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Live Review: Dogstar @ 9:30 Club — 8/11/26

By
Nalinee Darmrong
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Dogstar
Dogstar perform live at 9:30 Club on August 11, 2026. (Photo by Nalinee Damrong)

Dogstar: Living in the Moment
Words by Mickey McCarter
Photos by Nalinee Darmrong

I won’t mince words: I go to Dogstar concerts to watch Keanu Reeves play bass. I love to catch bands live, but I’m always curious about band dynamics. What does Keanu get from playing bass? Is he good? Is he finding fulfillment on the road?

And to be fair, Dogstar deserve better from me. The trio (formed in 1991) reunited during the COVID pandemic and hit the road soon after. Now they are back with a brand new album, All in Now, their second release since the pandemic days. They are serious about what they are doing.

I caught Dogstar for a second time recently at 9:30 Club as they toured in support of All in Now. And I asked myself those questions about Keanu and his bass. But I could not deny that this was more than a movie star’s vanity project. Frontman Bret Domrose is the face and voice of the band, and he and Keanu have real chemistry with each other and drummer Robert Mailhouse. This is a band, and they want you to pay attention to their music for the reason good musicians want you to do so: They have something to say.

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Live Review: Dangermuffin @ The Hamilton Live — 8/13/26

By
Ari Strauss
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Dangermuffin
Dangermuffin performs at The Hamilton Live on August 13, 2026, with Dan Lotti (left), Steven Sandifer (center), and Mike Sivilli. (Photo by Ari Strauss)

For a band whose music is grounded in sunshine, salt air, roots rhythms and the easygoing spirit of its Folly Beach origins, Dangermuffin found room for a little Pink Floyd darkness Thursday night.

Twice during its nearly two-hour performance at The Hamilton Live, the South Carolina trio wandered briefly into Pink Floyd territory. Early in the set, “Fuego” flowed into “Time,” while much later guitarist Mike Sivilli threaded a passage from “Another Brick in the Wall” into his solo during “Homestead.” Neither moment felt like a detour. Instead, the familiar fragments slipped naturally into Dangermuffin’s own musical landscape, part of a show that constantly moved between tightly constructed songs and the freedom to follow wherever a groove happened to lead.

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Live Review: Bryan Adams w/ Pat Benatar @ CFG Bank Arena — 8/9/26

By
Parklifer
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Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams (Photo courtesy Wilful and Sullivan)

Bryan Adams and Pat Benatar: A Knockout Bill
Words by Liz Wyatt

What a wonderful opener for rock legend Bryan Adams at CFG Bank Arena: Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo hit the stage with “Shadows of the Night.” The die-hard fans were standing and dancing in front of the stage. Those of us on the sidelines might not have been quite as quick to dance, but head bobs abounded.

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Live Review: Totally Tubular Festival w/ Thomas Dolby, A Flock of Seagulls, Men Without Hats, and more @ Warner Theatre — 8/7/26

By
Mickey McCarter
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Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby headlines the Totally Tubular Festival with The Lost Toy People at Warner Theatre on August 7, 2026. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)

The Totally Tubular Festival returned to DC for a 2026 edition recently, filling the elegant Warner Theatre with big radio-friendly hooks and a potent dose of nostalgia for a crowd that was ready to dance the night away.

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Live Review: Gin Blossoms and Blues Traveler w/ Spin Doctors @ Wolf Trap — 8/11/26

By
Ari Strauss
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Blues Traveler
The Frontmen: From left, Robin Wilson of Gin Blossoms, Chris Barron of Spin Doctors, and John Popper of Blues Traveler perform at Wolf Trap on August 11, 2026. (Photos by Ari Strauss)

There are concerts that remind you of a particular period in your life, and then there are concerts that seem to reconstruct it around you.

For anyone whose college years overlapped with the early 1990s, Tuesday night’s gathering of Gin Blossoms, Blues Traveler, and Spin Doctors at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center offered plenty of opportunities for the latter. These were bands whose songs once seemed unavoidable, pouring from dorm-room stereos, college bars, car radios, and MTV at roughly the same moment alternative rock was becoming mainstream enough that nobody quite knew what “alternative” was supposed to mean anymore.

But the most satisfying thing about this three-band bill was that it did not feel like three groups arriving separately to cash the same nostalgia check. The connections between them run much deeper than a shared decade, and over the course of the evening those relationships became part of the performance itself.

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Live Review: Riley Green w/ Hannah McFarland, Zach John King, and Justin Moore @ Jiffy Lube Live — 8/8/26

By
James Miller
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Riley Green
Riley Green performs live at Jiffy Lube Live on August 8, 2026. (Photo by James Todd Miller)

Riley Green has been on a tear across the United States over the past few years, and his Cowboy As It Gets Tour recently stopped at Jiffy Lube Live for a sold-out show in front of more than 23,000 screaming fans. Green, who possesses one of country music’s indisputably great voices, left it all onstage as he and his band delivered an outstanding 90-minute set in Bristow, Va.

Green is currently touring in support of his upcoming album, That’s Just Me, due out Sept. 18.

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Live Review: Toadies w/ Olive Vox and Local H @ Nevermore Hall — 8/8/26

By
Luke Waldner
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Toadies
Toadies perform live at Nevermore Hall on August 8, 2026. (Photo by Luke Waldner)

The Toadies brought their grungy, sometimes eerie and almost always loud sound to Nevermore Hall in Baltimore’s Power Plant Live! district on Saturday, August 8. Fans craving a dose of ’90s alternative rock were in for a good one, with Dallas-based Olive Vox opening the evening, Local H turning up the volume and the Toadies closing it down.

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Live Review: Big Thief @ Waterfront Park (Burlington, Vt.) — 8/2/26

By
Casey Vock
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Big Thief @ Waterfront Park Burlington VT - 08.02.26 Photo by Casey Ryan Vock
Adrianne Lenker leads the band Big Thief in a performance at Waterfront Park in Burlington, Vt., the night of August 2, 2026. (Photo by Casey Ryan Vock)

(Editor’s Note: Parklife DC contributor Casey Vock previously lived and worked in the Champlain Valley. He returns to the area each summer for his current full-time gig. Having hoped to catch a show at Burlington’s Waterfront Park the past few years, he made it happen this time around.)

Adrianne Lenker tends to be a bit ambiguous about where she resides and spends her time away from the stage, and rightly so considering the recognition for her and the enthusiasm for the work that she’s done.

But it’s come to light in recent years that, after spending a great deal of time in New England, she’s currently or was recently based somewhere in Vermont — most likely in “the forests,” like she told the Associated Press last year.

She’s also known to have musician friends and some relatives throughout the region. And whether or not she still calls it home, Lenker’s connection to the area put a special touch on her most recent Green Mountain State appearance with her band, Big Thief.

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Live Review: Newport Folk Festival @ Ft Adams State Park, RI — 7/24 – 7/26/26

By
Casey Vock
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Newport Folk Festival 2026 - Fort Adams State Park Newport RI - Photo by Casey Ryan Vock
Dave Matthews performs a surprise set on the final night at the 2026 Newport Folk Festival held at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, R.I. (Photo by Casey Ryan Vock)

No annual American music festival is as effectively and consistently curated for the benefit of artist discovery as the Newport Folk Festival.

Organizers of this high-profile gathering in Rhode Island have successfully created a culture that encourages artists to get to know each other, to share their music with one another and it invites attendees to watch and learn about a long list of musicians they might otherwise never get the chance to observe in such a comfortable setting.

Like they do each summer, music lovers traveled from far and wide to historic Fort Adams State Park, where from July 24 to 26 they moved from stage to stage to take in a wildly impressive lineup of headliners whose sounds decidedly transcended what many would consider to be folk, but whose messages built on a decades-old foundation of social activism.

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Live Review: Anna Moss and Sabine McCalla @ Jammin’ Java — 8/8/26

By
Mark Engleson
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Sabine McCalla
Sabine McCalla (Photo by Camille Lenain)

Perhaps no city in America has a richer musical heritage than New Orleans, where the various traditions of Southern music — blues, zydeco, jazz, R&B, and soul have mingled for centuries —  and the sounds of its Cajun and Creole populations mix freely. In their recent performance at Jammin Java, two distinctive singer-songwriters who’ve made the Crescent City their home, Anna Moss and Sabine McCalla, shared their distinctive musical visions.

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