The Lyric Opera of Chicago will have plenty for those who like their operas dark and deep and full of danger. The season that opened Saturday night (September 28) will […]

As I stood inside the photo pit, waiting for Dodie to come on, I heard a girl behind me say that she’d never been this excited for a show before. […]

Singer-songwriter Josie Dunne is going places. From our shared hometown of La Grange, to giving her career a jumpstart in Nashville, to touring around the country, she’s on a fast-track […]

Bruce Springsteen’s legions of fans worldwide don’t need a reason to play his music. We listen to it every day. At home, while walking, driving, biking or breathing.  But his […]

There’s a noticeably chiller vibe when I show up to Douglas Park for day 3 of Riot Fest 2019. If Friday was like the final moments of the last day […]

I’ve been a Dashboard Confessional fan since I was 12, listening to their albums in my room as a moody teenager, door shut, scribbling their sad girl lyrics onto notebooks […]

The Mass in b-minor is often described as Johann Sebastian Bach’s valedictory masterpiece. It certainly received a masterly treatment by the Music of the Baroque Chorus and Orchestra, whose season-opening […]

If he didn’t have family back east, Joe Pug would live with us in the Windy City. “They’re fucking up shit in the rest of the country. Chicago’s still got […]

These days, psychedelia has crept back into music like it never left the ‘60s and ‘70s. We have Tame Impala playing arenas. We have Drugdealer sounding best on vinyl. We […]

My second day at Riot Fest was another one of firsts—first time that I used the port-o-potty at the festival, first time I rode a divvy bike into oncoming traffic, […]

I’ll get this out of the way up front. I’m a Riot Fest virgin. In fact I have only been to one festival in my life, when I covered Pitchfork […]

I admit I always flinch a little when I read articles describing Riot Fest as a punk and metal festival. Sure, the booking ethos behind the band choices is driven […]