We’ve got Campfire Festival and Boston Calling to look forward to this weekend, and thank goodness for that, because the local music calendar on this spring-to-summer stretch has been feeling a little brittle lately.
Big “plug & play” annual events have turned up missing in 2025. First the Rock N Roll Rumble bowed out with a brief note about “resetting.” Then the Nice Fest said it was “hitting pause.” That’s a lot of local musicians left home alone to wash their hair on a Saturday night. Both events vow to be back in 2026, but half of all marriages end in divorce, so we know what vows are worth.
There’s an opportunity for enterprising individuals in the local music scene to fill that void at the end of July typically occupied by the four-day Nice behemoth …
In fact, an email landed in my inbox the other day, talking up a new local happening called Someday Fest, a free one-day music and arts festival that will take place on June 7 at the Boston Figurative Art Center. The PR copy stated that Someday aims to “fill the absence of Nice, a Fest” and “place Somerville’s truly DIY scene on the map.” The music lineup should be announced by the time this column appears in print.
The timing and scale of Someday don’t quite stack up to a Nice replacement. But Nice doesn’t need to be replaced. Three more one-day local fests scattered throughout the summer months will platform the same amount of local artists. Someday Fest is a great start. I’ll be checking event listings and watching my inbox for other live music events that will pick up the rest of the slack.
If you’re feeling adventurous, maybe this is the summer you head out of town for a multiday music event. Levitate Festival (July 12-13) draws a good crowd in Marshfield. The Newport Folk Festival (July 25-27) is sold out, but tickets are still available for the Newport Jazz Festival (Aug. 1-3). Portland, Maine, hosts two interesting fests at the start of August, Back Cove (Aug. 2-3) and, if you missed Guster at last year’s Somerville Porchfest, catch them at Guster’s On The Ocean (Aug. 8-10). And maybe this is the year I go camping with the heavy metal wookiees at RPM Fest (Aug. 29-31), deep in the dark forests of Western Massachusetts?
Like Gwyneth Paltrow always says: “When one door closes, another opens.” Walk on through.
Hit this
Friday: Spo, Linnea’s Garden, Troll 2, The Jacklights (Middle East, Cambridge)
Old skool rock ’n’ roll in the old skool rock ’n’ roll digs of The Middle East. Shades of cyber punk, glam punk, folk punk and melodic punk, in that order. Actually, I’m a little iffy on the “cyber punk” descriptor for Spo, but I know the outfit wrote music for the in-game radio station of the video game Cyber Punk 2077. In fact, their video game “record” went video game “gold” in the fictional setting of Night City, which is pretty cool even if it doesn’t get you invited to the IRL Grammy’s.
Saturday: Morton Subotnick (MIT Bartos Theater, Cambridge)
Electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick will perform live on the third and final day of a three-day celebration of his legacy at MIT. It’s nearly impossible to overstate the magnitude of his impact and influence on the American and international scene of electronic music. His groundbreaking contributions date at least as far back as his debut album “Silver Apples of the Moon” (1967). If you can pull yourself away from Avril Lavigne at Boston Calling on the same night, head across the river to witness a legend in the flesh. Subotnick being 92 years of age, you’re not likely to get another chance.
Wednesday: Christopher Owens, Sean Nicholas Savage (The Rockwell, Somerville)
Local booking outfit Get To The Gig Boston might have hit the pause button on Nice Fest, but its one-off show schedule is packed as usual. This bill is a gem. I refuse to put Christopher Owens in the “nostalgia” bucket, because his solo material stands on its own merits, but no doubt he sells more tickets when a little birdy sits on your shoulder and tweets that he was the frontman for Girls. The San Francisco band released two perfect LPs, one perfect EP and looked like a slam dunk to be a chart-topping, headlining fixture on the indie rock scene for the next 15 years or so. Then Girls suddenly disbanded – “at the peak of their powers,” as the saying goes. Not sure why. Owens put his golden voice and songwriting flair to work on solo ventures good enough to almost make you forget what might have been. Opener Sean Nicholas Savage is one of a kind. Show up early.
Live: Jabberbob at Cantab Lounge
While the Celtics were dying an ignominious death on the jumbo television upstairs at Cantab Lounge, a night of live and local music unfolded in the Underground last Friday.
The release of Jabberbob’s EP “I Don’t Have to Do Anything” was a cause for celebration. And the number of musicians in the Jabberbob ensemble was a cause for wonder. Maybe nine or 10? I’ve been to my share of shows with less bodies in the audience, never mind the stage. Jabberbob enjoyed a full house.
The extra hands were needed to realize the vision of Jacob Baron, the singer-songwriter behind the headlining act, whose piano-driven compositions sweep up the loose debris of jazz, chamber pop, soul and funk into the same musical dustpan. No notes left behind.
Opener Max Weigert set an interactive tone early with a sing-along inspired by his experience teaching toddlers, and the polylinguist Riffindots picked up the baton with an act that skated the line between Dadaist standup routine and standard-issue folk rock. Earrings were for sale at the merch table. I didn’t win the raffle. We all filtered upstairs at the end of the show to learn that the Celtics’ reign as NBA league champions had come to an official close.
Welcome to Palookaville.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
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