Performing in support of their latest album that Rolling Stone calls “a crisp display of precision” in which “everyone plays with fire and purpose,” the musicians of Sarah Shook & the Disarmers serve as Moeller Nights headliners on October 9, their rock-infused country stylings on Years described by NoDepression.com as “real, raw, mean-and-evil, bad-and-nasty bidness that makes an ass-kickin' sound mighty fine.”

There was a certain air of rowdiness at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's opening-night production of Mama Won't Fly, and rightfully so, as the champagne fountain was flowing in celebration of the theatre's final production of its 41st season. Everyone seemed ready for a good laugh, and on those terms, I don't think any of us left disappointed.

“Was it all just a dream?” Those were the first words uttered by an off-screen Michael Moore in his 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore's incensed indictment of George W. Bush's first years in office (and, because it's Moore, a bunch of other things, too). Those same words, not at all coincidentally, open Moore's new Fahrenheit 11/9, the numerically swapped title a reference to the day in 2016 that Donald J. Trump was officially named our nation's president. The difference between those identically worded openers, though, lies in the timbre of Moore's voice. In 9/11, he was recognizably sardonic and faux ingenuous, following the question with snarky references to Ben Affleck and Robert De Niro. In 11/9, however, “Was it all just a dream?” sounds like the lament of a truly sad, incredulous man – one who can't believe that, 14 years later, he's forced to ask the same damned question again, and likely to ever-less-receptive ears.

The first gubernatorial debate of the 2018 general election was almost all heat and no light. Instead of talking about where they want to take the state, the candidates focused mainly on delivering rehearsed zingers at other people in the race.

A widely acclaimed work in which, according to Variety magazine, “conflicts explode in consistently intriguing ways,” the comedic drama Speech & Debate serves as the final production in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's 2018 Barn Owl Series, its September 27 through 29 run demonstrating why the Washington Post deemed it a “suspenseful tale that fuses keen-eyed civic critique with riotous and even campy humor.”

Fencing battles, sword fights, wandering minstrels, and all manner of Medieval fun will be on hand at the third-annual Quad Cities Renaissance Faire, the September 29 and 30 festival at Davenport's Credit Island Park that sets up camp in Iowa after two successive years in Illinois, and promises multiple stages of live entertainment, unique merchandise in the village marketplace, and food, drinks, and snacks galore.

Performing in support of its 2017 release The Desaturating Seven, an album that The A.V. Club called “a vibrant, knotted work of screwball fun” that “gets it message across in surprisingly approachable prog-funk hooks,” the experimental rockers of Primus play an October 3 concert at Davenport's Adler Theatre, sharing the talents that led MetalStorm.net to deem them “a shining example for bands who want to succeed on their own terms.”

In the venue's latest annual celebration of alternative rock, roots, and country music, Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn hosts no less than 20 performers and ensembles at Garp 2018 on September 28 and 29, both days featuring sets with lauded folk-rock and Americana musician Nathaniel Rateliff, who will perform as both a solo artist and frontman for his group Nathaniel Ratelieff & the Night Sweats.

Touring in support of his most recent release Concrete & Mud, an album that, according to American Songwriter, “features a greasy guitar groove and some of [the artist's] most soulful vocals to date,” Sam Morrow headlines a special Moeller Nights concert on September 25, the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter cited by Rolling Stone among 2018's “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know.”