Saturday, July 6, noon – midnight
Schwiebert Riverfront Park, 101 17th Street, Rock Island IL
Bluegrass, funk, roots, reggae, and plenty of rock will be on tap, and in the great outdoors, when the area rockers of The Dawn host the fifth-annual Dawn & On Music Festival, the eagerly awaited July 6 event boasting food and beverage vendors, arts & crafts, and nine exhilarating concert sets by local and regional acts, all taking place – for the first time – in Rock Island's Schwiebert Riverfront Park.
Saturday's festivities begin at noon with a set by the Grateful Dead tribute artists of the Quad Cities-based Dead and Gone, followed by a 1 p.m. concert with Davenport's alternative-reggae four-piece Rude Punch. The psychedelic rockers of Peoria's The Golden Fleece take the outdoor stage at 2:15 p.m., with the 3:30 p.m. slot reserved for Chicago's Armando Pérez and the touring talents of ESSO Afrojam Funkbeat. At 4:45 p.m., roots and folk singer/songwriter Cody Diekhoff brings his talents to Dawn & On under his stage moniker Chicago Farmer, while the genre-defying Jon Stickley Trio delivers bluegrass, metal, grunge, and more at 6 p.m. Its influences including Neil Young, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Wilco, Chicago's Sun Beard performs at 7:30 p.m., with the night's 9 p.m. set headlined by the unique funk quintet Steady Flow. And at 10:30 p.m., the festival's namesakes will close the evening as The Dawn itself graces the Schwiebert Riverfront Park bandshell.
Composed of Sean Ryan on guitar, Jordan VanOpDorp on keyboards, Dan Olds on bass, Chris Cushman on drums, “Edub” Wilson on percussion, and Derek Fortin joining the instrumentalists on vocals, the Western Illinois-based The Dawn has been performing cutting-edge improvisational rock throughout the Midwest for more than a dozen years. The critical and commercial success of the group's 2014 release Waiting on the Storm helped catapult the musicians to major festival experiences including Camp Euforia, Summer Camp, and the inaugural Phases of the Moon, and in the wake of the Dawn & On Music Festival's debut in 2015, last summer's gathering drew more than 1,500 music fans to the festival's previous stomping grounds of Len Brown's North Shore Inn.
The fifth-annual Dawn & On Music Festival will be followed by a Saturday-night after-party at the Rock Island Brewing Company (1815 Second Avenue, Rock Island) boasting a 12:30 a.m. set by the Illinois-based roots and progressive-bluegrass musicians of Still Shine and a 1:30 a.m. closer with the horn-playing siblings of funk outfit The Tripp Brothers.
Tickets to the July 6 Dawn & On Music Festival are $10 at the gate, with a portion of all ticket sales benefiting Family Resources, and ages 12 and under free. For more information on the noon-to-midnight outdoor event, visit DawnAndOn.com.
