A busy week at the Midtown and Domino Room in Bend
Published 7:30 am Wednesday, October 4, 2023
- Catch the anthemic Canadian rock of The Glorious Sons Friday at the Domino Room.
This article was supposed to be about one of the artists below, but after weeks of trying to schedule an interview, it eventually became clear that I was not going to be able to get them on the phone.
And that’s OK. It happens. (And no, I won’t tell you which artist it was.)
With a single artist interview off the table, I started looking for an alternative, and that’s when I noticed that the Domino Room and Midtown Ballroom (51 NW Greenwood Ave., Bend) have a terrific run of shows planned over the coming week. So … it’s roundup time!
For more information on any of these, visit midtownballroom.com.
On Friday, the Domino Room will host the Canadian rock group The Glorious Sons.
If you like rock music, you should pay attention here, even if you’ve never heard of this band. They’ve won a couple of Juno awards — the Canadian Grammy — for Rock Album of the Year and just released their newest full-length, “Glory.” Their songs are sturdy and catchy and rootsy and anthemic, all at the same time. The Velveteers open. 8 p.m., doors open 7 p.m. $22.
Saturday night brings to the Domino Room Balkan Bump, aka Will Magid, a California composer and producer with a degree in ethnomusicology, or the study of music from different cultures, especially non-Western ones. He takes those skills and turns them into groovy, beat-driven dance music fused with all kinds of cool sounds from around the world. Banjolectric and Mah Ze Tar open. 8 p.m., doors open 7 p.m. $27.
Sunday night is bluegrass night at the Domino Room, as Molly Tuttle brings her Golden Highway band to town. Tuttle has long been considered one of the best bluegrass guitar players in the world, and her songwriting just keeps getting better, as evidenced by her outstanding new album, “City of Gold.” Her mega-talented band is a blast, too; their set was one of the very best at Redmond’s FairWell Festival in July. If you dig bluegrass at all, this one’s a can’t-miss. Cristina Vane opens. 8 p.m., doors open 7 p.m. $25.
It wouldn’t be wrong to think of I Prevail as the band that scored a big hit with a heavy metal cover of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” but it would be selling them just a bit short. Since their cover went viral in 2014, the Michigan band has made three albums of dynamic metalcore, packed wall to wall with sledgehammer riffs, pedal-to-the-metal rhythms and shredded-throat screaming, and even hip-hop and electronic elements. These dudes are brutally groovy, or groovily brutal — your choice. They’ll play Monday night at the Midtown Ballroom, with Dropout Kings and The Seafloor Cinema opening. 7 p.m., doors open 6 p.m. $44.
Circles Around the Sun formed for a particular purpose: Creating intermission music for a series of 2015 concerts played by the surviving members of the Grateful Dead to celebrate the Dead’s 50th anniversary. But once they were done with that gig, they just kept going. And they still are! Their spacey, psychedelic new album “Language” is their first without founding guitar wizard Neal Casal, who died by suicide in 2019. They’ll return to the Domino Room on Wednesday. 8 p.m., doors open 7 p.m. $18 in advance, $21 day of show.