An Evening with America
An Evening with AmericaThe year 2022 marks the 52th Anniversary of perennial classic-rock favorite, America. Founding members, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell (along with former band mate Dan Peek) met in high school in London in the late 1960s and quickly harmonized their way to the top of the charts on the strength of their signature song “A Horse With No Name.” America became a global household name and paved the way with an impressive string of hits following the success of their first #1 single. Forty plus years later, these friends are still making music together, touring the world and thrilling audiences with their timeless sound.Fan Experience packagesFront Row Package: $269• One front row ticket• “HITs” 40th Anniversary Edition CD• Holiday Harmony CD• Specially designed America tour shirt• America tote bag• Set of America guitar picks• America keychain bottle opener• Exclusive America VIP merchandise item• Commemorative VIP laminate• Commemorative ticket• VERY Limited availabilityVIP Tour Package: $215• “HITs” 40th Anniversary Edition CD• Holiday Harmony CD• Specially designed America tour shirt• America tote bag• Set of America guitar picks• America keychain bottle opener• Exclusive America VIP merchandise item • Commemorative VIP laminate• Commemorative ticket• Limited availability
Hard Day’s Night
Since 1996, Hard Day’s Night has been entertaining Fab Four fans across the country. Hailing from the Cleveland, the band is rated among the top national Beatles tribute groups performing today. Hard Day’s Night performs favorites from the entire Beatles catalog, complete with period instruments (including sitar) and several costume changes. The group appeared by invitation at Liverpool’s famous Cavern Club at part of International Beatle Week, and they have performed with Peter Noone & Herman’s Hermits, Billy J. Kramer, Badfinger’s Joey Molland, and former Beatle drummer Pete Best.”February is a big month for Beatle anniversaries – including their arrival in the U.S., the Ed Sullivan Show performance, and their first concert in America,” said Hard Day’s Night founder Frank Muratore, who plays Paul McCartney in the show. “Playing at The Kent Stage in February has become an annual tradition for us, and we look forward to seeing our fans at this great venue.”https://youtu.be/LEUEux0M3YkGeneral admission tickets are $15 in advance, $20 day of show. The show begins at 8 p.m., with doors opening at 7 p.m.
Todd Rundgren – Unpredictable Tour
A Wizard, A True Star. The title of Todd Rundgren’s 1973 solo album aptly sums up the contributions of this multi-faceted artist to state-of-the-art music. As a songwriter, video pioneer, producer, recording artist, computer software developer, conceptualist, and interactive artist (re-designated TR-i), Rundgren has made a lasting impact on both the form and content of popular music. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Rundgren began playing guitar as a teenager, going on to found and front The Nazz, the quintessential `60’s cult group. In 1969, he left the band to pursue a solo career, recording his debut offering, the legendary Runt. But it was 1972’s seminal Something/Anything?, on which he played all the instruments, sang all the vocal parts, and acted as his own producer, that catapulted Todd into the superstar limelight, prompting the press to unanimously dub him ‘Rock’s New Wunderkind’. It was followed by such landmark LPs as The Hermit of Mink Hollow and the above mentioned A Wizard, A True Star, as well as such hit singles as I Saw The Light, Hello It’s Me, Can We Still Be Friends, and Bang The Drum. In 1974, Todd formed Utopia, an entirely new approach to the concept of interactive musicianship, and embarked on an extensive round of touring and recording. Standout Utopia offerings included Oops! Wrong Planet, Adventures in Utopia, and Oblivion. Along the way, Utopia combined technical virtuosity and creative passion to create music that, for millions, defined the term “progressive rock.” Rundgren’s myriad production projects include albums by Patti Smith, Cheap Trick, Psychedelic Furs, Meatloaf, XTC, Grand Funk Railroad, and Hall And Oates. Rounding out his reputation as rock’s Renaissance Man, Rundgren composed all the music and lyrics for Joe Papp’s 1989 Off-Broadway production of Joe Orton’s Up Against It (the screenplay commissioned by The Beatles for what was meant to have been their third motion picture). He also has composed the music for a number of television series, including Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Crime Story. In 2012 Rundgren performed his iconic 1973 album A Wizard A True Star in concert in its entirety for the first time ever, and last year did the same with a double bill: Todd & Healing. His most recent studio album, GLOBAL, was released in April 2015; his latest studio album, White Knight, is set for release in Spring 2017. He continues to tour with Ringo Starr as an erstwhile member of the All-Starr Band, and to perform with symphony orchestras both domestically and internationally. Todd Rundgren – VIP Tour Package $199.00 – One premium reserved ticket -Collectible poster autographed by Todd Rundgren -Specially designed Todd Rundgren tote bag -Exclusive Todd Rundgren VIP enamel pin -Exclusive VIP merchandise item -Commemorative tour laminate
The Abrams
These days, a lot of what we experience has been carefully curated, filtered and targeted. It seems we’ve become desensitized by it, especially where every little social interaction and every mundane object is glossed up to look #instagood. But when The Abrams play live, what you see is what you get. Still in their 20s, they have the hard-earned ability of seasoned touring veterans. They perform with an explosive energy, honed over two decades of experience in front of audiences around the world. Their live show is the kind that can’t be whipped up over a few weeks in a rehearsal space. The Abrams make honest music. The country duo from Kingston, Ontario, are something of an anomaly, having performed at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry and embarked on repeated tours across multiple continents. With their acceptance of the Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin award in 2006, They were recognized as ambassadors for peace in the Middle East through music. All of this took place before they reached legal driving age. Their 18-year touring career has had a significant influence on their songwriting, which continues to have a lasting emotional impact with their fans across cultural divides, whether they are playing in a community hall in Texas, or at a world music festival in Israel. John and James’s most recent songs speak about experiences of love and loss, through good times and tough times, partly drawn from their long-term relationships with their wife and girlfriend respectively, who support them through the successes and difficulties that come with a touring lifestyle. As many are aware by now, The Abrams are the 4th generation in a line of songwriters, performers and recording artists in their family, who instilled in them the ability to tell stories that speak to the hearts of their fans. The result is a new album of songs that are both deeply personal, and widely relatable, led by the first single Sounds Good To Me, produced by Matt Rovey (Zac Brown Band, Alan Jackson). “Sounds Good To Me is all about the little things. The real and honest things. The simple moments in life that end up being everything we live for, especially with the people we love.” While John and James have gone through many different stages of their career, two things have always been true: their deep and intrinsic love of country music, and the fact that they cannot remember life before they started making country music. It has simply always been there, and they have always been doing it. Knowing what they can accomplish in the studio, and how to translate that to the stage, The Abrams have taken their place alongside Canada’s best-known country music stars. To put it plainly, The Abrams are as authentic as it gets. There is nothing to hide here. No tricks. No gimmicks. No smoke and mirrors. No filters. The Abrams just make good honest music.
Teddy Robb
TEDDY ROBB Saturday June 4, 2022 8pm show, 7pm doors $15.00 all seats reserved Perfecting his craft in Rocky Mountain ski lodges and Nashville’s Honky Tonks, Teddy Robb has a laid-back voice that grabs you like the Colorado winter air and wraps you up in a blanket with someone you love next to a warm fire. A native of Akron, Ohio, Teddy grew up loving the outdoors. He fished, hiked, and played football through college in Ohio, however, his passion turned to music the moment he heard George Strait’s “Troubadour.” That was it, the decision was made. He called his parents, packed his bags and hit the road. Teddy spent time in Colorado playing music to support his snowboarding habit before making the final move to Nashville. He was signed to Monument Records in 2018. Teddy’s debut single, “Really Shouldn’t Drink Around You,” written by multi-GRAMMY Award-winning songwriters Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, along with chart-topping songwriter and Old Dominion bandmember, Trevor Rosen, has over 50 million worldwide streams to date and shipped to country radio last year. Teddy performed the song to a national audience on NBC’s TODAY Show and his music has been written about in the pages of Rolling Stone, Billboard and more. In April 2020 Teddy released his self-titled, debut EP. The five song project includes “Really Shouldn’t Drink Around You,” as well as previously released tracks “Lead Me On” and “Tell Me How,” which have collectively been streamed over 80 million times. New tracks on the EP include “Me On You” and “Good Love & Good Whisky.” The project was produced by Shane McAnally, Ben Fowler, and Matt McGinn
Bluffett- The Tribute to Jimmy Buffett Show – Fundraiser Benefit for United Way of Portage County
United Way to Celebrate 50 Anniversary in Delayed Event Since the COVID pandemic threw a wet blanket over the original plans, United Way of Portage County will soon – finally – get to celebrate its 50th Anniversary. The agency passed that milestone in December 2020…but shutdowns and restrictions resulting from the pandemic put the brakes on any festivities. With that crisis in the rear-view mirrors, United Way is joining with Kent Stage for a special concert celebration. On Saturday, June 11, the show features “Bluffet,” a Jimmy Buffet tribute band that brings eight performers to the stage along with special props and Conga lines. Joining Bluffet for the night are local favorites Blue Taxi Duo. The concert happens at 7:00PM June 11…and special ticket packages are available. Proceeds benefit United Way of Portage County. For more information, go online to the Kent Stage: www. https://kentstage.org/event/bluffett-the-tribute-to-jimmy-buffett-show-fundraiser-benefit-for-united-way-of-portage-county. BLUFFETT featuring The Son Of A Sailor Band is a 100%-live-on-stage Tribute to the legendary Jimmy Buffett & The Coral Reefer Band! This show will have the conga-lines moving with an amazing EIGHT PERFORMERS ON STAGE! Complete with beach-type props and costuming, you will believe this IS the real deal!! The amazing look and vocals of Larry Pearson will have you convinced you have been transported to “Margaritaville”! HEAR ALL YOUR FAVORITE HITS LIKE:”Volcano” “Son Of A Sailor” “Margaritavile” “Cheeseburger In Paradise” “Come Monday” “Pencil Thin Moustache” – “Sea Cruise” “Havana Dreaming” “Boat Drinks” “He Went To Paris” “Captain And The Kid” “Changes In Latitude, Changes In Attitude” “A Pirate Looks At 40” “Fins” and Many more!
An Evening with Jordan Rudess
Voted “Best Keyboardist of All Time” (Music Radar Magazine), Jordan Rudess is best known as the keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire for platinum-selling Grammy- nominated prog rock band, Dream Theater. He trained at the world-renowned Juilliard School of Music, where he first studied as a child prodigy at age nine. As a teen, he defected to synthesizers in a classic act of rock ’n’ roll rebellion. In 1994, Keyboard readers voted him “best new talent,” and since then has become the universally acknowledged heir to the shredding throne of such prog-rock royalty as Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman. He is renowned for his unique fusion of classical technique and influences with rock sensibilities.
The Wallflowers
The WallflowersFor the past 30 years, the Jakob Dylan-led act has stood as one of rock’s most dynamic and purposeful bands – a unit dedicated to and continually honing a sound that meshes timeless songwriting and storytelling with a hard-hitting and decidedly modern musical attack. That signature style has been present through the decades, baked into the grooves of smash hits like 1996’s Bringing Down the Horse as well as more recent and exploratory fare like 2012’s Glad All Over. Even so, in recent years, Dylan – the Wallflowers’ founding singer, songwriter and guitarist – has repeatedly stepped outside of his band, first with a pair of more acoustic and rootsy records, 2008’s Seeing Things and 2010’s Women + Country, and then with the 2018 film Echo in the Canyon and the accompanying soundtrack, which saw him collaborate with a host of artists classic and contemporary, from Neil Young and Eric Clapton to Beck and Fiona Apple. But while it’s been nine long years since we’ve heard from the group with whom he first made his mark, the Wallflowers are silent no more. And Dylan always knew they’d return. “The Wallflowers is much of my life’s work,” he says simply. That life’s work continues with Exit Wounds, the brand-new Wallflowers studio offering. The collection marks the first new Wallflowers material since Glad All Over. And while the wait has been long, the much-anticipated record finds the band’s signature sound – lean, potent and eminently entrancing – intact, even as Dylan surrounds himself with a fresh cast of musicians. Which, the front man is quick to point out, is not all that unusual. “The Wallflowers has always been a vehicle for me to make great rock ‘n’ roll records,” he says. “And sometimes the lineup that makes the record transfers over into touring, and sometimes it doesn’t. But my intention is always to make the Wallflowers record I want to make, using the musicians I have beside me.” And to Dylan, a band, even one with a constantly shifting lineup, is a sacred thing. “I’ve always been a believer in collaboration,” he says, “and no matter who I’m playing with I’ve always tried to include them very heavily. Otherwise, why would they be around? Because I do think bands, whether it’s a long standing group or just five people who are working together for that one stretch of time, make better rock ‘n’ roll records than solo artists.” For Dylan, Exit Wounds is the next chapter in a career devoted to chasing – and capturing – that magic. “I came up in an era of great rock ‘n’ roll bands making great music, and it’s the way I always imagined I would do it one day,” he says.Marc Lee Shannon to open. Marc Lee Shannon is a Rustbelt songwriter from Ohio’s “North Coast,” one with years of midwest “fall down, get up, dust off, and do it again” determination. A champion of everyday heroes, his soulful, melodic music chronicles the struggles and redemption of the lost, the found, the deserted, and the delivered.A veteran studio and touring guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Shannon’s more than 30-year career has taken him from his hometown of Akron, Ohio to Los Angeles and back again. He left home at 19 to attend the Guitar Institute of Hollywood, after which he quickly found himself playing with many top country, rock, and soul artists.
BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet
BeauSoleil avec Michael DoucetNEW DATE – Saturday August 27th! For the past 45 years, BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet has been making some of the most potent and popular Cajun music on the planet. Born out of the rich Acadian ancestry of its members, and created and driven by bandleader Michael Doucet’s spellbinding fiddle playing and soulful vocals, BeauSoleil is notorious for bringing even the most staid audience to its feet. BeauSoleil’s distinctive sound derives from the distilled spirits of New Orleans jazz, blues rock, folk, swamp pop, Zydeco, country and bluegrass, captivating listeners from the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, to Carnegie Hall, then all the way across the pond to Richard Thompson’s Meltdown Festival in England. Their most recent album and the 25th in their 45-year career, was titled “From Bamako to Carencro,” alluding the cultural and migratory connection between Bamako, in Mali, West Africa, and Louisiana (symbolized in name by the Lafayette, LA suburb of Carencro), a connection that draws a sonic bloodline back to BeauSoleil’s roots. Since becoming the first Cajun band to win a GRAMMY with “L’amour Ou La Folie” (their Traditional Folk Album – 1998) and then a second Grammy in 2010, “Live at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival”, BeauSoleil has garnered many accolades, including twelve GRAMMY nominations. They are regular guests on Garrison Keillor’s NPR show A Prairie Home Companion, where Keillor has dubbed them as “the best Cajun band in the world,” and their music is so integral to the Cajun culture that they have been featured on the New Orleans–based hit HBO program “Treme”. Critics unanimously agree that it is “bon temps, every time they play,” (New York Times). In addition to their show, Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet created their own Christmas performance, “14 Cajun Christmas”. A detour from the routine path of holiday musical fare, “14 Cajun Christmas” presents his beloved ensemble performing selections from their rich catalog alongside Bayou flavored versions of classic holiday tunes. Expect both the familiar and some surprises for a ”cool-yule” of an evening! Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!
Keillor and Company
RESCHEDULED DATE = JULY 28 @ 8PMKeillor & Company is an evening of stand-up, storytelling, audience song, and poetry starring Garrison Keillor and featuring pianist Dan Chouinard and vocalist Prudence Johnson. There are sung sonnets, limericks and musical jokes, and the thread that runs through it is the beauty of growing old. Despite the inconvenience, old age brings the contentment of LESS IS MORE. Your mistakes and big ambitions are behind you, nothing left to prove, and small things give you great pleasure because that’s what’s left. (“I was unhappy in college because it was a requirement for an intellectual, but then I went into show business and discovered that people won’t pay to be made unhappy, their kids will do it for free.) There is the News from Lake Wobegon, a town booming with new entrepreneurs, makers of artisanal firewood and gourmet meatloaf, breeders of composting worms, and dogs trained to do childcare. But some things endure, such as the formation of the Living Flag on Main Street, citizens in tight formation wearing red, white or blue caps, and Mr. Keillor among them, standing close to old neighbors, Myrtle Krebsbach (“Truckstop”) and Julie Christensen (“Bruno, The Fishing Dog”) and Clint Bunsen. And an a cappella sing-along with the audience singing from memory an odd medley of patriotic songs, pop standards, hymns, and ending with the national anthem. Dan Chouinard is a St. Paul-based honky-tonk pianist, concert soloist and accompanist, street accordionist, sing-along enabler, Italian and French teacher, and bicycling vagabond. He’s been writer and host of a number of live history with-music shows broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio and Twin Cities Public Television. He played on a dozen live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion plus a half dozen APHC cruises, and served as rehearsal pianist for Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, and Lindsay Lohan on the 2005 movie. He’s featured on a number of recordings with APHC regulars Peter Ostroushko (RIP), Prudence Johnson, and Maria Jette. Prudence Johnson’s long and happy career as a singer, writer, and teacher has landed her on the musical theater stage, in two feature films (A River Runs Through It, A Prairie Home Companion), on a national radio show (several long stints on A Prairie Home Companion), and on concert stages across North America and occasionally Europe. She has released more than a dozen recordings, including albums dedicated to the music of Hoagy Carmichael and Greg Brown, and a collection of international lullabies.