So some of you know and others will be surprised to learn that I grew up in Nashville, TN. Which might be why y’all occasionally slips into my vernacular. First of all, yes I know Nashville is super cool now. Trust me when I say it was very different when I spent the first 18 years of my life there. Also, I first learned about NBe Nashville I get to visit as an adult is music. Music everywhere and about 80% of it amazing.
Now, it was pretty hard growing up in Music City as someone with no musical talent whatsoever. I went to high school with kids whose parents were eplatinum artists and I was a theater kid who had to sit out the musical every spring. Despite having no sense of rhythm and actually being tone deaf, growing up in Nashville gave me a deep appreciation for music of all genres. And sitting on the grass or at a table in a small venue being a part of the communion that happens when rare talent meets appreciative audience is something I’ll never get tired of.
That’s the experience I’m chasing for the rest of this summer, and it turns out I don’t have to go far to find it. Some of it is fifteen minutes down the road on a bandstand that’s been standing since long before I stood in the corner of the Bluebird Cafe back in Nashville hoping no one would card me…or ask me to sing. Some of it means driving to a mountaintop tent, or southeast to the seacoast, or paying real money to stand on grass and watch someone famous. All of it is worth the trip. Here’s where I’m pointing the car.
The Big Lawns
Big concerts aren’t really my thing, but we do have one of the best venues for them right in our backyard. BankNH Pavilion in Gilford is where the Lakes Region goes when it wants an actual concert experience, the kind with a real sound system and $50 sweatshirts to commerate the tour and eight thousand of your closest strangers singing or shouting or dancing alongside you. The lineup for what’s left of the season is stacked.
Mumford & Sons play Saturday, August 15th at 7:30 PM, with Medium Build opening. Koe Wetzel comes through the night before, Friday the 14th at 6:45 PM, with Shane Smith & The Saints. Zach Top gets two nights at the end of the month, Friday the 28th with Marcus King and Saturday the 29th solo, both at 7 PM, if you want to see what a twenty-something is doing to modern country music that actually sounds like it has roots. I considered breaking my no big venues rule for Ella Langely who played here a couple weeks ago, but waited too long and couldn’t get a ticket.
September opens with Parker McCollum on the 4th, then ZZ Top with George Thorogood & The Destroyers on the 5th, then Tedeschi Trucks Band with Lukas Nelson on the 6th, which might be the best three nights in a row this venue books all year. Hayley Williams plays Monday, September 14th at 7 PM, and Dan + Shay close out the run on Friday the 18th at 7:30, touring behind their new record.
Lawn seats are the move if the forecast holds. Bring a real chair, not a beach towel. You’ll thank yourself around hour two. There’s a real tailgate culture before shows and anyone driving through Gilford at 5 pm when the parking opens or 11 pm when the town insists shows be done by knows that you’ll be part of a crawl of headlights through Alton and back to 16 to get anywhere. Its worth it.
What’s Already Yours
Before you spend a dollar, know that some of the best music this region produces all summer is free, and most of us who live here forget to go.
Wolfeboro’s Cate Park Bandstand runs its concert series on Saturday evenings through August, 7 to 9 PM, right on the Lake Winnipesaukee waterfront. Bring a blanket. It’s weather-dependent with no rain date, so check the Friends of the Wolfeboro Community Bandstand site before you drive over.
Alton Bay has its own bandstand series most weeks through the end of August, evenings on the water. Laconia runs two things worth knowing: Concerts on Canal, on Canal Street, and the Belknap Mill’s Arts in the Park series on Friday nights. Center Harbor’s Bicentennial Bandstand hosts the Center Harbor Town Band on Fridays, which somebody once told me is the closest thing the Lakes Region has to the Boston Pops, and having heard them, I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. Wakefield does concerts at Turntable Park next to the railroad tracks but their last one is tomorrow 8/12 (Ricky and the Giants).
None of this requires a ticket. It requires showing up.
Under the Tent in the Clouds
Great Waters is celebrating its 30th season this year, and if you haven’t been to a show at Castle in the Clouds, you’re missing one of the actual signature experiences of living here. Concerts in the Clouds happens under a white tent at the Castle in Moultonborough, with the Belknap range doing most of the scenery work as the sun goes down. Concerts in Town happens at Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, right on the water. Both series run through August. Tickets and the current lineup are at greatwaters.org, and it’s worth checking now, because the good nights sell out.
Worth the Drive Southeast
If you’re willing to go as far as the Seacoast, (it’s only an hour, y’all) and I think by September you should be, there’s real music happening there too.
Shaggy plays Bernie’s Beach Bar in Hampton Beach on Thursday, August 27th at 8 PM, part of a Hot Radio Maine beach bash that will be exactly as unserious and fun as it sounds. Graham Nash, of The Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash, plays Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club in downtown Portsmouth on Tuesday, September 15th at 7:30, a career-spanning set in a room that used to be a 1905 YMCA and now has some of the best acoustics on this coast.
Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom closes out the season with Lee Brice on Sunday, September 20th at 8 PM, and Terry Fator, the ventriloquist and singer, on Sunday the 27th at 7. Both are the kind of show where you make a night of it, dinner on the water first, music after.
Up in the White Mountains
If you’re willing to go west and up, the White Mountains have their own claim on this stretch of summer.
The White Mountain Boogie N’ Blues Festival takes over Sugar Shack Campground in North Thornton August 14th through 16th, its 29th year running. This is not a small local thing. It’s a past national award winner for best blues festival in the country, and this year’s lineup includes Grammy winner Ruthie Foster, Southern Avenue, and Albert Cummings, plus a full weekend of camping, vendors, and a kids’ area if you’re bringing the family. If you go, go for the whole weekend. It’s built for that.
And if bagpipes count as music to your ear the way they do to mine, the NH Highland Games take over Loon Mountain in Lincoln September 18th through 20th, with massed pipe bands, Celtic and folk performers, and enough happening that you could lose an entire weekend up there without trying. Buy a kilt, or a shawl, and pretend you’re starring in the latest season of Outlander.
The Part Where I Say the Obvious Thing
There’s about six weeks left of outdoor music in this region before the tents come down and the bandstands go quiet until next June. I don’t think that’s a reason to be sad about it. I think it’s the reason to actually go.
And during that period, and throughout the winter, there is music to be found indoors and in unexpected corners all year round. One of my favorite “stop in when I’m driving by” venues is a small church in Tuftonboro that does a country music jam every Tuesday evening all year round. I take a thermos of something that may or may not be tea and settle into a pew and appreciate the talent. My neighbors do a bonfire every October that rivals any backyard jam session I attended growing up. And most of the restaurants who stay open year round bring in music at least once a week all winter.
If you’re new here, or thinking about being here, this is as good an introduction to the place as any real estate listing I could send you. This is what people are doing on a Tuesday in September, or a Saturday in August. They’re not indoors.
Here’s to finding the song that speaks to you.
🧭 Jenn
Keys to the Lakes
Psst…where are your favorite small venues in the region? DM me or comment below!
