BELFAST – A beloved keystone of Maine’s musical landscape is back.

The All Roads Music Festival is making its return to Belfast, bringing together scores of Maine musicians in celebration of the state’s vibrant music scene. The festival takes place over two days – May 20 and 21 – and features some of the very best that Maine has to offer. Unfolding across four different venues, All Roads promises to be a great time for any music lover. Tickets and more information can be obtained at the festival’s website at www.allroadsmusicfest.org.

The previous All Roads – the fifth in all – took place back in 2019. The circumstances of the pandemic meant that both the 2020 and 2021 incarnations of the festival were cancelled. Now, we’re just days away from the return here in 2022.

And as per usual, it’s a hell of a bill.

There are bands and artists familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of Maine’s current scene. We’re talking Lady Lamb, The Mallett Brothers Band, Dave Gutter, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers – talented, inventive musicians bringing their immense gifts together as part of the full-on sonic celebration that is All Roads.

There will be music from across all genres – whatever you like, you’re almost certainly going to be able to find it on one festival stage or another. In addition, All Roads is playing host to the always-wildly-successful Maine Songwriters Circle, where a group of talented songwriters get together and share a little of their collected collective wisdom.

Now, this isn’t to say that EVERY act is from Maine – there are some outliers here and there – but the reality is that even those that are “from away” are very much in keeping with the spirit of camaraderie that marks this event. It’s a spirit that is even more apparent in the can-do attitude of getting back to business after two years.

The All Roads Music Festival returns for third year

Local tribute group to perform two shows at the Bangor Opera House

Drummer Duncan Phillips says he can’t wait to be back in Maine for Newsboys’ concert, scheduled for Feb. 16 at Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. 

PORTLAND/BANGOR - Legendary folk-rock duo Aztec Two-Step is set to return to Maine for two completely different back to back concerts on Nov. 18 and 19.

For Joan Osborne, her career has returned to its roots

Looking ahead at the summer's offerings from Waterfront Concerts

BANGOR Summer is here, which means that the concerts are coming to the Bangor waterfront.

Most Phish fans have a favorite era of the band's evolution and can eloquently state their case by citing specific shows and jams.   For many, it's the groove that hit the group in the mid to late 90s when a certain funkiness began to permeate Phish shows, a welcome ingredient that fit their music perfectly.  That fact is made abundantly clear on the band's new archival release, 'Ventura,' a 6-CD box set comprised of two complete concerts performed a year apart at Ventura County Fairgrounds in Ventura, California in 1997 and 1998.  

For 'Ventura,' Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro has selected two vastly underrated performances that reveal the band in top form, delivering a master class in improvisation and showmanship with the emphasis on groove.

Somebody much wiser than me once said, 'Necessity is the mother of invention.'

If this is the case, then musically speaking, Steve Peer is invention's baby daddy.

A long time musician, Peer began promoting music locally along the 'Bar Harbor-Bangor corridor' after returning from a long stint drumming in Halifax. Finding himself paying out more than seemed feasible for hall rentals and generously feeding and housing traveling bands, he looked for a more cost effective venue. It was then that Peer decided to strip his home and convert the first floor into 'America's favorite house concert.'

What started predominately as a vehicle to showcase Gaelic performers, 430 Bayside in Ellsworth has offered a stage to acts almost as diverse as Peer's own musical tastes and genres in which he is a proficient drummer.

'By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.'

-Duke Ellington

For much of my life, I believed that there are two significant genres of music; anything by the Allman Brothers Band and anything that had the word 'booty' in it. Well friends, I stand corrected. Little did I know my musical horizons would be broadened on a Tuesday night in Bangor, ME.

Thanks to Wells Gordon, his jazz quartet the G Majors, and their perfect venue Nocturnem Draft Haus, I've become a believer. A big ol' finger-snapping believer.