Snowball Showdown 2!!
THE MAIN EVENT: TRAFFIC DEATHViolent punk crossover from Des Moineshttps://trafficdeath.bandcamp.com/music VS. M.A.N.Non stop raging, punky grindcore and stupid dancing from Lincoln, NEhttps://mantheband.bandcamp.com/UNDERCARD:PIT LORD BBQ Death Metal from Davenport, IAhttps://pitlordbbq.bandcamp.com/ VS.TEHOM sludge / death metal / black metal from Omaha, NEhttps://tehomne.bandcamp.com/album/ep-2023 QUADE Iowa punk/grindcore/power violence/hardcorehttps://quade1.bandcamp.com/ VS. DISREPAIRD-beat raw punk from Lincolnhttps://disrepairpunk.bandcamp.comGREG WHEELER & THE POLY MALL COPS Manic garage punk slime from Des Noise, IAhttps://polymallcops.bandcamp.com/ VS.TREES WITH EYESA couple scuzzy punk fucks from Omaha, NEhttps://treeswitheyes402.bandcamp.com/FUNERAL DRUGSviolent riffs from Omahahttps://www.instagram.com/funeraldrugs402/VSPIGSTYEdeath/grind from Lincolnhttps://www.instagram.com/_pigstye_lincolnne_grind
Railroad Earth
For over two decades, Railroad Earth has captivated audiences with gleefully unpredictable live shows and eloquent and elevated studio output. The group introduced its signature sound on 2001’s The Black Bear Sessions. Between selling out hallowed venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO, they’ve launched the longstanding annual Hangtown Music Festival in Placerville, CA and Hillberry: The Harvest Moon Festival in Ozark, AR—both running for a decade-plus. Sought after by legends, the John Denver Estate tapped them to put lyrics penned by the late John Denver to music on the 2019 vinyl EP, Railroad Earth: The John Denver Letters. Beyond tallying tens of millions of streams, the collective have earned widespread critical acclaim from David Fricke of Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Glide Magazine, and NPR who assured, “Well-versed in rambling around, as you might expect from a band named after a Jack Kerouac poem, the New Jersey-built jam-grass engine Railroad Earth has let no moss grow under its rustic wheels.”
K-POP Night
AGES 18+ Dance to your favorite KPOP songs all night long at The Waiting Room! Party all night to your favorite hits from BTS, BLACKPINK, Stray Kids, TWICE, NCT, NewJeans, and more! Local dance cover groups will also be taking the stage throughout the night.
MERKULES
PSYCHOSTICK & GALACTIC EMPIRE
Christmas With The Celts
Top Irish musicians have united with the finest Nashville players to create the new sound and energy of The Celts. TC perform a fresh hybrid of Irish Americana which combines their own rootsy originals and tight vocal harmonies with fiery Irish Trad instrumentals. The Celts are award winning lead singer/fiddler Maggie Lander, Ric Blair on vocals, guitar, piano, and bodhran, Patrick D’Arcy (U2, Sting, Josh Groban) from Dublin, Ireland on pipes, whistle, mandolin, Fiachra O’Regan (Waterboys, Bill Whelan) from Connemara, Ireland on pipes and tenor banjo, and Matt Menefee (Bruce Hornsby, Mumford & Sons) on 5 string banjo/mandolin, dobro, and vocals. The Celts pack concert halls around the world including The Grand Ole Opry, The Ryman Auditorium, The Lincoln Center, Theaters, and Performing Arts Centers. They have made numerous appearances on WSM Radio, NPR, PBS shows like The Bluegrasss Underground, Music City Roots, and Woodsongs Radio Hour. Band leader Ric Blair credits much of their success to their exposure on PBS. The group has shared the stage with Vince Gill, Cathy Jordan (Dervish), Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh (Altan), Ricky Skaggs, Tim O’Brien, Patty Loveless, just to name a few. The new TC record entitled Traveling On with guest musicians Jeff Taylor (Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, etc) on Accordion, Byron House (Robert Plant, Alison Krauss) on bass and Natalya Kay (Gaelic Storm) on fiddle is now available on Spotify and all platforms.
Elton & Billy
Good Life Winterfest
with performances from MCHNZ, Etched In Embers, Full Force Face First, Tanner Simrell, Virgin Mary Pistol Grip, Hooligan Gentleman, Wake Sessions, Dream Aura, Left On Red, Of The Skies, Tag Along, Names Without Numbers
Jeff Tweedy
Jeff Tweedy, founding member and frontman of Wilco, is one of contemporary music’s most respected songwriters and performers. In addition to 13 Wilco albums, he has released five solo albums – most recently, his 30-track “magnum opus” (New York Times) Twilight Override. This tour, featuring his sons and longtime collaborators, offers a rare chance to experience songs from across his expansive catalog and step inside the world of Twilight Override. When you align yourself with creativity and creation, you align yourself with something that other people call God. And if you align yourself with creation, you have automatically taken a side against destruction. You’re on the side of creation. And that does a lot to quell the impulse to destroy. Is the world getting darker? Sure feels like it. What is it? Is it the pervasive nagging toothache of dread that comes with witnessing the disintegration of a country that you thought you knew and understood? A home you still love with a love that could never be taken away, regardless of how painful that love has become. That sense of decline is hard to ignore, and it must at least be a part of the shroud I’m trying to uncover. The twilight of an empire seems like a good enough jumping-off point when one is jumping into the abyss. Twilight sure is a pretty word, though. And the world is filled with former empires, so maybe that’s not where this dissonance is coming from entirely. Could be how old I’ve managed to become without warning. What ever it is out there (or in there) squeezing this ennui into my day, it’s fucking overwhelming. It’s difficult to just ignore. Twilight Override is my effort to overwhelm it right back. My effort to engulf this encroaching nighttime (nightmare) of the soul. What I really want to do is grow my heart big enough to love everyone. And if I want a heart to grow big enough to meet this moment, it requires something expansive. “Like a TRIPLE record!?”,you ask? Yes! Like a goddamn triple record! I mean…What else do I have but my songs and my family and my friends? What else do any of us have to keep the lights on? How else can I generate my own light? To me any song, no matter what the subject matter, can be a point of light and that’s one of the reasons I try and make so many of them. They all have the potential, even the heaviest music on the Earth has the potential, to lift someone up. This sounds like a Hallmark card, but it rocks harder than a Hallmark card. I’m aware the day ends and the sun sets no matter how hard we wish for it to lift itself back out of the ocean. So I guess what we’re really talking about is time. In a way these three records represent the past, present and future. The darkness comes and goes. But the clock keeps plowing ahead. We all want more. But not more of this particular shitty time. It feels like the clock is camped out at the worst part of the day. Everyone stuck saying goodbye to the future they woke up to. Waiting for it to get dark enough to dream up a new day. Truthfully, I’ve been doing this for a long time. And I’m not going anywhere. This is the stuff that works for me. I can’t sing and be afraid at the same time. And dreaming at twilight isn’t forbidden. Not quite a daydream and nowhere near a nightmare. Twilight dreaming is a lovely workaround. Killing time with key changes and harmonies. Feel free to join us all here. Not singing into the void or at the void. Just singing. Feeling good. Together. It will do you no harm. Sharing this music with the world is the best I can do.
Mei Semones
“No second-guessing, no overthinking. The way I want to live my life is by doing the things that are important to me, and I think everyone should live that way,” says Mei Semones of her strengthened self-assurance. Through continuously honing in on her signature fusion of indie rock, bossa nova, jazz and chamber pop in a way that highlights her technical prowess on guitar, the 24-year-old Brooklyn-based songwriter and guitarist is quickly establishing herself as an innovative musical force. Since the release of her acclaimed 2024 Kabutomushi EP, a series of lushly orchestrated reflections on love in its many stages, Mei has gone on to tour extensively across the US, cultivate a dedicated following, and write and record her highly anticipated debut album, Animaru. Inspired by the Japanese pronunciation of the word “animal” in Japanese, Animaru is the embodiment of Mei’s deeper trust in her instincts – a collection of musically impressive tracks that see Mei sounding more adventurous, more vulnerable and more confident than ever before. Mei’s newfound assertiveness comes in part from her experiences in the past year, as 2024 was a transformative year for the Mei Semones band. They shared bills with the likes of Liana Flores, Elephant Gym and Kara Jackson, among others, and Mei transitioned to doing music full-time. Amidst the frequent touring, Mei and her five-piece band recorded the album in the summer of 2024 at Ashlawn Recording Company, a farm studio in Connecticut operated by their friend Charles Dahlke. To these sessions, she brought a batch of tracks that, not unlike Kabutomushi, are sophisticated declarations of non-romantic love: love of life (“Dumb Feeling”), love of family (“Zarigani”), love of music and her guitar (“Tora Moyo”). Animaru exemplifies Mei’s enchantingly wide range as a songwriter and musician, including some of the most challenging and most straightforward songs Mei has ever written. Though her music might inherently evoke feelings of romance and softness, the crux of the album lies in Mei and her band’s skillful balance of tension and release. Often within individual tracks, there will be moments of pared-back acoustic guitar adorned by Mei’s infectious vocalizations that, in a moment’s notice, transform into orchestral swells of sweeping strings and complex guitar rhythms. Album opener “Dumb Feeling” is a prime example, a bossa/samba blend complete with indie rock sensibilities in the choruses as Mei details her contentment with her life in New York City. Mei actively seeks out musical challenges throughout Animaru, like on “I can do what I want,” the album’s most technically ambitious track. But she still manages to make the quickly cascading guitar harmonics and odd meters sound like a breeze to play, her breathy, lilting voice cutting through the track’s energetic dynamics. It epitomizes the album as a whole – she sings of doing things her own way, on her own terms, in hopes of inspiring others to make the same active switch in their own lives. Animaru, the debut album by Mei Semones, is out on May 2, 2025, on Bayonet Records.