A legendary area rock outfit from the 1970s makes a triumphant return to the Rock Island Brewing Company on December 21, as brothers and Cedar Rapids natives BillyLee and Bryce Janey deliver an evening with the hard rockers of Truth & Janey, whose seminal 1976 LP No Rest for the Wicked and live Erupts! album from 2001 (recorded at Davenport's Col Ballroom) have both been reissued on CD by the Rockadrome label.

A side project of, and album by, indie-rock singer/songwriter John Brodeur, Bird Streets the band will play music from Birds Streets the album on December 12 as the latest guests in the Moeller Nights series, Brodeur's recording praised by AllMusic.com for its “clever twists, rich harmonies, and intricate guitar work,” and described by Albumism as “a contemporary masterpiece that conjuries indie rock's glory days.”

With Country Standard Time calling the group “one of the most talented and unique acts in modern country music,” the a cappella quintet Home Free brings its seasonal A Country Christmas tour to Davenport's Adler Theatre on December 13, performing holiday classics and modern compositions with the vocal fire and stage presence that led to the singers winning the fourth season of NBC's competition series The Sing Off.

Called “an impressive blues guitarist who sings with sweet power” by the New York Times and praised by Bluest Blast for “her intense, pyrotechnic take on blues rock,” recording sensation Samantha Fish returns to Davenport's Redstone Room on December 14, the artist's most recent albums – 2017's Chills & Fever and Belle of the West leading American Songwriter to state, “It's unlikely Fish, or many other acts, will deliver two terrific yet very different-sounding albums in a single year again.”

An annual holiday-music tradition returns to the area as the professional vocal ensemble the Nova Singers present their latest A Nova Christmas concerts, with exciting and moving arrangements of non-secular, classical, traditional, and contemporary holiday favorites performed December 14 at Davenport's St. Paul Lutheran Church and December 15 at Galesburg's First Lutheran Church.

Last year, YouTube sensation, America's Got Talent quarter-finalist, and violin virtuoso Lindsey Stirling released the chart-topping holiday album Warmer in the Winter. This year, things are going to get a whole lot hotter when Stirling brings her “Wanderland Tour” to Moline's TaxSlayer Center on December 6 – a night with the artist whom Rolling Stone calls “mesmerizing and emotive” and who currently boasts more than 1.9 billion views on her YouTube channel.

Recently described by GratefulWeb.com as “the true definition of road warriors, boasting over 20 shows a month,” the eternally touring reggae artists of Jon Wayne & the Pain play a December 6 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room, sharing the exhilarating gifts that led ThePier.org to praise their output that “crosses genres with tracks that build from dub loops and explode into powerful party anthems.”

Performing under the direction of Curtis Fischer-Oelschlaeger and accompanied by pianist Marcia Renaud, two dozen of the area's premier vocalists will blend their skills in December 7 and 8 Christmas with the Quad City Singers concerts at Colona's Lavender Crest Winery, with the seasonal repertoire boasting classic and contemporary arrangements for soloists, specific vocal groupings, and the entire ensemble.

On December 7, Moline's TaxSlayer Center will be providing country-music-star-power squared, as the venue hosts an evening with touring sensations Cole Swindell and Dustin Lynch, young country artists who have collectively sold tens of millions of units and have landed a dozen single on the Top 10 of Billboard's Country Airplay charts.

Lauded by NPR as “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation” and by Gramophone as “among the elite of today's classical guitarists,” Grammy winner Jason Vieaux serves as the latest guest in Quad City Arts Visiting Artists series, his December 8 performance at Davenport Central High School demonstrating why the Baltimore Sun called him “a substantially gifted guitarist whose playing revealed equal portions of stylistic elegance and technical polish.”

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