The Dawn hosts the Dawn & On Music Festival at Schwiebert Riverfront Park -- July 10.
Saturday, July 10, noon – midnight
Schwiebert Riverfront Park, 101 17th Street, Rock Island IL
After an unplanned summer off, one of the area's most eagerly anticipated day-long festivals returns on July 10 in the sixth iteration of the Dawn & On Music Festival, with the area musicians of The Dawn hosting bluegrass, funk, roots, reggae, and plenty of rock in nine exhilarating concert sets – from nine much-admired local and regional acts – held in Rock Island's Schwiebert Riverfront Park.
Scheduled to participate in this year's Dawn & On Music Festival: Magic Beans, the Denver-based funk, soul, electronica, and bluegrass ensemble whose April release Slice of Life is a 14-song documentation of a year spent unable to tour; The Way Down Wanderers, the Illinois group whose blend of high-energy percussion, mandolin, guitar, bass, banjo, and fiddle has led to sold-out shows across the United States and United Kingdom; Them Coulee Boys, Wisconsin natives with three albums' worth of their signature mix of punk, bluegrass, rock, and Americana; and Middle Western, whose Illinois and Iowa musicians blend New Orleans piano stomps, Crazy Horse guitar epics, and proto-garage boogie.
Also featured in the 2021 Dawn & On Music Festival: Heads in Motion, the Quad Cities-based Talking Heads tribute act boasting a 10-piece tour de force of intensity and sound modeled after the Stop Making Sense era; The Textures, a Quad Cities outfit whose six musicians converge psychedelia, funk, disco, rock, soul, and more; The Channel Cats, whose local musicians blend funk, jazz, and rock in both original and cover form; and Still Shine, who have gained a significant Midwestern following through their mix of mandolin, harmonica, banjo, acoustic guitar, upright bass, and tight harmonies.
And, of course, there will be a set with the hosts of the Dawn & On Music Festival. 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 (at Len Brown';s North Shore Inn) in 2015, the 2019 gathering drew more than 1,500 music fans to the festival's first engagement at Schwiebert Riverfront Park.
Tickets to the July 10 Dawn & On Music Festival are $20 at the gate, with a portion of all ticket sales benefiting the Rock Island YWCA, ages 12 and under free, and a variety of food and beverage vendors will be on-site. For more information on the noon-to-midnight outdoor event, visit DawnAndOn.com.
