Nedde Catich was a young jazz musician when he came to St. Ambrose College (now St. Ambrose University) during the Great Depression. At the time, he was playing trumpet in a jazz band at the Purple Grackle, a roadhouse just over the Cook County line. A respite for Chicago gangsters.

With their top-10 charting Billboard singles including “Catastrophist,” “What the Dead Men Say,” and “In the Court of the Dragon,” the heavy-metal musicians of Trivium headline a June 2 concert at East Moline venue The Rust Belt, their discography over two decades boasting 10 studio albums, three EPs, two demo albums, 42 singles, and 32 music videos.

With the event's performers including Jason Carl & the Whole Damn Band, CJ Parker, and students from the QC Rock Academy, Davenport's Common Chord will host - at Rock Island's Laborspace venue - the Live at Five: Block Party Kickoff on June 2, an introduction to the venue's three-month music series designed to bring downtown Davenport to summertime life with music and community.

Lauded by Clash magazine as an artist who "is able to blend surrealistic aspects with melodies dappled in light," Uruguayan indie singer/songwriter Juan Wauters headlines a June 8 concert at Rock Island's Rozz-Tox in support of his June 2 release Wandering Rebel, a work described on Badcamp as one that "attempts to reconcile the stability he's come to enjoy with the nomadic restlessness that's characterized his life thus far."

With the artist's latest release Room Enough, Time Enough lauded by Glide magazine for "its ambitious scope and inventive cover interpretations," folk singer/songwriter David Huckfelt and his outfit the Unarmed Forces headline a June 3 concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, the artist's recording also praised by Routes & Branches as “grounded in musicianship and songcraft, even as it invites the indwelling of spirits [and] voices across time, space, and culture.”

A Tony Award nominee for both Best Musical and Best Revival of a Musical that inspired one of the most popular movie musicals of all time, Grease is the word as the 2023 season-starter at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, the endlessly popular show beloved by audiences for its unforgettable characters and songs including "Greased Lightnin'," "We Go Together," and the karaoke staple "Summer Nights."

A pair of famed commentators and humorists familiar from FOX News, MTV, and the Game Show Network will blend their talents on June 3 when The Laughs & Liberty Tour makes its way to Davenport's Adler Theatre, the night boasting observations and insight from standup comedian and author Jimmy Failla and frequent news panelist and correspondent Kennedy.

Possibly the most famed and beloved artist in the history of comic strips will be celebrated at the Figge Art Museum through September 3 when the Davenport venue houses The Life & Art of Charles M. Schulz, a touring salute to the talent who brightened the world for 50 years with the comedic, and sometimes melancholic, adventures of Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, Snoopy, and the rest of the lovable Peanuts gang.

A 40-year tradition that has attracted more than 25,000 people each summer to downtown Iowa City, the Iowa Arts Festival, from June 2 through 4, will host more than 100 visual artists, include an Emerging Artist Area geared toward elevating student work, and feature a beverage garden, a variety of culinary delights, children’s activities, and thrilling live-music performances, including by this year's headliner Alejandro Escovedo.