Widespread Panic has been together for over 40 years. Formed by original members vocalist/guitarist John “JB” Bell, the late guitarist Michael Houser, and bassist Dave Schools while students at the University of Georgia. On February 6, 1986, Drummer Todd Nance joined the trio for the first official performance under the name Widespread Panic. Percussionist Domingo “Sunny” Ortiz joined the band in 1989, followed by keyboard player John “JoJo” Hermann in 1992. Long time friend and collaborator guitarist Jimmy Herring joined the band after the death of Houser in 2002. Current drummer Duane Trucks joined the band in 2014. The band is thankful for Nick Johnson, who is currently sitting in for Jimmy while he undergoes treatment for a health issue.
Over four decades have passed since forming their original line-up in 1986, Widespread Panic is still hungry to be the best band they can be and make each show a special experience for their loyal fan base. During their impressive run, the band has released 15 studio albums and 72 live albums, selling more than 4 million units as one of the most successful touring acts in the world.
Widespread Panic has broken attendance records at major venues throughout the country, including a staggering 78 sold-out shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado. A banner hangs in the rafters at Philips Arena in Atlanta where the band has 18 sellouts, with records also set at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, Oak Mountain Amphitheater in Birmingham, AL, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival where Panic has headlined 13 times, breaking the single-day attendance record with 63,000.
The band has headlined most of the major U.S. festivals, including Bonnaroo (eight times), Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Lockn’ Music Festival, Outside Lands Music Festival, Forecastle Festival, Phases of the Moon, Rothbury Festival, All Good Music Festival, Gathering of the Vibes and many more.
In 2008, Widespread Panic was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. And To commemorate Widespread Panic’s 25th anniversary in 2011, the State of Georgia’s Senate and House of Representatives passed resolutions honoring the group for their music, service, charity and longevity.
“We acknowledge this is a milestone few groups get to achieve,” admits JB about their remarkable longevity. “It’s like Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. Every time we go out there, we learn more tricks, bring that knowledge with us, and then apply it. We’re way more experienced, focused and to the point, but still willing to stretch out without wandering too much.”
Dumpstaphunk has spent nearly two decades establishing itself as a cornerstone of New Orleans music, earning a reputation as a next-generation funk institution rooted in the legacy of the Neville family and The Meters. Their electrifying live shows have drawn sit-ins from legends like Carlos Santana, Bob Weir, George Clinton, Dave Matthews, and members of Phish, with major milestones including opening for the Rolling Stones in New Orleans and touring with Dave Matthews Band.
Formed spontaneously during Jazz Fest in 2003, the band carries forward and modernizes the iconic New Orleans funk tradition. Blending deep, gritty grooves with elements of rock and jazz, their sound delivers masterful musicianship, soulful melodies, and unmistakable Big Easy spirit that keeps audiences moving.
DUMPSTAPHUNK is….
Ivan Neville – keyboards/vocals
Tony Hall – bass/guitar/vocals
Ian Neville – guitar
Deven Trusclair – drums
Alex Wasily – trombone
Ashlin Parker – trumpet
John Michael Bradford – trumpet
Ari Teital – guitar
Rebekkah Todd – vocals
Hailing from the North Carolina countryside, or “The Middle of Nowhere,” as it’s proudly dubbed on their debut album, the 6 headed musical monster known as ‘Big Something’ has steadily become one of the most unique and exciting rock bands to emerge from the Southeast. Their musical alchemy is deeply rooted in the strong bond of its members—Nick MacDaniels [lead vocals, guitar], Jesse Hensley [lead guitar, vocals], Casey Cranford [saxophone, E.W.I. “Electronic Wind Instrument”], Ben Vinograd [drums], Josh Kagel [keys, trumpet], and Matt Laird [bass].
After over a decade of touring together with 7 full-length studio albums and even their own Summer music festival The Big What?, Big Something has emerged as a grassroots phenomenon in the live music community.
“I’m proud that we’ve stuck together through all of this,” notes Nick. “We have our own unique thing as a group, and I’m very excited about where it’s always been going.”
The band has progressively evolved their catalog with each subsequent release. From their debut album Stories from the Middle of Nowhere in 2010, through fan favorites a la Big Something [2013], Truth Serum [2014], Tumbleweed [2017], The Otherside [2018], and Escape [2020], they have constantly pushed the boundaries of their sound. Among many highlights, “Song For Us” and “Love Generator” have accumulated millions of Spotify streams, while their performances at Sweetwater 420 Fest, Lock’n, Electric Forest, Peach Music Festival, Summer Camp, High Sierra and 10 years of their own festival, The Big What? have further solidified their place as luminaries of progressive improvisational rock.
Their seventh studio album, Headspace [out 11/17 on Truth Serum Records], is significant for the band in many ways. Featuring a collection of songs written over the past few years as the world emerged from a strange moment in history, Headspace was inspired in large part by the ongoing conversations surrounding mental health. As the band releases each new single, they will also spotlight several non-profit organizations focused on helping people navigate mental health and wellness. Headspace will also mark the band’s last studio release with founding members Doug Marshall (bass) and Josh Kagel (keys/trumpet), both of whom announced their retirement from touring in 2023.
For the new album, Big Something journeyed to Cannon Falls, MN to track at the legendary Pachyderm Recording Studios— birthplace of Nirvana’s In Utero, where they lived together in a guest house overlooking a serene trout stream tucked away into nature.
“We cooked dinner together every night, recorded all day, and really enjoyed a special moment in time making this album,” Nick goes on. “It was such a cool bonding experience. We really locked in together musically and tried to tap into the special energy at Pachyderm.”
That palpable energy surges through the album’s lead track and first single, “The Mountain.” The six minute-plus epic sinks its teeth in and clenches its jaw, twisting and turning through organ-laden fuzz towards a rapturous refrain. “The Mountain” carries deeper meaning for the tight-knit group, and the lyrics pay homage to Nick’s lifelong best friend and frequent collaborator Paul Interdonato, who wrote a majority of Big Something’s lyrics before his tragic passing in 2017.
“‘The Mountain’ started with one of the last lyrics I have written down in a journal from Paul,” Nick goes on. “Coming up the mountain, I can see it all again – the chorus is a metaphor for getting over trauma.”
Interdonato’s struggle also inspired the theme of the single “Clouds”. A collaboration with Andy Frasco and Justin Osborne of SUSTO, the gripping work delves into dark subject matter over a blissful cloud of catchy sounds. Musically, this is perhaps the most salient display of the breadth of Big Something’s jaw-dropping musicianship and genre fluency. The slinky earworm isn’t easily forgotten, and showcases head-nodding bass, slick guitars, and keys locked into a funky intergalactic strut, giving way to a distortion-boosted refrain and synth solo.
“I went to write with Andy in Denver and played him a rough recording of the instrumental,” recalls Nick. “It didn’t have any lyrics yet, so he was helping me think of ideas. We landed on the thought of ‘living in the clouds’ as a metaphor for addiction. And the character in the song is a close friend who may never come back down.”
Big Something leaned into collaboration yet again on “Bob and Weave,” a track originally penned by another close friend and frequent collaborator, Josh Phillips from Asheville, NC. The buoyant track sees otherworldly electronics wheeze as the riff slinks beneath swaggering verses and an uplifting chorus.
“Getting to know Josh has been so much fun. He’s an incredible singer-songwriter and reminds me a lot of Paul in certain ways. From what I can tell, ‘Bob and Weave’ is basically about waking up and trying to get through the anxiety of life with the help of friendship — and maybe some cannabis,” MacDaniels added.
Then, there’s “Algorithm,” a track that serves as a spiritual predecessor to fan favorite “Love Generator.”
“It’s sort of like a prequel or counterpoint to ‘Love Generator’ which takes place in a distant future where machines learn to love and become human. In ‘Algorithm,’ humans are shutting down and turning into machines,” he elaborates.
Rounding out the album, the band brought everything full circle with a final nod to Paul by re-recording the first Big Something song ever written, “Amanda Lynn.” Originally released on their 2010 debut album Stories From The Middle of Nowhere, “Amanda Lynn” features the first lyrics that Interdonato contributed to the band.
“We thought it was a cool way to connect everything to the roots of our story,” MacDaniels explained.
In the end, Big Something’s tale is a testament to the power of friendship and that bond burns brighter now than ever as the band prepares to journey across the US for their recently announced HEADSPACE Tour – their biggest headlining tour to date.
“This started out as a group of friends, and it’s turned into a family over the years. I love this music and this band and what we do and I hope people can hear and feel that in what we create.”
Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, Mountain Grass Unit has rapidly emerged as one of the most electrifying young bands in modern bluegrass, fusing razor-sharp picking, fearless improvisation, and four-part harmony into a sound that feels both rooted and revolutionary. The quartet — Drury Anderson (mandolin, vocals), Luke Black (guitar, vocals), Josiah Nelson (fiddle, vocals), and Sam Wilson (bass, vocals) — first turned heads with their 2024 EP Runnin’ From Trouble, but 2025 proved to be their true breakthrough year. The band logged nearly 100 national tour dates, sold out over thirty headline shows, and delivered standout festival performances at Telluride Bluegrass, DelFest, Northlands, and WinterWonderGrass.
Rolling Stone praised them as the “surprise show” of Telluride, while Saving Country Music declared them the “next big band in bluegrass,” with further national spotlight through exclusive live sessions with Paste, Relix, and No Depression, cementing their arrival on the national stage. Their momentum peaked during IBMA week, where they earned the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Momentum Artist of the Year award, a defining milestone in a year of exponential growth.
Now in the studio crafting their next full-length album, due late summer, and fresh off support runs with genre leaders like The Infamous Stringdusters and Kitchen Dwellers, the band continues to expand its reach. Along the way, they’ve shared stages with legends like Billy Strings and Greensky Bluegrass in a series of high-profile moments that underscore the respect they’ve earned from the genre’s leading voices. Mountain Grass Unit isn’t simply riding bluegrass’s current resurgence, they are helping steer it, staking their claim as one of the most vital and forward-looking young bands in American roots music today.
The latest album from Maggie Rose, Half Moon reveals the rare magic of hard-won momentum meeting a creative spirit in peak bloom. After devoting more than a decade to deepening her craft and unlocking the full force of her extraordinary voice, the Nashville-based singer/songwriter experienced a rapid rise in recognition, including scoring back-to-back GRAMMY nominations for her 2024 LP No One Gets Out Alive and 2025 single “Poison In My Well” and earning an Emerging Act Of The Year nod from the Americana Music Association in 2025. Rather than succumbing to the pressure of heightened expectation, Rose immersed herself in the making of her new album with effusive abandon. With its lovely alchemy of soulful symphonic pop, R&B, and Americana, Half Moon arrives as a document of divine expansion and self-discovery—ultimately extending an invitation to embrace every facet of ourselves with grace, courage, and a wide-open heart.
“At first it felt strange to receive all these accolades I’d been wanting for a long time—instead of grounding me, it made me feel anxious,” says Rose, who made her acclaimed full-length debut with 2013’s Cut to Impress. “But then the new songs started pouring out, and it felt like such a gift. I realized the recognition had come at a time when I was finally able to fully articulate who I am through my music, because of how my voice and my songwriting have evolved over the years. So if people are looking at me more closely, I’m glad they’re looking now.”
Co-produced by Lawrence Rothman (Amanda Shires, Margo Price) and Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Leon Bridges), Half Moon took shape through a charmed and fluid process that began with the three musicians meeting up every few weeks to write in Tashian’s home studio, taking advantage of his abundant stash of instruments (e.g., Mellotron, upright bass, a saloon-style piano). “We’d leave each session with these beautiful, fully conceived demos, and after a few songs it became apparent that something special was happening,” says Rose, who was eight months pregnant at the outset of the album’s creation. As they gave voice to the complexities of her inner life—her lived experience of womanhood, the sacredness of her closest bonds, the thrill and overwhelm of expecting her first child—the trio of collaborators surrendered to a shared journey Rothman sums up as “a year-long wild ride of writing, producing, crying, laughing, babies being born, and dreams coming to life.” Tashian, meanwhile, compares their creative kinship to “a bunch of kids building sandcastles on a beach and just enjoying the sunshine…We were all passengers, and the songs were taking us wherever they wanted to go.”
Six months after the birth of her son Graham, Rose headed to the historic RCA Studio A in Nashville and recorded Half Moon with an elite lineup of over two dozen musicians, finding the album’s true cohesion through the kinetic energy of people gathering in a room and giving the songs their fullest life. Along with top-tier players like guitarist Tom Bukovac (Emmylou Harris, Stevie Nicks), bassist Dennis Crouch (Elvis Costello, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss), and keyboardist Peter Levin (The Highwomen, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit), that lineup included Rose’s touring band: percussionist Tim Burkhead, bassist Judd Fuller, guitarist M.P. Gannon, and multi-instrumentalist Cav Mims. The follow-up to her 2025 EP Cocoon, Rose’s fifth studio LP marks a bold departure from the rootsy soul of No One Gets Out Alive—a Best Americana Album GRAMMY nominee featured on best-of-the-year lists from the likes of Rolling Stone. Thanks in part to its lavish string arrangements and velvety horns, Half Moon unfolds with both sophisticated ease and daring grandiosity—a direct reflection of her newly widened emotional world. “There’s a bigness to this music that was really exciting to explore,” says Rose, who names the orchestral pop of the Brill Building era among her touchstones for the album. “I think that has everything to do with this album coming from a moment when I was feeling a depth of love I’d never felt before, and the subject matter being more awe-inspiring than anything I’d ever had to work with.The sound is orchestral and wide-ranging because I was trying to capture and portray the duality within the album.”
Partly recorded at Sound Emporium Studios, Half Moon takes its title from its soul-searching centerpiece, written just two days before Graham was born. “My labor was induced so I knew he’d be born under a full pink moon, which led to Lawrence and Daniel and I talking about the link between the phases of the moon and the way we see ourselves,” Rose recalls. A low-lit reverie adorned in sumptuous strings and spellbinding piano melodies, “Half Moon” inhabits a moody intensity as Rose muses on the nature of identity. “At the time I was overcome with emotion; there was so much love and excitement, but also fear and anxiety about what parts of myself I might lose and not be able to reclaim,” she says. “As I was working through all that, it helped me to think about how the moon is always whole—it’s just presented to us in different ways at different times, like all the many aspects of ourselves that we’re constantly trying to navigate.”
A gorgeous showcase for the vocal prowess that’s found her hailed as one of the finest singers in Nashville, Half Moon begins with the slow-burning grandeur of “Used To It”—a rapturous expression of longing and lust, spotlighting an artist in total command of her inimitable voice. “Even before most of the album was written, I knew I wanted ‘Used To It’ to be the first track,” says Rose. “It felt like the start of a new thread for me; there’s something elegant and elevated in its structure, but it’s got some teeth as well. From a sonic standpoint, I wanted it to open the record because it feels like an unwrapping: there’s a smoldering, simmering build-up to a bombastic ending, pulling the listener into the album’s journey.” Next, on the wildly fun “Red Shoes,” Rose’s vocals take on a joyful ferocity as she delivers a dance-ready anthem of unapologetic pleasure. “It’s a song about forgetting your responsibilities and everything happening in the world and just going out and having a good time, which I think we all deserve,” she says. And on “The Mission,” Rose strikes a winning balance of assured sensuality and playful flirtation—a dynamic echoed in the groove-driven track’s glossy guitar tones, effervescent strings, and vibrant hand percussion. “There’s a confidence to ‘The Mission’ that feels really good to me,” says Rose. “At the core it’s a love song, but it’s also about owning your sexuality and however that manifests for you.”
While Half Moon’s A-side radiates a lighthearted vitality, its B-side brings nuanced introspection and tender emotionality to tracks like “Gentle Man”—an acoustic-guitar-led meditation on the trappings of masculinity. The album’s latter half also includes “Hiding In Plain Sight,” a wistful piece of self-reflection penned with country luminary Natalie Hemby (one of her few co-writers on the LP apart from Rothman and Tashian). For Rose, the album intimately chronicles a season of profound personal transformation—a period in time she refers to as “this amazing moment of expecting and then giving birth, and re-emerging with a completely new part of my identity.” In sharing Half Moon with the world, she hopes to provide listeners with a similar sense of refuge and release. “We’re in an extremely vulnerable time, so I hope this record gives people space to feel whatever they need to feel,” says Rose. “I hope it helps everyone to be more gentle with themselves and give themselves grace—and reminds them that, just like the moon, we don’t need to shine full and bright all of the time to do what we’re meant to do. Like the moon, the whole of us is always there but just revealed differently depending on the light.”
Bloodkin is a powerhouse Athens, Georgia band carrying forward a legacy of pure, gritty, non-fiction rock n roll. The lineup features Eric Carter (vocals, guitar), Betsy Franck (vocals, guitar), Tori Pater (vocals, guitar), John Neff (guitar, pedal steel), Jon Mills (bass), and Aaron Phillips (drums).
The push and pull shared among the three industry veterans sharing vocal duties (since the passing of co-founding member, Danny Hutchens), results in an onstage chemistry that seduces the audience, backed by captivating storytelling, pedal steel, and a hard-hitting rhythm section.
Bloodkin was formed in 1986 by childhood best friends and bandmates Eric Carter and Danny Hutchens. The band has built a devoted following over nearly four decades through eight studio albums and a reputation for dynamic live performances. Their massive catalogue of work has led them to stages all over the world, and is deeply connected to fellow Athens based band, Widespread Panic, who has covered Bloodkin songs since the 90’s.
Bloodkin is best experienced live. The show is raw, poetic, and immersive. You’ll leave feeling wrecked in the best possible way.
Virginia’s Kendall Street Company are no strangers to having a wild time. The genre-fluid, eclectic rock ensemble has drawn varied comparisons to the dynamic jams of Umphrey’s McGee and Widespread Panic, songwriting of John Prine, experimental psychedelia of Pink Floyd, progressive jazz-infused rock of Frank Zappa, and off-color humor of Ween and They Might Be Giants. Including elements of crowd participation, off-the-cuff comedic bits, haphazard choreography, musical improvisation, and surprise musical guests, each Kendall Street Company concert is an experience unlike any other. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. Just remember to stay hydrated.
The Playa Allstars are a specially curated super-group of talented musicians for the Panic en la Playa which includes Eric Krasno, George Porter Jr., Ivan Neville, Jennifer Hartswick, Tony Hall, Kanika Moore, Cochemea Gastelum, and Raymond Weber.
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