SPOTLIGHT: 19th Annual Olde Mistick Village Garlic Festival
Saturday, Sept. 19 & Sunday, Sept. 20
The garlic may be the headliner, but Olde Mistick Village has turned its 19th annual festival into a miniature music festival, too. Sixteen performances are spread across four locations throughout the Village over two days, giving you everything from jazz and country to rock, folk, R&B and acoustic singer-songwriters while more than 60 farmers, food vendors, artisans and crafters fill the walkways. Saturday runs 11 a.m.–7 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.–6 p.m., with free admission and parking.
Saturday Music — Sept. 19
Garden Specialties Deck:
The Tone Shifters, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.; Ken Atkins & The Honky Tonk Kind, 3–6 p.m.
Left Side of Bestemors:
Kenny Barber, Josie Davis & Nicole Santos Trio, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.; Erik Rabasca, 3–6 p.m.
Gazebo on the Green:
Roy Dunn MacLean & Brant Taylor Duo, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.;
The Wandering Fiddlers Quintet, 3–6 p.m.
Rear of Geneva Murray:
Christina Meadows, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.;
FrankenPhil Duo, 3–6 p.m.
Sunday Music — Sept. 20
Garden Specialties Deck:
Petty the Fool, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.;
The HAZELMAE Jazz Sextet, 3–6 p.m.
Left Side of Bestemors:
Carlyle Duo, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.;
Vicki Gagliordi, 3–6 p.m.
Gazebo on the Green:
Ron Drogo and Joe C. Esposito Duo, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.;
Gracie Day, 3–6 p.m.
Rear of Geneva Murray:
Steve Cleary, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.;
Liz Reed & Time of Day Duo, 3–6 p.m.
SPOTLIGHT: Harvest Food & Wine Festival at Stonington Vineyards
Saturday, Sept. 19 & Sunday, Sept. 20 @ 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Stonington Vineyards gives us the other weekend-within-the-weekend: 12 hours of live music across two days surrounded by the vines, with four acts splitting the festival into afternoon sets. Saturday opens with Ben Freiert before Nick Bosse & The Northern Roots take over for the late afternoon with Bosse’s country sound. Sunday starts with Luke & Mike Trio with Anthony and finishes with longtime southeastern Connecticut favorites Wicked Peach. The Harvest Festival also brings food trucks and local artisans to the vineyard, while admission includes a glass of wine, a keepsake glass and all of the weekend’s live music. Bring lawn chairs or blankets and settle in; the festival goes on rain or shine.
Saturday Music — Sept. 19
Ben Freiert: 11 a.m.–2 p.m.
Nick Bosse & The Northern Roots: 3–6 p.m.
Sunday Music — Sept. 20
Luke & Mike Trio with Anthony: 11 a.m.–2 p.m.
Wicked Peach: 3–6 p.m.
Nick Bosse
Friday @ 4:30 p.m.
Nick Bosse gets another shot at the Mystic River after rain postponed his August appearance at Mystic Seaport Museum. The southeastern Connecticut singer-songwriter blends traditional country storytelling with southern rock and bluegrass, backed by a gritty baritone that has helped make “What Happened to Country” a streaming success. This rescheduled solo performance closes the Museum After Hours summer music series on the lawn at Schaefer’s Spouter Tavern, with free public Museum entry beginning at 5 p.m.
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Adam Lomeo & Marcus McLaurine
Friday @ 6:00 p.m.
A former student and teacher meet as musical equals when guitarist Adam Lomeo and bassist Marcus McLaurine close La Grua Center’s outdoor season with their first performance as a duo. Lomeo has played New York’s Blue Note and toured internationally, while McLaurine spent roughly three decades performing with jazz great Clark Terry and has shared stages with Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Burrell and James Moody. Expect an intimate hour of jazz standards, covers and originals on the Stonington Commons Green.
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Amy Gallatin and Stillwaters
Friday @ 7:30 p.m.
Amy Gallatin and Stillwaters open Friday Night Folk’s new season with an acoustic mix of country, bluegrass, folk, Americana and western swing. Gallatin is joined by longtime resophonic-guitar player Roger Williams, mandolinist JD Williams and bassist Bob Dick, putting four musicians with deep roots in the New England acoustic scene together inside All Souls’ Unity Hall. It’s also the opening night of a Friday Night Folk season that will continue in New London through May.
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Beatlemania Again
Friday @ 8:00 p.m.
Mohegan Sun closes its Party on the Sun Patio season by going back to the beginning of the British Invasion. Beatlemania Again turns more than 30 Beatles songs into a chronological stage show, moving from the matching suits and screaming crowds of the Ed Sullivan era through Sgt. Pepper and the band’s later years. Admission is free for the 21-and-older outdoor show, giving the Sun Patio one last big singalong before the summer series signs off.
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Lee Brice
Friday @ 8:00 p.m.
Lee Brice brings the Sunriser Tour to Foxwoods with a catalog that has made him one of country music’s most durable hitmakers. Songs including “I Drive Your Truck,” “Hard to Love,” “Rumor,” “One of Them Girls” and “I Hope You’re Happy Now” have given Brice a career that moves easily between barroom-sized country hooks and big emotional ballads. Friday’s stop puts that catalog inside Foxwoods’ Premier Theater for one of the weekend’s major touring-country shows.
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Thana Alexa Quartet
Friday @ 8:00 p.m.
Grammy-nominated vocalist Thana Alexa brings a much broader palette than the words “jazz singer” suggest. Her music folds improvisation together with electronic textures, percussion, global rhythms and the influence of her Croatian-American background, while her voice can function as another instrument inside the arrangement. At The Side Door, Alexa is joined by Alejandra Sofia, JC Maillard and Jacquelene Acevedo for a quartet built around voices, loops, guitar, keys and percussion.
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The Great Escape
Friday @ 8:00 p.m.
Journey songs were built to fill arenas, which makes hearing them inside the Wolf Den an interesting change of scale. The Great Escape recreates the soaring vocals, stacked harmonies, keyboards and guitar-driven sound behind songs like “Separate Ways,” “Any Way You Want It,” “Faithfully” and the inevitable “Don’t Stop Believin’.” The concert is free, but the Wolf Den is 21+ and seating is limited and first come, first served.
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Aquanett
Friday @ 8:00 p.m.
Aquanett doesn’t approach the ’80s quietly. The six-piece tribute brings back the decade when hard rock meant huge guitar riffs, bigger hair and songs designed to be shouted back at the stage, drawing from the glam, metal and arena-rock catalogs that dominated MTV. The Charlestown Rathskeller’s outdoor Down Back stage gives the show room to get loud, with three hours of music scheduled Friday night.
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Rêverie: Flute & Harp Duo
Saturday @ 5:00 p.m.
Flutist Anna Urrey and harpist Kristi Shade bring one of the weekend’s quieter pairings to La Grua Center with Rêverie, a New York-based duo exploring the natural interplay between flute and harp. Their Music Matters program reaches from the atmospheric colors of Debussy and Fauré to Piazzolla and other composers, putting two instruments capable of remarkable delicacy into La Grua’s intimate acoustics for an hour-long Saturday recital.
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1/2 Step Affair: A Sunset Dance Party
Saturday @ 5:00 p.m.
Oyster Club’s Treehouse becomes an open-air dance floor as D.Bird, Novebloc, Iosnua and Mareas.fm spin disco, boogie, deep house and Balearic house on vinyl and digital formats through sunset. The five-hour 1/2 Step Affair is as much a late-summer party as a DJ set, pairing music overlooking the Mystic River with cocktails, mezcal tastings and food passed throughout the evening.
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Boyz II Men
Saturday @ 8:00 p.m.
Few R&B groups made harmony as central to ’90s pop as Boyz II Men. Nathan Morris, Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman bring the vocal blend behind “End of the Road,” “I’ll Make Love to You,” “On Bended Knee” and a string of slow-jam staples to Mohegan Sun. Those songs helped turn the Philadelphia group into one of the defining vocal acts of its era, and Saturday’s show puts the harmonies rather than spectacle at the center.
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Mark Wills
Saturday @ 8:00 p.m.
Mark Wills brings a concentrated dose of late-’90s and early-2000s country to the Wolf Den. His run of hits includes “Wish You Were Here,” “19 Somethin’,” “I Do (Cherish You),” “Don’t Laugh at Me” and “Back at One,” songs that alternated between radio-ready romance and storytelling with a little more weight behind it. Wills became a Grand Ole Opry member in 2019, and Saturday’s Mohegan Sun performance is free for guests 21 and older.
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Blizzard of Ozz
Saturday @ 8:00 p.m.
Blizzard of Ozz zeroes in on one of heavy metal’s most consequential partnerships: Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Randy Rhoads. Rather than treating Ozzy’s four-decade solo career as one giant greatest-hits bin, the tribute puts particular weight on the early material that produced “Crazy Train,” “Mr. Crowley” and “Flying High Again,” while still reaching into the larger Ozzy and Black Sabbath catalog. The band finally gets its Rathskeller date after weather wiped out the original July show.
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Alessandra Gonzalez & Daniel Villegas: Salsa on the Thames
Sunday @ 1:00 & 3:00 p.m.
This may be the weekend’s most unusual live-music venue: a refurbished former U.S. Navy utility boat moving through New London Harbor. Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Alessandra Gonzalez and Colombian recording artist, poet and conga player Daniel Villegas bring their shared Latin and Nuyorican musical perspective aboard for two one-hour cruises celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. Instead of watching from a distant stage, passengers share the boat with the performers while the Thames River waterfront moves past.
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Casey Rivers & High Plains
Sunday @ 1:00 p.m.
Grey Sail’s Fall Market comes with its own soundtrack from Casey Rivers & High Plains, an elemental folk and Americana band performing while the Westerly brewery fills with local makers, food and the first hints of fall. The music is part of a free four-hour market spread across Grey Sail’s indoor-outdoor Canal Street property, so this one works as an easy Sunday-afternoon stop rather than a formal concert.
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Take It To The Bridge Trio
Sunday @ 4:00 p.m.
Take It To The Bridge usually arrives as an eight-piece party band with enough personnel to throw funk, soul, rock and pop around a room. Sunday pares that operation down to three musicians for a looser, stripped-back afternoon at the Charlestown Rathskeller. The smaller format leaves more breathing room in familiar songs while keeping the groove that made the full band a regional party favorite. Admission is free, with advance RSVPs requested.
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Swing Band Benefit Concert
Sunday @ 5:00 p.m.
Three big bands share one stage, and the UNITED is making room for dancing. Time and Changes Jazz Orchestra, As Time Goes By and the Sean Nelson Jazz Orchestra will move through swing and big-band music associated with names including Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and Count Basie. Better still, the concert has a purpose beyond nostalgia: proceeds benefit the UNITED Music School and music programs in the Westerly and New London public schools.
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