Photo credit: Joseph Guay
Collective Soul plays on the Uline Warehouse Stage on Friday, June 28 at 10 p.m.
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Country music returns to the Amphitheater with headliner Jason Aldean. For a different spin on Americana, check out Brandi Carlile at BMO Harris Pavilion. Milwaukee is well represented by metallic trio Ahab’s Ghost at the Rebel Stage.
Jason Aldean @ American Family Insurance Amphitheater, 7:30 p.m.
It’s been quite the journey for country singer Jason Aldean. In 2005, he played the Wisconsin State Fair in the middle of a bill of six acts. Fourteen years later, Aldean is the marquee attraction among four artists playing Summerfest’s American Family Insurance Amphitheater. In 2005 he was plugging his first national single, “Hicktown,” an unabashed send-up and embrace of Southern yokel culture. He plays this year’s Big Gig as the Academy of Country Music’s Artist of the Decade, eight albums deep into a career that has courted more than a little controversy.
One need not dwell on the fractious details of his private life made public by stardom to see how he has rubbed country loyalists the wrong way. His music can be contentious enough. Aldean has been respectful of farming culture and used rural tropes to romantic effect on singles including “Amarillo Sky” and “Big Green Tractor”; however, he was also responsible for popularizing the underground countrified rap phenomenon of “hick-hop” with “Dirt Road Anthem.” And his often hypermasculine lyrical demeanor and audacious arena rock production values, replete with screaming metal guitar, made him a progenitor of divisive late ’00s-early ’10s bro’ country.
Aldean has been receiving some of the best reviews of his career for 2018’s Rearview Town, a relatively rootsy and reflective outing for an artist not especially known for much embodying ether of those qualities in the recent past. Quickly approaching Aldean’s level of stardom is the second act on Aldean’s ticket, Kane Brown, famously known for generating the internet groundswell that netted him a major label deal, which led to last year’s release of Experiment, debuting at #1. Winsome blonde Carly Pearce, who has charted charming singles including “Every Little Thing” and “Hide The Wine,” is the first singer of the night. Preceding them all is Dee Jay Silver, a mainstay of Aldean’s tours for the past decade and the first electronic DJ to earn a contract with a big country label. (Jamie Lee Rake)
Brandi Carlile @ BMO Harris Pavilion, 9:45 p.m.
Brandi Carlile took home three Grammy Awards earlier this year: Best Americana Album for By the Way, I Forgive You, Best American Roots Song for “The Joke” and Best American Roots Performance. If that—along with a show-stopping performance of “The Joke” during the broadcast—wasn’t enough to gain the 38-year-old singer-songwriter-producer new fans, what she said backstage on Grammy night might have done the trick.
“I’m producing records and am really heartened by women who are getting more involved in the building blocks of the infrastructure of our business,” Carlile told a roomful of reporters. “I was allowed to stay up late at night as a young child to watch Whitney and Celine and Aretha hit the notes on the Grammys, and to think that some gay kid somewhere in some small town got to stay up late tonight to see me hit the notes is something that I’ll never forget.”
Carlile spent her entire career working toward the status she’s achieved in 2019.
She grew up outside Seattle, and Columbia Records signed her in 2004 based on the strength of songs she recorded at her home. Her 2005 self-titled debut garnered “artist to watch” status from Rolling Stone, and for Carlile’s second and third albums, 2007’s The Story and 2009’s Give Up the Ghost, she worked with renowned producers T Bone Burnett and Rick Rubin, respectively. By the Way, I Forgive You is Carlile’s sixth and highest-charting album.
She also co-founded the Looking Out Foundation, a nonprofit that provides financial support to a variety of organizations, including Honor the Earth, The Bridge School, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders and the Human Rights Campaign. According to the foundation’s mission, every campaign launched is backed by donors and fans, with $1 from every concert ticket sold going directly toward its efforts. (Michael Popke)
Ahab’s Ghost @ Rebel Stage, 6 p.m.
While the band has been together for a decade, the local heavy-metal trio have been friends since kindergarten. Jake Hess (guitar), Sam Wallman (drums) and Joe Widen (vocals, bass) are all Milwaukee natives who bill themselves and their music as “no compromise heavy metal.” Their “take no prisoners” approach to their sound has resulted in a full-length debut album, 2012’s After the Fall, along with two EPS, Scavengers (2013) and Wasted Forever, Ferociously Stoned (2015). The trio is currently working on its next full-length release. (Harry Cherkinian)
Collective Soul @ Uline Warehouse Stage, 10 p.m.
E Roland, singer/guitarist of Collective Soul, feels the band’s new album, Blood, is their strongest album ever. “When we decided to release a single, I was sitting down with the guys and we all wrote which one it should be,” E Roland recalls. “Every one of us had a different song. So that shows to me it was like as a body of work.”
Collective Soul had no shortage of new songs available for the new album. The group wrapped up work in the studio last year and emerged with an embarrassment of riches when it came to new material. They recorded 22 songs, and pondered putting all of them out on a double album. E Roland, who as of this year has decided to go by the name E Roland (instead of Ed Roland), says that notion died a quick death.
“It didn’t take long for our management to go ‘you're not releasing a double record.’ So that shut that down pretty quick,” he says. “You know, these days with streaming, I can’t ask someone to sit there and stream 22 songs, an hour and 15 of music. That’s asking too much of the audience. So we decided to just break it up into two. So this one (Blood) comes out this year and the other album will come out next year.”
Blood album should go over well with fans of Collective Soul’s other nine studio albums. It opens with a bang, with four hyper-catchy and punch rockers before shifting into the more expansive, piano spiced rocker. Blood then settles into more of a mid-tempo feel, as the group tips its hat musically to the late Tom Petty (as well as the Cars and Elton John) and with a bit of a folky moment. (Alan Sculley)
Matthew Davies
Local Picks
Matthew Davies Duo With Eston Bennett @ Klement's Sausage & Beer Garden Stage, 2 p.m.
Today's Promotion: Show Your College Pride Day
Get in for free from noon to 3 p.m. by wearing a shirt or hat representing one of the participating colleges or universities. Participating schools include: Alverno College, Bryant & Stratton College, Cardinal Stritch University, Carthage College, Carroll University, Concordia University, Gateway Technical College, Herzing University, Marquette University, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee School Of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and University of Wisconsin-Platteville. New this year, high school students can also receive a free admission ticket when they present a valid high school ID.
Here's Today's Complete Lineup
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