The Felice Brothers, a folk-rock/country band from the New York Catskills, land at the Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel on August 15.

Most state legislators don't have to worry about next year's general election. The combination of gerrymandering and the simple fact that many of the state's regions are dominated by one party or the other pretty much guarantees that all but a handful of incumbents will sail through on the November ballot.

I was in Friday's opening-night audience for the Mississippi Bend Players' Dames at Sea. George Haimsohn and Robin Miller wrote the 1966 piece's book and lyrics, with music by Jim Wise, and as Augustana College's Brunner Theatre lobby display notes, it's a spoof of the films Gold Diggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, and 42nd Street. The old show-biz tropes it sends up are easy targets, and the tunes are imitative (naturally), but vastly enjoyable. As for the script, it's just one giant, cheerful wink in which continuity and plausibility are irrelevant. Show people playing show people putting on a show is a sea of fun to begin with, and the plot merely dips a toe in the water now and then, leaving the singing and dancing to make the big splash – which, here, they do.

There's a British invasion going on at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, and Friday's performance of The Who's Tommy was in your face, intense, and powerful, a rock opera that cranked up the volume on the phenomenal music of one of the most influential groups of the 20th century: English rock band The Who.

Though they traditionally deliver pre-show entertainment for the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's mainstage productions, the theatre's wait staff of Bootleggers will be “the main course” on the five Thursdays in August when the singing and dancing servers present The Best of the Bootleggers, an August 1 through 29 revue of some of the gifted performers' most memorable pre-show performances from Circa '21's 42 seasons.

From August 8 through 10, an eagerly awaited summertime tradition will take place both on and in between the LeClaire and Port Byron Levees, as the 33rd Annual Great River Tug Fest delivers outdoor family fun with carnival attractions, live music, arts and crafts vendors, fireworks displays, and the hotly anticipated tug-of-war over the Mississippi River.

Lauded by NPR for songs that are “bright, approachable, outward-facing throwbacks to the best in classic countrified rock” while also “a canvas for serious, sometimes enormously ambitious ruminations on the meaning of life,” the indie-rock and -folk artists of Dawes enjoy a two-night booking at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn on August 2 and 3, their “Two Evenings with Dawes” event treating fans a repertoire ranging from the band's 2009 North Hills debut to 2018's Passwords.

Composed of keyboardist Mike Maimone, guitarist Bob Buckstaff, and drummer Chris Pagnani, the Chicago-based rockers of Mutts perform as Moeller Nights headliners on August 8, the trio's engagement at Davenport's Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel showcasing the high-energy talents that led MusicExistence.com to rave of their output, “I seriously don't see who wouldn't go crazy for this band as they press the 'play' button.”