Bush, May 5

An iconic group of chart-topping, multi-platinum-selling musicians whose 2026 album I Beat Loneliness was hailed by the Daily Express for its "forceful blend" of melancholy lyrical content and "explosive" choruses, the English rockers of Bush bring their "The Land of Milk and Honey" tour to Moline's Vibrant Arena at the MARK, the May 5 concert event by the band's founder, lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist Gavin Rossdale.

Touring in support of their most recent studio album Servitude, which TheRazorsEdge.rocks deemed "a conveyor belt of unbridled badassery," the death-metal artists of The Black Dahlia Murder headline a May 1 concert event at Davenport's Capitol Theatre, Yardbarker's Jeff Mezyido having included the band in 2025's list of "the greatest metal acts that formed in the 2000s."

Touring in support of their September release I Feel the Everblaxk Festering Within Me, a Billboard-charting hit that made the top five in Germany, the deathcore musicians of Lorna Shore headline a May 2 concert event at East Moline venue The Rust Belt, the group composed of lead guitarist Adam De Micco, drummer Austin Archey, rhythm guitarist Andrew O'Connor, vocalist Will Ramos, and bassist Michael Yager.

ZG Smith, May 4

Touring in support of new songs and his 2023 EP Nighttime Animal that NashvilleSCENE said "moves at a groovy, unhurried pace, giving it a kind of trippy, tropical-island vibe," singer/songwriter ZG Smith headlines a May 4 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, Under the Radar adding that the EP's "warm guitar lines, subdued percussion, and dreamy vocals give it an alluring and effortless sheen."

With Americana UK raving that the talents are an "outstanding" duo who "demonstrate excellent musicianship," folk rockers Mandy Fer and Dave McGraw bring their outfit Sway Wild to Davenport's Raccoon Motel on May 6, First-Avenue.com adding that the project's album debut was "nothing short of an artistic epiphany."

With Texas Music Times raving that "The brilliance of Adam Hood" lies "in how he can be complex with natural simplicity," the singer/songwriter headlines a May 7 engagement at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, his 2022 album Bad Days Better inspiring Turn Up the Amp to award it "an early vote for Record of the Year in whatever category you want to place it."

With a number of lauded independent musicians performing one special concert event on May 2, Rock Island's Rozz-Tox venue and OUTLETProgramme will treat music lovers to outstanding instrumentals and vocals in the Saturday-evening pairing of the Yea Big/Dann/Nakarani Trio and Ishmael Ali, the latter performing as a duo with Bill Harris.

With her music described by A Jazz Noise as "a raw, abrasive, oppressive, and thrilling journey,” Chicago-based improviser, composer, educator, curator, and woodwind specialist Emily Rach Beisel performs at Rock Island venue Rozz-Tox on May 7, the evening also boasting a set with the Denver-based musicians of A Light Among Many, self-described as delivering "suffocating, sprawling soundscapes of drone and doom metal."

With his most recent release Silently, the Mind Breaks hailed by No Depression as an "unsettling yet invigorating album" that blends "banjo, acoustic guitar, and kick drum with gritty, determined vocals," folk, blues, and alt-country singer/songwriter William Elliott Whitmore returns to Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn for a season-opening concert on May 2, the artist's latest also inspiring Everything Is Noise to state that the artist "sings with a gravitas indictive of the very best blues and folk singers."

A Pulitzer Prize winner hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "one of the finest American plays of the 20th century," Thornton Wilder's classic The Skin of Our Teeth enjoys a May 7 through 10 staging in Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, the 1942 play also lauded by the Herald-Tribune as "wonderfully wise" and "a tremendously exciting and profound stage fable.

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