The-Black-Lillies- -by-Joseph-Llanes
The Arts Council of Big Sky is pleased to announce another amazing summer of Music in the Mountains at Center Stage in Town Center Park. Starting on June 23rd and ending on September 1st, there will be fifteen events, including eleven Thursday night concerts, the sixth annual Big Sky Classical Music Festival, and a performance from Montana Shakespeare in the Parks. And best of all, all of these events are free! The ACBS kicks things off in June again this summer by welcoming back
The Black Lillies to Big Sky on Thursday, June 23rd. This band is no stranger to Big Sky–having played there on numerous occasions–and are a band for the ages: rich, rootsy tunes performed with as much heart as technical virtuosity. If you ask them, they’ll tell you they play “Tennessee music”–combining strains of swampy Memphis soul and blues with Nashville’s classic country and East Tennessee’s traditional Appalachian style–while Rolling Stone describes it as “country music with a soul-rock infusion, supported by bandleader Cruz Contreras’ smart songwriting and tight musicianship.”
The series continues when Portland-based indie folk group Blitzen Trapper comes to Big Sky on Thursday, June 30th. Over the course of fifteen years and seven full-length albums, Blitzen Trapper has crafted one of the more compelling and varied catalogs in contemporary rock and roll. Even while continuing to explore broad stylistic territory, Blitzen Trapper’s eighth studio album, a 10-song collection titled All Across This Land, stands as an exceptionally focused and immediate effort. Though it follows 2013’s somewhat experimental VII, a futuristic hip-hop/country-rock hybrid, All Across This Land, in contrast, is a top-down, tightly defined piece of classic rock and roll, full of big riffs, bigger hooks, and compelling, instantly relatable lyrics. In sound and scope it recalls two of the band’s more beloved albums, 2008’s breakthrough fourth effort, Furr, and 2011’s landmark American Goldwing.
Other weekly concerts through out the summer include the Band of Heathens on July 7th, the Tiny Band on July 4th, the Jamie McLean Band on July 14th, Todo Mundo on July 21st, Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real on July 28th, the Iguanas on August 4th, Amy Helm and the Handsome Strangers on August 11th, the DeadPhish Orchestra on August 18th, Fruition on August 25th, and Cure for the Common close out the concert season on September 1st. For more information about this summer’s events, contact the Arts Council of Big Sky at (406) 995-2742 or bigskyarts.org/ for more information. The ACBS is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1989. •
