Summer Concert Series

The past three decades have written a story packed full of surreal experiences, epic moments, groundbreaking involvement and huge accomplishments. The String Cheese Incident has been recognized for their commitment to musical creativity and integrity, for their community spirit, philanthropic endeavors, and for their innovative approach to the business of music.

When The String Cheese Incident’s growth first started gaining momentum in the 1990s, as the Internet was just beginning to take hold and the major-label business model was failing, the band decided to make music on their own terms.

Since then, The String Cheese Incident has gone on to carve out a completely unique approach to the business of music; they are truly pioneers of a new way of “making a band.” With the Internet as their tool, SCI was among the first artists to disseminate information online, such as tour dates, release information, and other news, to their growing fan base. Rather than doing business on such terms as “the bottom line,” SCI put their music and their fans first, opening companies of their own, including a ticketing company, a merchandise company and a fan travel agency, to best serve their community. The band’s record label, SCI Fidelity Records, has always operated under the same ideals. Even early on, SCI Fidelity embraced downloadable music and file sharing, delivering SCI’s “On The Road” series, where every show the band plays is made available for download on the Internet. Whether they realized it at the time or not, The String Cheese Incident was inventing grassroots band development. Today, literally hundreds of bands are using some version of this same approach to build their brand.

The String Cheese Incident’s commitment goes well beyond their immediate community, and even beyond the music community as a whole. Early on, the band took a serious interest in giving back to the communities that they visited, and they were among the first performers to encourage “Green” shows and tours. SCI’s support has helped give rise to such not-for-profit organizations as Conscious Alliance and HeadCount. All the while, The String Cheese Incident has stayed committed to music as a creative endeavor, not just in their recordings but also in their live performances. The list of SCI’s special guests and collaborators is long and diverse. Their annual events such as Electric Forest and Hulaween, and holiday shows such as New Year’s Eve, have helped redefine the concert experience and have garnered the band a reputation as live music vibe innovators.

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The Wood Brothers have learned to trust their hearts. For the better part of two decades, they’ve cemented their reputation as freethinking songwriters, road warriors, and community builders, creating a catalog of diverse music and a loyal audience who’ve grown alongside them through the years. That evolution continues with Heart is the Hero, the band’s eighth studio album. Recorded analog to 16-track tape, this latest effort finds its three creators embracing the chemistry of their acclaimed live shows by capturing their performances in real-time direct from the studio floor with nary a computer in sight. An acoustic-driven album that electrifies, Heart is the Hero is stocked with songs that target not only the heart, but the head and hips, too.

“We love records that come from the era of less tracks and more care,” explains co-founder Oliver Wood. “When you use a computer during the tracking process, you have an infinite number of tracks at your disposal, which implies that nothing is permanent, and everything can be fixed. Tape gives you limitations that force you to be creative and intentional. You don’t look at the music on a screen; you listen to it, and you learn to focus on the feeling of the performance.”

Throughout Heart Is The Hero, those performances are matched by the visceral storytelling and songwriting chops that have turned The Wood Brothers into Grammy-nominated leaders of American roots music, even as their music reaches far beyond the genre’s borders. The stripped-down swagger of “Pilgrim” underscores Oliver’s reminder to slow down and experience each moment as an interactive observer, rather than a passive tourist. A similar theme anchors “Between the Beats,” where Oliver draws upon a meditation technique — maintaining one’s focus on the space between heartbeats — to reach a new level of presence. The gentle sway of country soul gem “Rollin’ On,” featuring horns by Matt Glassmeyer and Roy Agee, expounds on the time-honored tradition of love as the guiding light through darkness, while ”Mean Man World” finds Chris Wood singing about his responsibilities as a father whose young daughter is poised to inherit an uncertain future. “Line Those Pockets” is a universal call for mercy and understanding over materialism. “Everybody’s just trying to be happy, so put your money away; line those pockets with grace,” the band sings in three-part harmony during the song’s chorus, which emphasizes compassion over cash as the world’s true currency. Together, these songs offer a snapshot of a spirited, independent-minded group at the peak of its powers, always pushing forward and seeking to evolve beyond what’s come before.

“There’s still acoustic guitar, upright bass, and percussion on this album — things people use all the time — but we’re always thinking, ‘How can we make this sound like us, but not like something we’ve already done?’” Oliver says. “Sometimes, the only way to do that is to get weird.”

That sense of exploration pumps its way through Heart is the Hero like lifeblood. Arriving on the heels of 2019’s Live at The Fillmore, 2020’s Kingdom In My Mind, and Oliver Wood’s solo album Always Smilin’ — all of which were released on Honey Jar Records, the band’s independent label — Heart is the Hero is bold, bright, and singularly creative, a fully realized collective effort ultimately greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps that’s to be expected from a group whose willingness to experiment has earned acclaim from Rolling Stone and NPR, as well as an annual touring schedule of sold-out music halls and theaters on both sides of the Atlantic. Ask The Wood Brothers, though, and they’ll tell you to expect the unexpected.

“We are never satisfied if we are not searching for new musical recipes,” says Jano Rix, nodding to the uncharted territory that Heart is the Hero covers. Chris Wood agrees, adding, “We are one of those bands that isn’t easily categorized. We know what our strengths are, but we can’t help but push the envelope, as well. It’s too much fun.”

Despite a 20-year history that includes all the accolades of an iconic band, GRAMMY-nominated, multi-platinum band NEEDTOBREATHE came into their latest studio album with a much different frame of mind. They still felt they had something to prove. In truth, this is a band who have loomed large for years, leveraging a unique fusion of modern rock, purpose-driven soul and irresistible pop appeal into a stat line which puts them in exceedingly rare company. They’ve placed five Number One albums all across the Billboard chart spectrum, from Rock and Alternative. They’ve racked up two billion career streams and scored multi-platinum chart topping hits – “Brother” (feat. Gavin DeGraw), “Who Am I,” “Let’s Stay Home Tonight” and dozens more. And they’ve done it all while filling venues across the globe. Ask their fans and it’s been two decades of spirit-mining songs, master musicianship and elemental artistry, digging deep to create a series of sonic monuments to the human condition. Their latest album CAVES is a collection of awe-inspiring melodies, breathtaking instrumentation and epic-scale energy, giving the band’s soul-probing approach a bigger, more expansive new scope. To learn more, visit NEEDTOBREATHE.com.

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Formed by Chadwick Stokes and Brad Corrigan while in college in Vermont — have forged their own path outside the mainstream music industry as one of the most successful artists in the roots rock scene. Over the course of a slew of acclaimed studio and live albums and countless tours and festivals, the band has gone on to become one of biggest success stories in independent music history, selling out three nights at Madison Square Garden and drawing over 100,000 fans to a massive outdoor show in their adopted hometown of Boston without any traditional radio or major label support. The band recently released their extraordinary 8th studio album, Break Our Fall, to critical acclaim.

In 2022, DISPATCH hit the road with O.A.R. for their first-ever North American Co-Headline Tour. Joined by special guest G. Love, the bands kicked things off in Mesa, AZ and weaved their way throughout the US through mid-September, making 37 stops in Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Atlanta, Cleveland, Nashville, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philly, Austin, Virginia Beach and more. While the bands have previously played on the same bill, this tour will mark the first time the two have shared a tour together. This year, they embarked on a new journey for their Summer Stops tour which included two symphony shows — with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap, and the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks in Colorado.

Throughout their rise, DISPATCH has taken every opportunity to use their success for good, launching charitable organizations to fight inequality and mass incarceration, raising funds and awareness for environmental causes, schools and hospitals on the road, and even traveling as far afield as Zimbabwe to work with children and communities in need. Chadwick Stokes’ Calling All Crows joins bands and fans together in collective activism that has raised more than half a million dollars, while Brad Corrigan’s Love Light + Melody helps amplify the stories of children who live in extreme poverty.

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On her most ambitious album yet, No One Gets Out Alive, singer-songwriter Maggie Rose proves she’s a true original. Though the electrifying record is her fourth full-length album release, in many ways it feels like her first. No One Gets Out Alive is a knockout career game-changer. Filled with deeply intimate, relatable songs, her masterful storytelling and soulful, powerful voice pulls you in immediately. The stunning title track sets the scene for the whole record- a master class in contemporary pop craftsmanship that also hearkens back to the golden days of early ’70s Laurel Canyon. Rose delivers a mesmerizing performance from start to finish. For fans already enthralled by the Nashville-based sensation, No One Gets Out Alive will be deeply satisfying. For those just discovering her, the record is a brilliant introduction. And for Rose herself, it’s the album she always dared herself to make.

For this new record, Maggie Rose surrounded herself with a dream team of esteemed talents she personally handpicked. No One Gets Out Alive marks her second time working with GRAMMY-Award winning producer Ben Tanner. Tanner mixed the record with GRAMMY-nominated Bobby Holland, acting as audio engineer (he also produced some of Rose’s earlier work.) The songs were recorded fully live with a core group of musicians comprised of some of the most talented mavericks around, including two members of Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit, guitarist Sadler Vaden and drummer Chad Gamble, keyboardist Peter Levin (Amanda Shires, Gregg Allman), keyboardist Kaitlyn Connor and guitarist Kyle Lewis from her own band, and bassist Zac Cockrell from Alabama Shakes.

Working with a tight-knit circle of writers, Maggie leaned into her vulnerability and brought her concepts to an ultra-talented group of collaborators who helped bring the songs to fruition. Songwriters include the heavyweight duo of Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony, who have spent over a decade penning hits for the likes of Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Bruno Mars among others, Natalie Hemby, a celebrated solo artist and member of The Highwomen, as well as Texas artist Sunny Sweeney, Chris Gelbuda (Meghan Trainor), Pat McLaughlin (John Prine), Cliff Audretch (Hootie & The Blowfish), Henry Brill (Joy Oladokun), Charlotte Sands (JORDY), Jon Santana (Sid Tipton), and Kaitlyn Connor & Kyle Lewis (from her band).

Each day of recording at Nashville’s Starstruck Studios filled Rose with a newfound sense of empowerment and camaraderie. “There was this incredible spirit of collaboration in the room,” she says. “Everybody could speak up, and all ideas were heard. I felt a lot of comfort working with the people I already knew, like Ben and Bobby, who are so brilliant. Zac was on my last record. I’ve done shows with Peter, and Kyle and Kaitlyn are in my touring band. Having Sadler and Chad from the 400 Unit was remarkable — beyond being killer players, they really understood the importance of live performance. Everybody cared deeply about what they were doing, and that meant so much to me.”

Rose enlisted conductor Don Hart whom she long admired for his extensive work with diverse artists such as Phish and Lyle Lovett. Hart oversaw the arrangements and performances of the lush strings that filled so many of the songs with a widescreen cinematic grandeur.

No One Gets Out Alive took a big vision to pull off, and soon after finishing the album, Rose caught the ears of industry titans at Big Loud Records. Though Rose is a respected fixture of the Nashville community (she was recently elected Governor of the Recording Academy’s Nashville Chapter and has played the iconic Grand Ole Opry almost 100 times), Big Loud embraced the unique path she has carved out for herself. Refusing to be pigeonholed in any one genre, Maggie comfortably straddles different worlds as evidenced at such varied festivals as Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, and Newport Folk Fest.

“Big Loud dove in headfirst and defied my preconceived notions of what I’d come to expect from a big label; they didn’t’ want me to change the album I had made or ‘chase’ the trends. They understood the vision and believed in me from the outset.”

The music deals in a variety of both dark and uplifting overarching themes — disillusionment in relationships, getting older, ageism, female empowerment and living in the moment, among them.

She took her first steps on this new journey on the luminous, theatrical pop gem “Vanish.” Backed by a sweeping string section that takes flight along with her enchanting vocals, Rose deftly evokes the influence of Carole King, Elton John and the Beatles. “‘Vanish’ pretty much kickstarted the making of this album,” she explains. “The song is about something I think we’ve all dealt with, the breakdown of a relationship you thought would last forever. My solace came in the form of the song.”

As she wrote, Rose was struck by how frequently the topic of fractured relationships — both romantic and platonic — cropped up in her material. “So often we don’t want to let go of someone because we consider it a failure,” she says. “But sometimes a relationship has run its course, and by letting go you can travel a little lighter and brighter moving forward.”

One of her biggest revelations — that time is fleeting, and you’d better get on with your life — came with the title track. “The phrase ‘No One Gets Out Alive’ sounds ominous, but the song is filled with hope and urgency.” Rose says. “I’ve come to realize that there are things I can’t control, but I still need to enjoy my reality, which is wonderful. I want people to hear the song and stop dwelling on what they’re missing out on — the present is all you have, so make the most of it.”

The righteous and rousing “Fake Flowers” is another standout. Amid the swirl of a gospel laced B3 organ and crisp, biting electric guitars, Rose comes on like a full-throated blues titan. It’s a powerful star turn — each line sung uniquely and with extraordinary assurance — that brings the house down. “With this song, I let myself be angry and didn’t worry about softening the edges for anyone. That was freeing for me.”

“Underestimate Me” is soaked in swampy, bluesy mojo that calls to mind Little Feat, gathering steam as the song progresses. By the end the whole band is throwing around anything that isn’t nailed to the floor. Rose comes on with sassy grit and cool fury, and as she notes, the lyrics share a through line with her podcast Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose: “I always ask women, ‘What’s your superpower?’ Many of them say that they feel being underestimated is their superpower, because they just blow people’s expectations out of the water.”

Rose’s spellbinding vibrato on “Mad Love” could haunt you for days. The turbulent, torchy showstopper is highlighted by Sadler Vaden’s echo-drenched spaghetti western licks and goosebumps-inducing guest vocals by John Paul White. Likewise, “Lonely War” lodges itself in the thicket of your senses, but for wholly different reasons. Co-writing with Henry Brill, Rose addresses two momentous days in recent history (the day that George Floyd was murdered, and the overturn of Roe v. Wade) without preachiness or heavy-handed sentiment. The wistful “Under the Sun” is poised to be a future soundtrack to warm, summer days. “Dead Weight” is an empowering., rousing anthem where Rose shines along with her band. The smooth, comfy blanket of sound on the album closer, “Another Sad Song,” is nurturing stuff — the gentle piano progression blends with airy guitar lines while the string section wraps around Rose’s incandescent voice.

Rose has been hailed for her passionate individualism, proudly infusing her music with influences spanning rock, soul, Americana, folk, and funk. Maggie is a true road warrior. She has shared the stage with an impressive array of artists including Kelly Clarkson, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Heart, Joan Jett, Eric Church, Gov’t Mule, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, The Mavericks, Fitz & The Tantrums, and The Revivalists among others. She also joined forces with Duane Betts for a 2023 summer tour after the two spent time playing together in the renowned Allman Family Revival tour honoring the legendary catalog of music from the Allman Brothers.

With unflinching honesty, Maggie Rose approaches everything authentically and completely. With No One Gets Out Alive, she emerges as a singular artist with her own sound and her own way of telling her stories, unencumbered by genre specifics. “I’ve had some wonderful moments throughout my career, and I’ve been lucky to connect with fans while traveling on the path to self-discovery. My excitement surrounding this moment and this project really does make it feel like a new beginning.”

For two decades now, Greensky Bluegrass have been building an empire, brick by brick.  They are widely known for their dazzling live performances and relentless touring schedule, but that is only the tip of the complex tale of the five musicians that make up Greensky Bluegrass: Anders Beck [dobro], Michael Arlen Bont [banjo], Dave Bruzza [guitar], Mike Devol [upright bass], and Paul Hoffman [Mandolin].  The five are connected through a deep bond, just as they are seasoned road warriors, they’re a band of brothers who have seen each other through decades of ups and downs, personal and collective highlights, and the moments when life turns it all upside down. These are real people having real experiences. As with traditional bluegrass, they write about their own contemporary day-to-day happenings, emotions, and experiences in the modern world.

The band’s underground die-hard fans pack out venues across the country. They travel in droves and sell out multiple-night show runs at iconic venues like Red Rocks and The Ryman.

“As songwriters and musicians, we have a need for people to be on board,  we’re not just regurgitating the same shit,” explains Bruzza.

Hoffman adds, “we aren’t a band all for money. We did it for romantic reasons such as love, catharsis, and because it mattered to us and the listeners. It would be easy to make decisions based on our needs to eat or the desires of others, but that’s not doing it for love. We love what we do, and we’re grateful for the love we receive in return from the people listening.”

Bruzza continues, “I hope they know we’re doing this for us and them.”

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Formed over two decades ago, the funk six-piece The Motet have learned to work as an interlocking unit, with each member bolstering one another towards the best creative output. This symbiosis has led to a unique style and cohesive musical chemistry, as seen in the band’s immaculate live performances and seamless blend of funk, soul, jazz, and rock. With a fervent fanbase in tow, The Motet have sold out shows across the nation, performed six headlining slots at Red Rocks and sets at festivals such as Bonnaroo, Bottlerock, Electric Forest, Bumbershoot, Summer Camp, and High Sierra.

But even after their 20+ years of accolades and recognition, the legendary outfit – composed of Dave Watts (drums), Joey Porter (keys), Garrett Sayers (bass), Drew Sayers (keys and saxophone), Ryan Jalbert (guitar), and new singer Sarah Clarke – are still exploring new sonic ideas and finding new ways to showcase each other’s skill sets.

The band released their 10th studio album, All Day, in January 2023 – an eclectic instrumental voyage threaded by the infectious grooves and immaculate, layered arrangements that The Motet have become known for.

Now with vocal powerhouse Sarah Clarke in tow, the band continues their journey with their new song “Natural Light” and the promise of more to come.

‘Sometimes, Forever’ is Soccer Mommy’s boldest and most aesthetically adventurous work yet, and it cements Nashville native Sophie Allison’s status as one of the most gifted songwriters making rock music right now. The third studio album is produced by Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never and sees Allison once again tapping into the turn-of-the-millenium sensibilities she’s known for, as she advances her self-made sonic world beyond the present and into the future with experimental-minded production, an expanded moodboard of vintage touchstones, and some of her most sophisticated songwriting to date. Inspired by the concept that neither sorrow nor happiness is permanent, ‘Sometimes, Forever’ is a fresh peek into the mind of an artist who synthesizes everything — retro sounds, personal tumult, the relatable disorder of modern life — into original music that feels built to last a long time. Maybe even forever.

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At the beginning of 2022, Sylvan Esso packed up and headed west. Cramming the contents of a recording studio into their Prius, Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath drove from their home in Durham, North Carolina to Los Angeles, where they set up a makeshift studio in a small rental house on the east side and did something that surprised them: they wrote a song. And then another. “Even if we weren’t feeling good, we would just sit down and try to make something,” Meath says. “Pretty much every day that we did that, we got a song that we liked.”

Some bands can create entire albums on short-term writing jags, but until now, Meath says, Sylvan Esso was not one of them. But that speed — and the resulting looseness and live-wire energy in their songs — is one of many things that feels like brand-new territory in No Rules Sandy, their fourth studio album, out August 12, 2022. Describing their first three albums as a trilogy that is now complete, Meath and Sanborn see No Rules Sandy as the beginning of a new period, with songs that are “wilder and stranger and more cathartic than the band used to be,” as Sanborn puts it. “It feels like who we actually are,” Meath adds. “It just feels like us. We’re not trying to fit into the mold, just happily being our freak selves.”

The album’s title is taken from a snippet of background vocal in “Your Reality,” a slippery, complexly layered track in which Meath sings what feels like a preoccupying question of the post-pandemic world: “Let me remember how to live my life/were there rules originally/or are we learning how to be?” As in so many previous Sylvan Esso songs Meath’s voice is direct and dominant, but the “no rules Sandy” background vocal is different — echoing and hypnotic, swooping underneath Sanborn’s percussive synth as well as a string arrangement from Gabriel Kahane. Sanborn says that vocal, and the song itself, became a reference point for the album, “for how weird we could take it — how bare and strange something could be.”

“Sunburn,” the album’s debut single, and “Didn’t Care” also work as bridge songs, leaping from a pop music framework into the wilder unknown. With the crank of a bicycle bell popping in over the thumping bass track, “Sunburn” conjures a summer night’s dance party even as Meath’s locked-down vocal (“My favorite way to ruin me”) suggests nothing is as carefree as it seems. And while “Didn’t Care” exists fully as a poppy love song — the hand claps and talk of “shivers” — it’s also a song about somebody not caring when they meet their love; the frizzled keyboard chords and insistent background vocals promise there’s no simple ending for this story, either.

Meath and Sanborn have described the dynamic of Sylvan Esso as an argument between them, her irresistible hooks pushing and pulling against his adventurous, sometimes unsettling synths. No Rules Sandy is a complete merge — pop and electronic music fusing into something new that constantly builds on itself. With this album, Meath says, “we went back to the classic formula, which is us trying to impress the other one.” Take “Echo Party,” which opens with electronic warble around Meath’s voice as a simple beat behind her eventually yields to a deep synth wobble. There’s lightness and darkness tugging at each other, the ecstatic promise of a party (“there’s a lot of people dancing downtown”) that you might not ever be able to leave (“yeah we all fall down/but some stay where they got dropped.”) Sanborn’s synths nod to 90s electronic music throughout, but as with the full album, he says, “I want everything to feel like something you’ve heard before, but presented in a way you’ve never heard.”

Both describe No Rules Sandy as their most personal project — right in the title, after all, is Sanborn’s own nickname. The most intimate — but still enigmatic — details arrive in interstitial moments between tracks, featuring voicemails from loved ones, birdsong from outside their studio, Betty’s, the voices of children, and other life detritus transformed into eternal art. “It feels like this diary entry from this very specific time,” Sanborn says of the interstitials, which fill the gaps between songs and make No Rules Sandy an unbroken ribbon of sound, a source of wildness and energy that continues from the album’s first moment to the last.

Though Sylvan Esso very much remains a duo, the scope of their work has continued to expand since their landmark WITH concert — with a live band of ten — in 2019. 2021 marked the launch of their music label, Psychic Hotline, and in 2022 both Meath and Sanborn will launch projects with other collaborators. Meath’s The A’s, a new band with her Mountain Main partner Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, will release an album on July 15, while Sanborn’s Made of Oak project will release an EP collaboration with GRRL on September 2. The collaborations carry through to No Rules Sandy as well; TJ Maiani contributes his persistent drums to “Your Reality” and “Alarm,” while Sam Gendel’s saxophone lends a mysterious, unworldly quality to “How Did You Know” and album closer “Coming Back to You,” a stripped down and haunting track that’s unlike any Sylvan Esso song that has come before it.

As all these new chapters unfold and the Sylvan Esso umbrella expands, Sanborn and Meath continue to run their recording studio Betty’s in the woods outside Durham and think constantly about what’s next — without overthinking it too much.

“Our whole career up until now, I feel like everything’s been really considered, and we’ve maybe overthought a lot of the music,” Sanborn says. “I think that might be the ultimate effect of like the last record and the pandemic — feeling like, fuck that, I know what I want. And it’s now, or never. So let’s get out there and do it.”

By Katey Rich, Awards and Audio Editor at Vanity Fair