Fans of Elvis in all of his performance incarnations will find that they can't help falling in love with the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's special New Year's Eve treat, as the Rock Island venue hosts the December 31 concert event Remember the King: Celebrating the Music of Elvis Presley, a night of lip-curcling, hip-swiveling excitement boasting decades of iconic hits performed by touring tribute artist Robert Shaw.

Praised by New York Music Daily for their “darkly inventive Americana” and by The Sound for their “infectious, foot-stomping Americana tunes,” the touring musicians of Muddy Ruckus – guitarist (and Rock Island native) Ryan Flaherty and “suitcase drummer” Erika Stahl – perform as Moelle Nights headliners on December 28, their 2018 album Bellows to Mend described by EvolvementRadio.com as “hands down their best work so far.”

One of the country's most venerated and lauded country, gospel, and bluegrass ensembles makes an eagerly awaited appearance at Davenport's Adler Theatre on December 20, when the the Grammy Award-winning group The Oak Ridge Boys celebrates the holidays with timeless hits and seasonal favorites in their touring production “Shine the Light on Christmas.”

Two rock ensembles – one from Missouri, one from Illinois – will appear as headliners in two local Moeller Nights concerts on December 21 and 22, with performances by the acclaimed garage-trio trio of Radkey preceding concerts with The Dawn, the latter group employing their Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel sets to record a new live album.

A legendary area rock outfit from the 1970s makes a triumphant return to the Rock Island Brewing Company on December 21, as brothers and Cedar Rapids natives BillyLee and Bryce Janey deliver an evening with the hard rockers of Truth & Janey, whose seminal 1976 LP No Rest for the Wicked and live Erupts! album from 2001 (recorded at Davenport's Col Ballroom) have both been reissued on CD by the Rockadrome label.

A side project of, and album by, indie-rock singer/songwriter John Brodeur, Bird Streets the band will play music from Birds Streets the album on December 12 as the latest guests in the Moeller Nights series, Brodeur's recording praised by AllMusic.com for its “clever twists, rich harmonies, and intricate guitar work,” and described by Albumism as “a contemporary masterpiece that conjuries indie rock's glory days.”

With Country Standard Time calling the group “one of the most talented and unique acts in modern country music,” the a cappella quintet Home Free brings its seasonal A Country Christmas tour to Davenport's Adler Theatre on December 13, performing holiday classics and modern compositions with the vocal fire and stage presence that led to the singers winning the fourth season of NBC's competition series The Sing Off.

Called “an impressive blues guitarist who sings with sweet power” by the New York Times and praised by Bluest Blast for “her intense, pyrotechnic take on blues rock,” recording sensation Samantha Fish returns to Davenport's Redstone Room on December 14, the artist's most recent albums – 2017's Chills & Fever and Belle of the West leading American Songwriter to state, “It's unlikely Fish, or many other acts, will deliver two terrific yet very different-sounding albums in a single year again.”

An annual holiday-music tradition returns to the area as the professional vocal ensemble the Nova Singers present their latest A Nova Christmas concerts, with exciting and moving arrangements of non-secular, classical, traditional, and contemporary holiday favorites performed December 14 at Davenport's St. Paul Lutheran Church and December 15 at Galesburg's First Lutheran Church.

Last year, YouTube sensation, America's Got Talent quarter-finalist, and violin virtuoso Lindsey Stirling released the chart-topping holiday album Warmer in the Winter. This year, things are going to get a whole lot hotter when Stirling brings her “Wanderland Tour” to Moline's TaxSlayer Center on December 6 – a night with the artist whom Rolling Stone calls “mesmerizing and emotive” and who currently boasts more than 1.9 billion views on her YouTube channel.

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