{"id":247687,"date":"2026-04-02T01:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T01:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/247687\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T01:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T01:45:15","slug":"the-sacramento-beat-sacramento-and-northern-ca-concerts-in-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/247687\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sacramento Beat: Sacramento and Northern CA concerts in April"},"content":{"rendered":"

The merriment and sonic bacchanalia of Sac JestFest is back for Volume 3, \u201canother foolish April show\u201d of 11 bands, 21 visual artists (in 2-D and 3-D), aerialist performances and a dozen local vendors. Boasting a razor-sharp indie-pop acumen forever marooned on a desolate, wind-whipped shoreline, Sacramento native beach pop\/chillwave act Animals in the Attic is your musical headliner, with this event doubling as the official release party for their swirling fifth record, \u201cEpilogue<\/a>,\u201d released last week. They\u2019re flanked atop the lineup by the new collaboration between emotively fierce electro-pop\/alt-R&B juggernaut Rituals of Mine – also releasing a new EP, \u201cEndure<\/a>\u201d on Friday \u2014 backed by the unstoppable LabRats. Also leading the way are Oakland fuzz-licked punk act Grumpster, with tongue-in-cheek San Jose indie folk artist Pacing (the musical moniker for Katie McTigue) and her bevy of blooming, meandering and sassy ballads.<\/p>\n

Red-hot indie pop rockers Loose Choir likewise help to anchor a local-heavy lineup with noise rockers Quinkana, shoegaze\/indie artist Roni Jean, grunge metal miscreants Get The Wall, queer alt-punk from Uneasy and alt-rap troupe Youthanasia, with an electronic audio\/visual performance art experience \u201cof familiarity and nostalgia fused with tedium and mania\u201d from Fugitive Color, and Melissa Uroff-curated exhibit titled \u201cFunhouse.\u201d New at the Jest this year is the 916 Growth Gigs<\/a> side stage, which will feature a trio of acoustic sets woven between the main stage acts. The stage hosts The Reverent Marigold, Growth Gigs chief Brianna Carmel (of Blooming Heads, Little Tiny Knife and various local projects) and the triumphant return to Sacramento of former local mainstay Autumn Sky Hall. This year\u2019s gathering moves over to the Red Museum \u2014 its third venue in as many iterations \u2014 with the whole affair serving as a benefit for NorCal Resist. (3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, April 4, 212 15th St. $23. sacjestfest.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Local artists, message Aaron Davis on Instagram if you have upcoming shows, @adavis_threetosee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the second year in a row, luminant Vermont indie folk rock breakout Lily Seabird is kind enough to shoehorn a Nevada City gig into her West Coast touring docket \u2014 this year with her full band after last year\u2019s solo soiree. Her mesmerizing, pulsing freakout of a new single, \u201cDemon in Me<\/a>,\u201d feels like a seamless follow-up to her eponymous, songwriter\u2019s daydream of a 2025 LP \u201cTrash Mountain\u201d \u2014 a fresh afternoon\u2019s worth of setting sunrays doing their level best to warm the valley of despair and angst below before disappearing behind the jagged peaks. Nevada City mainstay Will Sprott forges the other half of a delectable pairing (Thursday, April 2, at Sans Backup Plan Records, 748 Zion St. $10-$20. instagram.com\/sans.backup.plan<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A celebration is in order for shimmering indie pop veteran veterans Rocketship, with a reissue and tour (their first gigs in eight years) to mark three decades since the release of their jangling, spacey magnum opus, \u201cA Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness\u201d \u2014 a record worth toasting for its own waves of organ-stitched boppers, but also for the influence the record carries for subsequent generations of likeminded acts. Perhaps Sacramento\u2019s elusive The Frenchmen would hold themselves in that category \u2014 they did their own reissue in 2024 to mark 20 years of the ebullient \u201cSorry We Ruined Your Party<\/a>,\u201d and join this bill along with Tony Molina (8 p.m. Friday, April 10, at Starlet Room. $26.40. harlows.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Somewhat sneakily, Midtown Live<\/a> \u2014 the promised sports pub and entertainment venue marking the latest venture to take over the space of the former midtown Goldfield (n\u00e9e Hamburger Mary\u2019s) on J Street \u2014 appears poised for an April opening and has prepped their first live music event. Magnetic Hawaiian-born roots\/pop\/reggae\/soul maestro Mike Love has the honor of smashing the champagne bottle on the revamped stage\u2019s bow \u2014 we\u2019ll keep you posted as future voyages are announced (7 p.m. Sunday, April 26, 1630 J St. $33.85. eventbrite.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll happily give you a pass for not immediately knowing exactly what was going on with Afroman and his now famed music video after the whole affair went viral in March, flooding social media with images of the rapper draped in American flag garb. According to multiple reports, the veteran artist, best known for the ubiquitous 2001 track \u201cBecause I Got High\u201d (and for his titular hairdo), emerged victorious from a First Amendment-anchored court battle in Ohio over the use of security camera footage depicting police activity at his home in 2022<\/a> in his video for \u201cLemon Pound Cake<\/a>.\u201d With that affair now concluded, back to business for the affable touring artist and activist as he lands on a tour stop in Nevada City (7 p.m. Monday, April 16, at Miners Foundry. $38.45. minersfoundry.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201croots rock\u201d carries a more titillating air when we don\u2019t actually know what those roots will eventually germinate into. Sonic botanists may still be baffled by the weaving and twisting vines of Boy Golden\u2019s 2026 no-skippers gem, \u201cBest of Our Possible Lives.\u201d Give it a few spins and it can feel like different phyla each time, from the country-kissed opening rocker \u201cSuffer<\/a>\u201d to the lyrically soaring, axe pinging curtain call of the title track<\/a> \u2014 and in between, \u201880s speckled NSFW emotional gut-puncher \u201cEyes\u201d and a pair of whimsical highway rambling duets, \u201cCowboy Dreams\u201d and \u201cMoontan,\u201d with fellow Canadian indie darling Cat Clyde. It\u2019s a magnanimously curated indie rock\/alt-country treasure chest that had no hope of ever staying buried, marking what feels like a significant arrival \u2014 and you won\u2019t want to overlook his 2025 4-song EP \u201cFinding Eden\u201d as a companion piece (7 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, 703 Sutter St., Folsom. $23.76. folsomhotelsaloon.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

We\u2019d be rather dismayed if one of downtown\u2019s finest patios didn\u2019t host some live music \u2014 fortunately, we won\u2019t have to riot! Adjacent to Pipeworks climbing gym, Pintworks Pub at Touchstone Brewing fired up their last Friday of the month concert series in March and has upcoming gigs from Public I, comprised of students from Elk Grove School of Rock<\/a> on April 24, with country blues rockers Moonshine & Honey (May 29), local fixture Rod Stinson Band (June 26), a pair of rock covers acts in The Seedy Burners (July 31) and \u201890s specialists Inverness95 (Aug. 28) and Americana\/roots\/blues staple Red\u2019s Blues wrapping the summer on Sept. 25 (instagram.com\/pipeworks<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Peeking ahead to summer … last year marked a seismic metamorphosis for South Lake Tahoe\u2019s The Hangar<\/a>, blooming from a plush outdoor beer garden with here-and-there music to a full-fledged concert venue. Having now been to a show there (one from which we assume a \u201cno more confetti cannons<\/a>\u201d rule was likely born), we can tell you that it\u2019s a special place to see a show. There\u2019s just all manner of good juju in the air here folks, and they\u2019re drawing acts that seldom play in such airy and energizingly intimate spaces. The summer season calendar is kicking off with a pair of regal indie psych rock acts in Unknown Mortal Orchestra (May 22) and the vivacious Allah-Las returning to the venue for the second year in a row with Mapache\u2019s Sam Blasucci (May 31). June is highlighted by a stop on the 30th Anniversary tour of the indelible Thievery Corporation (June 7), rambunctious rock\/jam troupe Dogs in a Pile (June 5) and the warm-hug indie folk rock embrace of Blind Pilot and John Craigie (June 20). RJD2 swings by on July 18, while August boasts Americana rock royals Old 97\u2019s (Aug. 2) and forerunners Built to Spill (Aug. 31), with Tab Benoit visiting on Sept. 6. We\u2019ll let you know about additional gigs when they\u2019re on the books \u2014 meanwhile we\u2019ll be sitting here pondering a summer timeshare down near \u201cthe Y\u201d (thehangarlaketahoe.com\/music-events<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A slightly shorter trek up Highway 50, the annual summer Folk on the Farm series at the delightfully charming Delfino Farms outdoor stage is packing some major juice. We throw no shade for keeping the term \u201cFolk\u201d in the moniker, but the lineups have long since blown past that genre boundary. It\u2019s a feisty season highlighted by the jazz-rooted psych blues rock bliss of White Denim (July 11), folk darling duo Two Runner (July 17), wistful Southern roots\/alt rockers Futurebirds (July 19), country songstress Willow Avalon (Aug. 1), soaring throwback soul troupe Thee Sinseers (Aug. 8), indie champs Whitney (Aug. 20) and grunge-tickled alt-rock upstart Ovven on Aug. 29. These are just a few of the highlights, the whole summer lineup is a heater \u2014 as are the pies and wines, for what it\u2019s worth (delfinofarms.com\/folkonthefarm<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Looking a little farther ahead to October \u2014 we\u2019re not sure how Aftershock keeps doing this, but somehow their lineups seem to stretch stratospherically higher each year, and we\u2019re loving the subtly packaged themes and vibes occurring by day and by stage. The top line headliners speak for themselves: My Chemical Romance, Limp Bizkit, Piece the Veil, Tool, Sublime, Wu-Tang Clan, Danny freakin\u2019 Elfman and overwhelmingly more. But there is some comparable firepower smoldering in the undercards, including Sunday homecomings for Dance Gavin Dance and the first Oleander gig in eight years. We\u2019ve also got the first California gig in nearly a quarter-century from criminally unheralded squad Union Underground, a 25th anniversary performance from Drowning Pool and a two-decade milestone spot from Aussie rock titans Wolfmother \u2014 a local makeup of sorts for their canceled July tour stop<\/a> at Channel 24 (Oct. 1-4 at Discovery Park. aftershockfestival.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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