Art-A-Whirl was rocking hard all day saturday. With many venues hosting concerts, lots of people were on bikes and on foot walking around the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District to enjoy the music as well as the art. The show at the 331 Club drew a large crowd that grew into the afternoon and evening [...]

  “You guys know this came together in a matter of minutes, right?” P.O.S. marveled, shaking his head as he looked out at the sea of attendees at Tuesday night’s Love is the Law concert in St. Paul. “This is better than some of the well-planned festivals I’ve played.” Indeed, the most impressive aspect of [...]

  Now in its 15th year, the Duluth Homegrown Music Festival is officially an institution. That much was clear as soon as I picked up the festival guide, a meaty, 82-page directory of all of the shows happening over the eight days of Homegrown; in addition to a play-by-play of each day and descriptions of [...]

  Now in its fourth year, Winona’s Mid West Music Fest continues to expand into new venues and pull in acts from the surrounding region to create a city-wide sampling of new music. It was only my second year attending the festival, but already the year-to-year improvements were noticeable: More of the shows were presented [...]

  See also: Audio and video from Low’s Current Session at the Fitz  Low are minimalists in every sense of the word. Every note, every rise and fall in dynamic, every snippet of between-song banter is intentional, and measured. It seems counter-intuitive to toss out too many adverbs about Low’s poignant show at the Fitzgerald Theater on [...]

Is it possible for the best guitarist in the world to put on a mind-blowingly awesome show… without touching a guitar? Yes, as Saturday night Prince led his 20-piece band through three hours of music (including quite a few covers and a couple hits), yet the Purple One left all the guitar duties to 3rd [...]

  First Avenue was packed to the rafters last night with fans celebrating the Minneapolis stop of the 2013 Welcome to Minnesota tour, which is headlined and booked by Atmosphere. This year featured support from Brother Ali, Carnage, Haphduzn, and the Get Cryphy DJs, who brought out MaLLy as a special guest. Atmosphere, who appeared [...]

“Safe and perfect bores me to death,” Aby Wolf bemoans on the opening track of Wolf Lords, and it’s the closest thing to a mission statement the prolific singer and songwriter has offered us to date. Now on her third album, Aby has established herself as a chameleonic, restless artist who is constantly looking for [...]

It was a night of many thanks as Minnesota musicians new and established paid homage to the Current, even singing the station “Happy Birthday” more than once in honor of the 8th anniversary of its launch. The Chalice started the evening off on a dramatic note, singing “The time / Is here / The moment [...]

A parade of special guests and fiery, soulful music kept party guests on their toes at the first of two 8th birthday parties for the Current at First Avenue on Friday night, setting the stage for what is sure to be another memorable celebration of Minnesota music and community togetherness tonight. Of the two birthday [...]