Held in conjunction with the annual Quad-City Times Bix 7 street race on Saturday morning, Downtown Davenport's 2026 Bix Mix Street Party will take place on July 24 and 25, this vibrant, two-day bash being held on West Third Street between Harrison and Ripley.
-
-
Returning to downtown Davenport for its incredible 52nd year, the Quad-City Times Bix 7 will again find runners and walkers taking on a seven-mile foot race alongside live bands and cheering crowds, the July 25 event famed for being the largest non-marathon race in the Midwest, having captured the imaginations of thousands upon thousands of enthusiasts from both the United States and countries around the globe.
-
With the Los Angeles Times praising him as "provocative, engaging, and extremely funny," Las Vegas Magazine adding that he delivers "comedy with a bang," national touring standup Shang Forbes brings his Fast & Hilarious Comedy Jam to Davenport's Adler Theatre on July 25, the artist performing locally alongside up-and-coming comedians LeClerc Andre, Joshua Black, and T Barb.
-
A world-class juggler and comedian who has been performing his on- man show around the globe for the last 40 years, international sensation Mark Nizer brings his 4D tour to Galesburg's Orpheum Theatre on July 25, Entertainment Magazine calling the artist "simply incredible" and "without a doubt the hottest juggler on the entertainment market."
-
With guests of the German American Heritage Center invited to explore the powerful stories, struggles, and triumphs that shaped the fight for equality in our community, the fascinating traveling exhibition Davenport Civil Rights Movement will be on display at the Davenport venue through July 31.
-
Chemical Trespassing on Iowa's State Tree Cannot Be Punished
Tony Singh's 20-Year Quest to Address Pesticide Damage in His Oak Savanna
In 1996, Tony Singh began rewilding a plot of land in LeClaire, hoping to restore its oak savanna, native prairie, woodlands, and wetlands. Fewer than five years later, he noticed the leaves on his oak trees were in tatters.
-
In our enlightened age, the public seems tirelessly bombarded with warnings of existential threat from infectious disease. Another distant outbreak is spreading, this time it could be Disease X – “…and there is no vaccine!” How, one might ask, is our species still extant?
-
About a week after the state budget passed both chambers in the dark of night, Attorney General Kwame Raoul spoke to the City Club of Chicago to complain that his budget was cut by $10 million.
-
Representative Luis Arroyo, D-Chicago, was arrested by the FBI on October 28, 2019, for attempting to bribe a state senator. House Speaker Michael Madigan, who was under investigation himself, called on Arroyo to resign that same day. The next day, Representative Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, was one of three House Democrats who signed a petition to automatically trigger the creation of a Special Investigating Committee. Welch and the two others included the sworn federal criminal complaint against Arroyo as evidence.
-
The news earlier this month that the Illinois AFL-CIO has “deferred” all decisions on legislative and statewide endorsements in the upcoming fall election generated quite a bit of headlines.
-
Though the show is billed as a comedy, I only laughed a few times. I was much more invested in its dramatic scenes.
-
Rather than trying to explain discomfort away, director Cait Bodenbender embraced the play's history by simply casting as Shakespeare himself did: with an all-male cast.
-
Lauded by The Mancunion as "a beautiful, sociopolitical musical that is finally getting the recognition it deserves," the Broadway-musical version of Bonnie & Clyde makes its area debut with a July 23 through August 2 run at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, Curtain-Up adding to the show's raves by praising the "muscular rhythmic drive beneath the show's blend of folk, blues, and gospel."
-
Lauded by New York magazine as a show that "delivers with immense energy, a wicked sense of humor, and joyful inside-jokery," the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Mean Girls enjoys a Countryside Community Theatre staging, from July 24 through August 2, at Eldridge North Schott High School Fine Arts Auditorium, New York adding that this critically lauded smash based on the 2004 hit comedy is "hilarious, splashy, and unmistakably by Tina Fey."
-
Wrapping up Genesius Guild's 2026 summer season with a freewheeling, cheekily updated Greek farce, Women's Festival (a.k.a. Thesmophoriazusae) enjoys a run in Rock Island's Lincoln Park July 25 through August 2, this Aristophanes comedy sure to deliver laughs, commentary, and, as per usual, a madcap, Mack Sennett chase around the Don Wooten Stage.
-
With their most recent release Every Time I Think About You hailed by Adventures in Americana as an album that "pulls you in immediately with delicious melodies combined with that Lynchian edge the band is known for," the sibling Americana musicians of the Cactus Blossoms headline a July 22 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, their latest also inspiring Americana Highways to extol the duo's "seamless songwriting of classic rock sounds that seem to hail from simpler times."
-
An evening with exhilarating independent musicians is guaranteed at Rozz-Tox on July 23, with the Rock Island venue proud to host a shared night with Evan Morgan, Courtney Werner, and Mike DeVito of the North Carolina outfit Magic Tuber Stringband alongside composer/guitarist David Lord.
-
Performing blues, folk, country, and Americana music that, according to NPR, “evokes the old-timey spirit of a thousand crackling 78 RPM records," Midwestern singer/songwriter Pokey LaFarge headlines a July 23 concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, the artist's 2024 release Rhumba Country hailed by No Depression as a "stirring, deceptively fraught" album that "presents vivid vignettes of restless hearts gripped by desire and loneliness, and yearning for higher ground."
-
Utilizing organic beats and booms, loops, cello, and guitar to slather their intimate originals onto the crowd while inviting bodies to the dance floor, the popular rock/Americana duo Tif & Mollie headline a July 24 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room, their summer tour also a reunion tour, as both Austin-based artists are originally from the Midwest.
-
With their most recent album Vacationland hailed by Motif magazine as a recording that "rocks like it’s opening a portal to another dimension," guitarist/songwriter and Quad Cities native Ryan Flaherty and drummer/vocalist Erika Stahl bring their outfit Muddy Ruckus to Davenport's Raccoon Motel, their July 24 engagement treating fans to what The Sound hailed as "infectious, foot-stomping Americana tunes."
-
Watching romantic relationships crack and crumble can be enormous, if nerve-racking, fun – just so long as those breakdowns are viewed from the perspective of an auditorium, and not a mirror.
-
Going to the cineplex or staying in and streaming this weekend? Every Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. you can listen to Mike Schulz dish on recent movie releases & talk smack about Hollywood celebs on Planet 93.9 FM with the fabulous Dave & Darren in the Morning team of Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. The morning crew previews upcoming releases, too. Or you can check the Reader Web site and listen to their latest conversation by the warm glow of your electronic device. Never miss a pithy comment from these three scintillating pundits again
Thursday, July 16: Discussion of Moana, The Invite, Evil Dead Burn, and Gail Daughtry & the Celebrity Sex Pass, and a preview of The Odyssey. If you're wondering why Chris Nolan's latest is the only movie being released this weekend, it's because all the actors are in it. All the actors.
-
It's hard to think of a more ticklish recent ode to cinema than Minions & Monsters, which would've been just about perfect if its monsters were ditched entirely.
-
Given how bored I've been at so many cinematic superhero origin stories over the decades, I feel silly for actually feeling and writing this. But I really wish director Craig Gillespie's Supergirl had merely been a superhero origin story.
-
Now playing at area theaters.
-
In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, Davenport's Figge Art Museum is hosting American Art talks throughout the month of July, and on Thursday the 23rd, guests are invited to hear from Larassa Kabel in Focus on the American Landscape, the speaker a multidisciplinary artist based in Des Moines, Iowa, whose work captures the uneasy balance between humans and nature.
-
In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, Davenport's Figge Art Museum has been hosting American Art talks throughout the month of July, and on Thursday the 30th, guests are invited to enjoy Focus with Artist Beth Lipman, held in conjunction with the A Golden Age for Whom? exhibition in the Figge's Mary Waterman Gildehaus Community Gallery.
-
Four Chicago-based artists will present concurrent solo exhibitions across the galleries of Dubuque's Voices Studios through July 31, with the collective Quiet Intersections exhibit a multi-faceted experience that reveals how individual artistic voices can converge, diverge, and share creative space.
-
Telling the story of Raven, an important trickster figure in Tlingit culture who transformed the world by bringing light to people via the stars, moon, and sun, Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight will be viewable at Davenport's Figge Art Museum through August 2, with the tale of Raven releasing or "stealing" the daylight one of the most iconic stories of the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska.
-
With the latest Quad City Arts Center exhibition taking on a very specific theme, and a seasonally appropriate one at that, a pair of Midwestern artists currently have beautiful works displayed in Bicycle Worlds, the Rock Island venue treating patrons, through August 7, to bike photography by Ken Urban and bike illustrations by Jeff C. Williams.
Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
On Stands Now
Tagged Content
Two Ways to Subscribe
1. Subscribe to free weekly e-mail content updates.
You'll get both the current official narrative challenge and What's Happenin' in the Quad Cities.
(Did you know we publish a new Real Astrology and RCR Crossword every week?)
2. Get 12 monthly issues mailed first class for $48
Get the printed Reader edition mailed to you (or anyone you want) first-class for 12 months for $48.
$24 goes to postage and handling, $24 goes to keeping the doors open!