Well, here we are in 2017, and don’t you know it, it will be 2018 before you know it. I know, I know, don’t say things like that, but, as some folks say, it’s better than the alternative. The holidays are mostly over, so let’s get right back to seeing what’s going on in the live music scene in Springfield.
We have some time to coast here as bars and clubs and bands and musicians get back into the swing of things. Sometimes the Pub Crawl looks thin, but only because of the holiday hangtime that seems to happen after the break. Often you’ll find music is out there, just that it hasn’t made the listings due to the frenzy of the season, and some places just take a little break in January. Taking a good glance at our pages shows we have not a lot, but what is there is of a quality worthy of a listen and a gander.
Thursday the Devin Clemons Band (by way of Ashland, by the way) takes the Curve Inn stage to drum up some modern country. DCB is making some noise and getting heard from here to Nashville and points between, singing about life in the rural areas, meaning beer, trucks, girls and other stuff associated with living in a bucolic wonderland. Catch them on the rise.
A great way to start the New Year is with tradition. This week, one of our best traditions, live music every Friday evening at Robbie’s sponsored by the Springfield Area Arts Council, meets up with one of our best musicians, trumpet player Frank Parker. Always a casual and cool place to be, don’t forget to support this keen and long-running weekly gig involving many of our finest blues and jazz music makers.
Norb Andy’s (oh man, it feels good to see that name involved with live music again) continues a musical march this weekend with a couple of established names that Springfield folks may not know. On Friday, singer-songwriter-guitarist Stacy M. Doty and harmony vocalist Wendy Dexter play, bringing Stacy’s many years of music business performances to the stage. He’s written some Nashville hits, spent time in Music City, and now entertains us with his good music, a lifetime in the making. Saturday night King T’z brings a band of renown members of some of central Illinois’ best-loved and bestremembered groups together for some blues and more. Trust me here, and just go up and ask each band guy about his music history and prepare to be wowed. Then sit back and listen and be wowed all over again.
Old Friends, the duo of Jerry “Muttonhead” Erickson and Bruce Horn, indeed fit the moniker bestowed upon them, as they started playing together as teenagers and now they are much older. Otherwise known as members of a fantastic band of successful veteran musicians based in Decatur called The Fabulous Hoedads, Jerry and Bruce admit they don’t know what they’ll do until they get there, but they do promise to know what they’re doing as they are doing it. See them perform like the old friends they are from 8 to 11 on Saturday night at Walnut Street Winery in Rochester.
Outside the bar scene, Elvis Himselvis celebrates the birthday of Elvis Presley with a full-band concert and show at the Hoogland Center for the Arts on Saturday, Jan. 7. If he were still alive (and maybe he is), the King would turn 82 on Jan. 8, 2017.
With that thought, let’s look forward to a pleasant, if not entirely happy, new year.
Contact Tom Irwin at tirwin@illinoistimes.com.
