The Fretliners, a Rocky Mountain quartet, plays the Tower Theatre on Sunday. (Submitted photo)

Outdoor concerts — particularly free outdoor concerts — are so prevalent during summer in Central Oregon that some of our indoor venues reduce their ticketed offerings in July and August rather than try to compete.

That’s not the case at the Tower Theatre, however. The historic performance space in downtown Bend is busy, busy, busy with live music over the next couple of months, including three excellent shows over the next seven days.

Below are more details about those three and more. Get more info and/or buy tickets at towertheatre.org.

Tab Benoit

It’s a banner summer for fans of blues music in Central Oregon, with the inaugural Bend Blues Fest took over Silver Moon Brewing June 21 and guitarist Joe Bonamassa coming to Hayden Homes Amphitheater Aug. 3.

And on Thursday, Louisiana blues legend Tab Benoit will return to town for a show at the Tower. Benoit is touring behind his first new album in 13 years, “I Heart Thunder,” which the Chicago Blues Guide said “delivers the big tone he’s known for.” As a live performer, he’s electrifying, as anyone who saw his set at the recent New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival can tell you. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, doors open 6:30 p.m., $44-$69.

The Fretliners

If there was such a thing as a bluegrass superhero’s origin story, it might go something like this: “It is rare for there to exist a defining moment that changes the trajectory of four lives at once. But, clear as a lightning bolt in an open field, so electric was the moment The Fretliners first played together around a single microphone in the Cloverlick banjo shop barn one fateful evening, they knew they would be inseparable from that moment on.”

The Cloverlick banjo shop is in Fort Collins, Colorado, and as you can probably guess, that verbiage is taken from the website of The Fretliners, a Rocky Mountain quartet following a path similar to so many great progressive bluegrass groups from that region. In the summer of 2023, in fact, these fellows won band competitions at both the Telluride Bluegrass and Rockygrass Festivals — a rare feat. ‍Blackstrap Bluegrass will open the show. 7:30 p.m. Sunday, doors open 6:30 p.m., $19-$39.

Shinyribs

The road from Beaumont, Texas, to Shreveport, Louisiana, kinda-sorta runs along the border between the two states, through a region Shinyribs’ website calls “the cradle of swamp pop, Leadbelly, and bayou R&B. That’s where Kevin Russell was raised, and Kevin Russell is Shinyribs, no matter what form Shinyribs may take at any given moment. Sometimes Shinyribs is a skilled and thoughtful singer-songwriter and sometimes it’s an undeniable party-starting band, but either way, Russell is at the center of it.

Shinyribs is touring behind his newest album, “Leaving Time,” a delicious sonic gumbo made of country, blues, pop and rock ‘n’ roll, deeply infused with funk, soul, Cajun, Tex-Mex music and more. This dude was a highlight of Sisters Folk Festival a few years ago; now he’s coming to Bend. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, doors open 6:30 p.m., $29-$49.