MUSIC
The Waldo is an intimate musical performance venue, enabling local, regional and national artists to engage and enrich our community.
On Saturday June 3rd from 7-10pm, The Waldo will host three Midcoast Maine bands, celebrating the power of original composition and improvisation in music.
Simplexity is led by keyboardist Alan Boyer and features exclusively all-original compositions.Though rooted in jazz, Alan’s music has its own unique flavor. Hard to describe, we’d say it’s reminiscent of Charles Mingus with heavy funk inspiration and unique yet groovable time signatures. Alan’s great sense of humor often comes out in the music and ample space is left to allow for improvisation and player interplay.
Electric Bonfire is a four-piece rock band based in Lincolnville, Maine. The band was formed in 2016 by Mitch Markowitz and John Luft on guitars and vocals with Mike Whitehead on electric bass and Jason Dean on drums. Electric Bonfire is an original song and improv group featuring Rock, Reggae, Funk, and Groove styles There is lots of space in Electric Bonfires music for player interaction and improvisation. All members of the band contribute original music to the live sets and thoughtful lyrics often reflect current topics and issues.
Whitehead/Dean Group is led by trumpeter Mike Whitehead and drummer Jason Dean. Also featured are Mitch Markowitz on guitar and Glen DuBois on electric bass. The band’s music has its roots in the Jazz/Funk Fusion movement of the 1970’s featuring music by Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, and more. The powerful dynamic between players is evident in every WDG show.
Come get your groove on with three local bands, because original music is alive and kicking!
A limited number of Front Row Seats are available for $35 each. General admission tickets are available for $25 in advance, $30 the day of the event. If this show has not sold out, a limited number of tickets may be available at the box office for starting at 6:00pm. Doors open at 6:00pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
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Five years since her debut album Delivery, Mikaela Davis has moved away from her hometown of Rochester, shared the stage with the likes of Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Christian McBride, Bon Iver, Lake Street Dive and Circles Around the Sun and entered a new decade. But it’s the ever-evolving relationships between her closest friends and bandmates that has propelled the Hudson Valley-based artist onto her new album And Southern Star––a truly collaborative effort that ruminates on the choices we make, and the people we always come back to.
Navigating the periphery of past selves, the coexistence of isolation and excitement in a new environment and the tension of growing away from what we thought we wanted is tackled with a luscious, kaleidoscopic grace. And Southern Star picks apart the reflection we used to recognise, while trying to build a new one. “I finally feel like this album is more me than anything else that’s been released,” Davis says, adding that producing the album along with her four bandmates allowed them to carve out their own ideas, rather than someone else’s. Despite playing together for over a decade, it’s the first time the five-piece have appeared on a full length album together.
The bones of And Southern Star was recorded at Old Soul Studios with Kenny Siegal, a person who was an integral part of Davis’ move to the area. The rest was recorded by Cian McCarthy at Horehound Mansion, adding to the album’s intimate nature. The album was mixed by Mike Fridmann at Tarbox Road Studios, who is lovingly nicknamed as the ‘silent sixth member of the band.’
Davis describes the band’s bond as “meditative and telepathic,” adding that although many of the songs were written individually across the past few years, something instantly clicked once they were together. Opener “Cinderella,” written by Coté and Davis, begins with Davis’ distinctive harp plucks and ethereal vocals. It’s a sonic choice that directly points to Davis’ solo beginnings, before blossoming into the textural patchwork of the band’s contributions. The fairytale wanderings of the song peel back in the album’s dream-like canopy, where tracks offer an otherworldly escape from the constraints of reality.
“Promise” was crafted by Davis and Coté years ago as she was illustrating the pains of a close friend, but soon found herself relating it to her own life. Like the evolutionary tint of the album’s scenery, And Southern Star reckons with the changes that creep into a hairpin bend. “The Pearl” is there to anchor these dizzying shifts, as steel guitar and glittering harp creates a frame around the core-memories that shaped us. “You will always feel like that inner child,” Davis explains. “Sometimes you’ll forget about them but then it hits you.”
And Southern Star is an album that toes the liminal space of growing into ourselves, while tugging at parts of the past that we’re desperate to keep. Moving forward, and accepting change, is one of the most painful parts of renewal and we can often find ourselves stuck in the difficulty of it all. Davis, along with her band, understands that while these bumps may hurt at first, they’re not forever and just like the message of album track “Saturday Morning”: sometimes “the illusion of darkness breaks its spell.”
Louisa Stancioff:
Songwriter and guitarist Louisa Stancioff, backed by her bandmates Dave and Dan Kelly, is quickly establishing herself as one of the premier musical artists in Maine. Her intelligent and soulful writing pairs with a confident and catchy indie sound drawing on folk, rock, pop, and her own Bulgarian heritage. You can listen to her previous band Dyado anywhere, or purchase her EP at a show. Keep an ear out for her first music release, coming this summer.
A limited number of Front Row Seats are available for $30 each. General admission tickets are available for $20 in advance, $25 the day of the event. If this show has not sold out, a limited number of tickets may be available at the box office for starting at 6:30pm. Doors open at 6:30pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
Free parking is available on Main Street; Friendship Street; in the 8 spaces on Glidden Street; in the Kuhn Parking lot (beside the masonic lodge on Main Street); and in the lot behind Perch and The Narrows.
All tickets are final sale and non-refundable.
Join Halcyon for Tipping Points: a 60-minute multimedia performance combining live string quartet music with synchronous animated and live action film. The performance explores the environmental, social, and economic drivers of climate change while encouraging audiences to reflect on the ways that the media, economy, and persistent messaging around sustainability, growth, and the future shape our everyday behavior. Tipping Points will feature music by Rafiq Bhatia, Caroline Shaw, Hildegard von Bingen, Beethoven, and Bartok alongside film by Rockland-based videographer and musician, Luke Fatora. The program will conclude with a panel discussion with guest speakers and experts from the community.
Tickets are $25 advance, $30 day of show. A limited amount of front row seats will be available for $40 each.
For decades now this power trio of banjo, resonator guitar, and drums has been surprising audiences with creative songwriting, unique instrumental arrangements, and raw garage band intensity. Balanced by two lead vocalists and well timed harmonies, The Toughcats blend an eclectic mix of influences into a playful and powerful original sound. Their live show is both sonically and visually captivating and leaves many an audience’s jaws not far from the floor. They have released four full length albums and toured nationally for many years. The band has not performed in their home of Midcoast Maine for quite some time. This will be an especially potent comeback concert in the place where it all began.
Becca Biggs has been making a name for herself in Maine for over eight years, but her country influences and twangy vocals (with a vibrato reminiscent of Dolly Parton) betray her Tennessee roots. Playing banjo with two other homesteader-moms on cello and guitar, she co-founded the Americana trio Sugarbush in 2015, releasing two albums of acclaimed material. Last year, Biggs broke out with her debut solo album Genie, assembling a team of crack musicians including J.R. Braugh, Jake Greenlaw, and Zack Bence. That effort saw her named WERU’s artist of the week and the track “I Can’t Take It” named a Portland Press Herald song of the week. Mainer magazine recognized her “beautiful and dextrous voice.” Combined with folk, rock, and alternative influences, Biggs and her band have created a sound that is both muscular and enveloping. Don’t be fooled by the unassuming, laid-back personality; Biggs can rock, and you may quickly find yourself out of your chair.
A limited number of Front Row Seats are available for $40 each. General admission tickets are available for $25 in advance, $30 the day of the event. If this show has not sold out, a limited number of tickets may be available at the box office for starting at 6:30pm. Doors open at 6:30pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
An Evening with Hiss Golden Messenger - Friday, July 21st at 7:30pm
Hiss Golden Messenger returns to the Waldo! Songwriter and bandleader M.C. Taylor’s music is at once familiar, yet impossible to categorize. Elements from the American songbook—the steady, churning acoustic guitar and mandolin, the gospel emotion, the steel guitar tracings, the bobbing and weaving organ and electric piano—provide the bedrock for Taylor’s existential ruminations about parenthood, joy, hope, and loneliness—our delicate, tightrope balance of dark and light—that offer fully engaged contemporary commentary on the present. In his latest album, Quietly Blowing It, Taylor went looking for peace.
$1 per ticket will be donated to the Durham, North Carolina School System.
General admission tickets are available for $30 in advance, $35 the day of the event. A limited amount of Front Row tickets will be available for $50. If this show is not sold out, tickets are available at the box office starting at 6:30pm. Doors open at 6:30pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
The Docksiders - Friday, July 28th at 8:00pm
Imagine that it's 1981 and you’re cruising the Atlantic shores of the Hamptons with your friends. Bikinis are fluorescent, polo collars are popped, and boat shoes are rocked sockless. In the background, your booming sound system is playing the soft-rock sounds of Michael McDonald, Olivia Newton-John, Hall & Oates, Christopher Cross and Air Supply.
The Docksiders are made up of veteran musicians originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and now based in Las Vegas, Nevada – led by 3-time Grammy™ nominee, Kevin Sucher. Their unique tribute act of your favorite soft rock songs of the 70s and 80s – now defined as Yacht Rock – have been entertaining hundreds of thousands of people for years - and audiences are only getting bigger!
The Docksiders - America's Favorite Yacht Rock Band!
A limited number of Front Row Seats are available for $55 each. General admission tickets are available for $35 in advance, $40 the day of the event. If this show has not sold out, a limited number of tickets may be available at the box office for starting at 7:00pm. Doors open at 7:00pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
Women of SOUL: Pat Colwell and the Soul Sensations
The latest concert offering from Pat Colwell and the Soul Sensations is a loving tribute to the female giants of Soul Music. Women of SOUL is ninety minutes of pure, unadulterated, joy featuring the best of SOUL Superstars Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Tina Turner, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Etta James, Martha and The Vandellas, and Dusty Springfield. We even take a deep dive into the musical genius of lesser known, but brilliant artists like Ann Peebles, Mavis Staples, and the incomparable Fontella Bass! You may not remember her name, but who can forget the power of Fontella’s classic – Rescue Me.—
Pat Colwell and the Soul Sensations bring down the house with a powerful mix of Motown/Memphis Soul Music that’s guaranteed to get the party started! This is a 100% Old School Soul Revue complete with outstanding female singers, a full horn section, and a show that that will knock your socks off! The band covers Soul Classics from Sam and Dave, the Supremes, Wilson Pickett, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, The Staple Singers and The Queen of Soul – Aretha Franklin! When Pat Colwell and the Soul Sensations hit the stage, it’s an instant Soul Train dance party and a History of Soul Music all wrapped up in a single package of FUN!
A limited number of Front Row Seats are available for $40 each. General admission tickets are available for $25 in advance, $30 the day of the event. If this show has not sold out, a limited number of tickets may be available at the box office for starting at 6:30pm. Doors open at 6:30pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
An Evening with Patty Griffin - Thursday, August 17th at 8:00pm: Tickets on sale May 26th at 10am!
Patty Griffin is among the most consequential singer-songwriters of her generation, a quintessentially American artist whose wide-ranging canon incisively explores the intimate moments and universal emotions that bind us together.
Over the course of two decades, the 2x GRAMMY® Award winner – and 7x nominee – has crafted a remarkable body of work in progress that prompted the New York Times to hail her for “[writing] cameo-carved songs that create complete emotional portraits of specific people...[her] songs have independent lives that continue in your head when the music ends.” 2019 saw the acclaimed release of the renowned artist’s GRAMMY® Award-winning 10th studio recording, PATTY GRIFFIN, available now via her own PGM Recordings label via Thirty Tigers HERE. One of the most deeply personal recordings of Griffin’s remarkable two-decade career and first-ever
eponymous LP, PATTY GRIFFIN made a top 5 debut on Billboard’s “Independent Albums” chart amidst unprecedented worldwide acclaim, and later, a prestigious GRAMMY® Award for “Best Folk Album.”
In addition to her creative career, Griffin has also devoted considerable energy and focus towards the wellbeing of the planet as well as showing compassion for the less fortunate among us via personal and public acts of charity. Having crafted a rich catalog that chronicles love and death, heartache and joy, connection and detachment, Patty Griffin continues to push her art forward, as always imbuing every effort with compassion and craft, uncanny perception, and ever-increasing ingenuity.
General admission tickets are available for $65 in advance, $70 the day of the event. A limited amount of Front Row tickets will be available for $99. Doors open at 7:00pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
Ethan Uslan is a 3-time winner of the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and has performed across the USA as well as in England, Ireland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and France. At the age of 9, he began studying classical piano with Faina Litenzon. As a teenager, he took jazz lessons from Dan Crisci and in college (Indiana University) he studied classical piano under Edmund Battersby. Ethan received his master's degree in historical musicology.
Ethan Uslan currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina where he presents his music and storytelling on his podcast: THE CAROLINA SHOUT. His concerts are filled with passion, humor, virtuosity, and a deep love for America's rich musical past. His vast repertoire includes original arrangements of New Orleans Jazz, 1920s Charlestons, blues, stomps, Harlem stride piano, swing and jazzed-up versions of classical masterpieces. His most popular work: “Fur Elise” in ragtime has been performed and recorded all over the world.
Most recently he was the on-screen “hand double” for AMC’s series INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE (based on the novel by Anne Rice) where he performed at the keyboard as Count Lestat, playing everything from Bach’s MINUET IN G to jazzing up classical music in front of Jelly Roll Morton himself!
Part of ticket sales will benefit The Glenn Jenks Ragtime Revue annual music scholarship in association with Bay Chamber Music School's YOUNG STARS OF MAINE. The GLENN JENKS "Future in Music" prize is open to mixed-genre instrumental, vocal or composition students residing in Maine, age 12-25, who wish to further their studies in the field of music. Fiddler Owen Kennedy received the first prize in 2019 and electric violinist Mavy Le was awarded the second prize in 2022.
General admission tickets are available for $25 in advance, $30 the day of the event. A limited amount of Front Row tickets will be available for $40. If this show is not sold out, tickets are available at the box office starting at 7:00pm. Doors open at 7:00pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
A Stephen Kellogg performance is like watching Ted Lasso live. Whether you have heard of him before or not you will leave the show inspired, restored and having experienced an offering like no other. For more than two decades, this wordsmith, Tedx speaker, stand up comic, family man and troubadour, has delighted audiences around the world. Planet Bluegrass calls him “a first class songwriter with a poets gift for fresh imagery,” and Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz says of Kellogg, “There are few people in rock n’ roll who are just so great.” He has received the Armed Forces Entertainer of the Year award and has had his work nominated for a Grammy. Rolling Stone magazine describes his sound as “John Prine fronting the Heartbreakers.” Kellogg’s songs and stories speak to our lives with an immediacy scarcely seen in the modern landscape. Each performance paints a unique canvas that covers the full spectrum of human emotions. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll go home with a full heart.
With a captivating soprano voice and award winning songwriting, Caroline Cotter's songs take listeners all over the world and into the depths of the human heart. Cotter's songs are steeped in reverence for the natural world, with roots in New England and a deep love for the road. Since her debut album, "Dreaming as I Do", released and reached #5 on the Folk DJ Charts in 2015, Caroline has performed over 800 shows in 45 states and 13 countries. Currently touring to support her second major release, "Home on The River”, No Depression calls it "sweet and smooth, and downright refreshing... raising spirits with one song, calming them with another."
General admission tickets are available for $35 in advance, $40 the day of the event. A limited amount of Front Row tickets will be available for $50. If this show is not sold out, tickets are available at the box office starting at 7:00pm. Doors open at 7:00pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.
Mr. Tambourine Man not only lived history, he made history with his fearless sense of experimentation. As the leader of the influential 60s group, The Byrds, Roger was on the leading edge, combining the rock beat of the Beatles with the folk sensibilities of Bob Dylan, to create the genre known as “folk-rock” His groundbreaking work on The Byrds “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo” album, is widely credited with ushering in the genre of country rock. Roger’s solo career began in 1973 and has yielded 13 albums, a Grammy nomination, and extensive touring and performing for enthralled audiences ever since.
A limited number of Front Row Seats are available for $75 each. General admission tickets are available for $50 in advance, $55 the day of the event. If this show has not sold out, a limited number of tickets may be available at the box office for starting at 7:00pm. Doors open at 7:00pm, and concessions will be available for purchase.