Playing past hits along with songs from the group's most recent release Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not – a work that, according to ConsequenceOfSound.net, “continues the band's decades-long path of great records” – the alternative rockers of Dinosaur Jr. play a Codfish Hollow Barn concert on September 10, their latest album described by The Quietus as “a perfect synthesis of all the incredients that have made them one of the most intriguing and long-lasting guitar bands in recent history.”

Lauded by Sound Guardian as “a truly great and powerful band” and Icon Music Mag as “everything you could wish for in rock, jazz, fusion, blues, prog rock, and world music,” the Chicago-based quartet Marbin plays a Redstone Room concert on September 13, the band's most recent release Israeli Jazz praised by Festival Feak as an album that “tends to speed by at a frenetic pace, but never goes without some form of infectious melody that climbs and climbs, as if reaching for the next high.”

An annual Labor Day-weekend tradition blasts into the District of Rock Island in this year's Xstream Rock Island Grand Prix, the September 1 and 2 event in which thousands will cheer as hundreds of racing kart drivers traverse the tree-lined streets at speeds close to 100 MPH.

Called “hilarious and sharp-spoken” by The Huffington Post, and described by BookStr.com as a poet who “has taken no small steps toward proving her brilliance, strength, resilience, and power,” author, activist, and spoken-word artist Olivia Gatwood headlines a special engagement at Davenport's The Stardust on August 31, her recent release New American Best Friend lauded by Thought Catalogue as “the book I wish I had as a teenage girl.”