G. Love & Special Sauce
This is a 18 and over event. 17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian G. Love & Special Sauce is an American Hip-Hop Blues band known for its unique fusion of hip-hop, blues, funk, and soul. Formed in 1993 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the band originally featured Garrett Dutton, aka G. Love, as the lead vocalist and guitarist, Jeffrey Clemens on drums, and Jim Prescott on bass. The trio quickly gained attention for their laid-back, groovy style and G. Love’s unique vocal delivery, blending rap-like spoken word with bluesy singing. Their debut self-titled album, G. Love & Special Sauce, was released in 1994 on Epic Records and included the hit single “Cold Beverage,” which became popular on alternative radio stations and MTV, solidifying their presence in the music scene. The band’s style has been described as a mix of “slacker blues” and “alternative hip-hop,” as they frequently incorporate elements of 90s hip-hop beats with classic blues rhythms. Over the years, G. Love & Special Sauce has released numerous albums, including Coast to Coast Motel (1995), Yeah, It’s That Easy (1997), The Electric Mile (2001) and the GRAMMY nominated The Juice (2020). Their sound evolved to include more soul, R&B, and rock influences, though they retained their laid-back vibe and clever lyrical play. Their 2014 album Sugar saw a reunion of the original lineup after several years, and they continued to tour and produce music with a loyal fan base. Known for their energetic live performances, G. Love & Special Sauce has played at festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. Garrett Dutton also frequently collaborates with other artists, including Jack Johnson, with whom he shares a similar vibe, and has released solo projects that dive deeper into his blues influences. G. Love & Special Sauce remains a beloved name in the music scene, blending genres in a way that feels fresh and authentic. G. Love is excited to offer the Pre-Show VIP option G. Love’s Pre-Show Pop Off is an ALL-REQUEST storytellers solo acoustic performance by G. Love and a one of a kind merch package. The pre-show pop off also includes early entry, a Q&A and photo opportunity with G. Love, and early access to the merch booth. Your VIP Pre-Show Pop off ticket includes a general admission ticket into the show. VIP Ticket Includes: An ALL-REQUEST storyteller acoustic performance by G. Love Q&A session with G. Love Photo with G. Love VIP Laminate Exclusive VIP Poster Early access to the merch booth *THIS VIP UPGRADE INCLUDES A TICKET TO THE SHOW. You must have a Pre-Show Pop Off ticket in order to redeem the VIP package elements and be let into the event. Tickets to the show must be presented at the time of entry to the Pre-Show Pop Off.
The Druid Drummer (Album Release) w/ Lucius Fox & Mighty Big Rig
18+ Standing Room Only Show 17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian The Druid Drummer is an unorthodox solo percussion act from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He creates primal soundscapes that serve as both self expression and a call to the audience’s own inner rhythm. The Druid Drummer’s shows are the human spirit embodied as sound. Lucius Fox is a heavy instrumental two piece based in Kalamazoo, MI and made up of Jeremy Cronk and Paul Joseph Drake Jr. The project creates aggressive, but melodic sounds that touch on math-rock, post-rock, black metal, electronica, doom, and Americana. Through the use of multiple amplifiers, looping, dual guitar and synthesizer work, intricate drumming, and atmosphere, Lucius Fox produces a sound that dwarfs that of most bands with twice the personnel. Mighty Big Rig is a five-piece rock band from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Blending rich grooves with intricate instrumentation, MBR has forged their own sound comprising of hard rock and psychedelia with three-part vocal harmonies. Since their founding in 2019, MBR has self-produced two EPs and two full length LPs. Their most recent LP, Stitches, was released in December 2024.
Shakey Graves: And The War Came – 10th Anniversary Tour w/ Hovvdy
2025 Bell’s Beer Garden Summer Concert SeriesThis is a 18 and over event. 17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian Across his career, Shakey Graves—a.k.a. the performance moniker of Austin, Texas- born Alejandro Rose-Garcia—has intentionally created thrilling musical adventures tailored to each fan: burning CDs and putting them in personalized decorated bags; building intricate scavenger hunts that send fans in search of unique tapes; and Bandcamp-exclusive releases. “The fans and musicians that really resonate with me—and the inexplicable ways that I find things that I like—are usually entirely through randomness and chaos and accident,” Rose- Garcia says. “I’ve always been on this quest to make people feel like my own music is a choose your own adventure.” In 2024 Rose-Garcia celebrated the ten year anniversary of his And The War Came album with a special 10 Year Anniversary Edition release featuring never before heard demos and b-sides from the recording process and inviting fans to enter the long-since abandoned Music House. His story continues to unfold, but Shakey Graves Is Still A Gentleman From Texas. Shakey Graves has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 from every ticket sold will go to Sweet Relief Musicians Fund.
Dean Johnson & Erin Rae
This is a 18+ event with standing room only17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian Not long after crossing beyond the neon into Al’s Tavern, one might catch murmurs drifting up and down the bar during Dean Johnson’s bartending shifts – nudges and whispers that he might just be the best songwriter in town. “Wait ’til you hear him sing. Just don’t ask him to do it, because he won’t. He might do another show this year, but probably not.” Al’s regulars, howsoever biased, speak of his talent like a family secret – Seattle folklore. How many times, and for how many years, has Dean elusively replied to some variation of the question, “When will there be a record?” The phrase “hidden gem” would seem appropriate here, but it’s a misnomer when talking about Dean Johnson. He shines bright, in plain sight, and it was only a matter of time before people stopped to take a look. Dean’s gentle and passionate approach to songwriting has inspired many, and his work provides the listener the opportunity to believe once more that a song can be more than the sum of its parts. If you catch even a phrase of his melodies or the sobering tone of his voice, it waltzes its way into your heart like a letter written, signed, sealed, and delivered just for you. Three years after the release of her critically acclaimed debut, Putting On Airs, Nashville-raised singer-songwriter Erin Rae shares an intimate, honest, and playful version of herself through her sophomore album Lighten Up. Produced by Jonathan Wilson, and recorded in the musically hallowed grounds of California’s Topanga Canyon, the album represents a sonic and inner shift for Rae. In it, she embraces more of her influences, like baroque-pop, cosmic country, and indie-folk songs while mirroring a more compassionate self-view she calls “accepting my humanness”. Although she grew up in a musically oriented family, Rae’s pursuit of music happened by accident. After being gifted a Martin acoustic guitar on her 18th birthday, Rae decided to drop out of college after just one semester. Her goal at the time had little to do with making music into a career, and everything to do with spending more time and energy with the community of musicians and writers she knew back home. Looking back on those days, she recalls the initial high of playing live at an open mic during winter break and realizing, “this is how I connect with people. I have to pursue this.”
An Evening With Android Paranoid: A Tribute to Radiohead
This is a 18+ event with standing room only17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian ANDROID PARANOID pay tribute to Radiohead with a theatrical performance recreating their once-in-a-generation music with painstaking detail. They use everything from specially modified guitars, orchestral instruments, and modular synthesizers to bring all the sounds found on Radiohead’s records to the stage. 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of The Bends, Radiohead’s first album masterpiece, and ANDROID PARANOID will be performing the album from front-to-back.
Ducks Ltd.
This is a 18+ event with standing room only17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian Ducks Ltd. are a Toronto band featuring Australian lead guitarist Evan Lewis and U.K-born, U.S.-raised singer, bassist, and rhythm guitarist Tom McGreevy. As Ducks Ltd., the two thrive on skirting the edges of buoyant jangle pop and driving power pop. Their latest album, Harm’s Way, contains anxious songs that McGreevy explains are “about struggling. About watching people I care for suffer, and trying to figure out how to be there for them. And about the strain of living in the world when it feels like it’s ready to collapse.” Harm’s Way is an undeniable evolution of Ducks Ltd.’s songwriting process. Where their critically acclaimed 2021 debut Modern Fiction and 2019 EP Get Bleak were self-recorded and self-produced in a Toronto basement, here, they made an LP in Chicago with producer Dave Vettraino and some of their favorite musicians. These collaborators include Finom’s Macie Stewart, Ratboys’ Julia Steiner and Marcus Nuccio, Dehd’s Jason Balla, Moontype’s Margaret McCarthy, Lawn’s Rui De Magalhaes, Dummy’s Nathan O’Dell, and Patio’s Lindsey-Paige McCloy. Ducks Ltd.’s touring drummer Jonathan Pappo also appears on the LP. The band first showed this collaborative streak on a 2023 covers EP, which featured guests like Mo Troper, Ratboys, Illuminati Hotties, and Jane Inc. that boasted renditions of songs by The Cure, The Feelies, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Where those songs started as ideas on days off from tour, Harm’s Way is also a product of writing on the road while supporting acts like Nation of Language and Archers of Loaf. “When we got signed, we had played maybe five or six shows ever,” says McGreevy. “After last year, it’s well in the hundreds. Those things change your perception of your own music and songwriting.” This well-earned and road-tested confidence made the making of this LP their most intuitive and organic yet. “Our relationship is built on trust and we don’t let our egos come into the creative process in any way,” says Lewis. “We have this really great thing where every decision with the band is filtered through both of us. Here especially, we really figured out how to make something that truly sounds like us.”
BROADWAY RAVE
This is a 18+ event with standing room only17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian Calling all Musical Theatre nerds, drama geeks, actors, actresses, theatre lovers, and more! Welcome to Broadway Rave, a Broadway Dance Party celebrating the best in show-tunes and musical theatre. Come sing along to all of your favorite broadway hits while dressed up as your favorite character. We’ll have surprise guests from some of your favorite Broadway stars! Live out your Broadway fantasies at Broadway Rave — the most POPULAR Broadway Dance party around.
Fruit Bats
This is a 18+ event with standing room only17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian Eric D. Johnson rarely lingers at one location too long. “There’s always been motion in my life between one place and another,” says the Fruit Bats songwriter. As a kid growing up in the Midwest, Johnson’s family moved around a lot, but it wasn’t until he became a touring musician years later that motion became a central part of his identity. That transient lifestyle stoked an enduring reverence for the world he watched pass by through a van window. A sense of place is a unifying theme he’s revisited with Fruit Bats throughout its many lives. From the project’s origins in the late ’90s as a vehicle for Johnson’s lo-fi tinkering to the more sonically ambitious work of recent years, Fruit Bats has often showcased love songs where people and locations meld into one. It’s a loose song structure that navigates what he calls “the geography of the heart.” Those pathways extend straight through the newest Fruit Bats album, aptly titled A River Running to Your Heart. Self-produced by Johnson—a first for Fruit Bats—with Jeremy Harris at Panoramic House just north of San Francisco, it’s Fruit Bats’ tenth full-length release. The album finds the project in the middle of a people-powered climb leading to the biggest shows, loudest accolades, and most enthusiastic new fans in Fruit Bats history! It’s hard to pinpoint a single reason for this mid-career resurgence. But after two decades of making music, hard-earned emotional maturity has clearly seeped into Johnson’s already inviting songs, resulting in a sound that’s connected with audiences like no other previous version of the band. A River Running to Your Heart represents the fullest realization of Johnson’s creative vision to date. It’s a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. And while that might seem like a peculiar focus for an artist who’s constantly in motion, for Fruit Bats, home can take many forms—from the obvious to the obscure.
Todd Rundgren: STILL ME (STILL WE)
2025 Bell’s Beer Garden Summer Concert SeriesThis is a 18 and over event. 17 and under admitted with a parent or guardian With U.S. top 40 hits that include “We Gotta Get You a Woman,” “Hello It’s Me,” “I Saw the Light,” “Can We Still Be Friends,” and the iconic single “Bang the Drum All Day,” Rundgren is an iconic musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the bands Nazz and Utopia. He is known for his sophisticated and often unorthodox music, his occasionally lavish stage shows, and his later experiments with interactive art. Package includes: -General Admission Standing Ticket -VIP early entry into the venue -VIP access to Todd Rundgren’s preshow soundcheck -Intimate Q&A session with Todd Rundgren -Group Photograph with Todd Rundgren -One autographed item (not personalized) -Merchandise voucher for a Todd Rundgren tour shirt (redeem at merch booth) -Official soundcheck laminate & lanyard *Limited availability*
Pride After Party with IDIOT KIDS
This is a 18 and over event. Based out of Hamtramck, MI, The Idiot Kids have been making noise since 2011. The Idiot Kids have the energy of punk, the roughened aesthetic of garage rock and the melodic sensibilities of art pop. This is music with shake-you-up hooks, frenzied tempos, gnarly guitars and anthemic vocals. Known for their live performances; they blend the theatricality of glam with the raw energy of hardcore punk. There is no charge to attend this event. Outfront Kalamazoo will be accepting $5 donations at the door. Don’t miss out on the fun!
