft on “Can’t Help Falling Apart”—a track that, it turns out, helped Senft arrive at the realization that he could not continue as a touring member of the band.

In other places on the album, such as opening track “Green Light,” a propensity for retreating into the self is refuted by an attempt to discern the small but tangible glory of the world before us. The song meditates on the humble beauty contained within things as (seemingly) drab as sidewalks and concrete and rust. Built on an iPhone memo of a strumming mandocello, “Green Light” is notable for another reason: in its mantra-like worldliness it is unlike anything Darlingside has done before. Reminiscent of George Harrison circa “Within You Without You,” the track, itself a creative leap, signals the heretofore untrod territory the album at large goes on to explore.

Vivid images and striking turns of phrase abound on Everything Is Alive. Expectations are commonly inverted or exploded—exploded curiously, with nuance, but exploded no less—as in these lines from “All The Lights In The City”: maybe working is what makes us live, or maybe it’s living/sky is always hanging blue above the cloud/but the path of no resistance will wear you out. On “Sea Dogs,” the track that contains the album’s title, Paseltiner sings over an effervescent dreamscape: I can’t wake up all the time/or even half the time or/even be on time. Such lines capture the disorientation and desperation that pervade this album. And yet, later in the same song, come the lines which align poignantly with the song’s dreamy sonic context: when up in the clouds are sea dogs/and kites and big white basketballs/the backyard is thickening/ how is it everything/ everything is alive/alive, alive. “Sea Dogs” is both the album’s thesis and a bridge to Fish Pond Fish, modifying that album’s motifs about nature as a reflection of the self to ask whether nature is not also a means of escaping or transcending the confines of selfhood altogether.

It’s a rare thing and becoming rarer by the day: a group of musicians with that emulsifying magic to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. And to see Darlingside perform live is to confirm this special chemistry. With the release of Everything Is Alive the band will, for the first time, take to the road without Dave Senft. Instead of filling his spot directly, the band has wisely chosen to honor the special chemistry of the foursome by letting those arrangements live on the recordings without obligation to faithfully recreate them onstage. While Dave remains a contributing member of the band, on tour Darlingside will perform in a completely different configuration altogether—a configuration that will, at times, include the album’s drummer Ben Burns, singer Molly Parden, and others—proving again how the group can adroitly rearrange themselves for the breaking of a new and different day.

This is an 18+ event / minors allowed with parent or gaurdian

Darlingside

I Forget Myself (feat. Darlingside)

Darlingside - Hold Your Head Up High

Upcoming events

Lemonade Park originated both out of creativity as well as necessity. Through the COVID crisis as people stayed home, restaurants were shuttered and music venues were silent, some people took on home renovations or bread making. Wes Gartner and Jill Myers (Voltaire, the Golden Ox, Moxie Catering) along with Steve Tulipana (the Record Bar) built a new kind of music venue with their friends.

Lemonade Park is a new, safety-minded outdoor entertainment venue in Kansas City featuring great food, drink, and live local music in Kansas City’s famous stockyards district. 

Lemonad(e) Park

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Upcoming events