2026 Music Schedule
All music is at the Rotary Park gazebo just outside the Opera House and is free throughout the festival.
Looking for a text-only schedule? Click here!
FRIDAY, JULY 3RD
BAMM
3:30 - 5:00pm - Friday
Wisconsin-grown grooves, blending Roots-rock, folk, and improv into a soul-stirring, high-energy experience
BAMM is a powerhouse of Wisconsin-based musicians blending roots rock, folk, and dynamic improvisation with a modern twist. With soulful guitar riffs, groove-driven bass, energetic drums, melodic keys, and stirring violin, BAMM crafts immersive musical landscapes that invite audiences to feel and move. Known for high-energy shows and versatile arrangements, BAMM delivers a vibrant, genre-blurring sound that keeps audiences captivated from start to finish.
TAE & THE NEIGHBORLY
5:30 - 7:00pm - Friday
Tae & The Neighborly, a Wisconsin based Soul-pop R&B group, found themselves playing music together in a very unconventional way. They were all neighbors, each one living alone on one floor of a five-story flat. Cake baking is a shared passion of the five member group, but in the sugar shortages early in the 2020 pandemic, they found themselves so continually knocking on each other's doors asking for a single cup of sugar that a group decision was made to all move in together and share cake-baking resources. And since everyone knows all good rhythms begin in the kitchen, it wasn’t before long that the group began to write and perform together across the nation. Critics hail the group as “having more kick than a bagged-up mule” (Rotary Times) and their live show “...going down smoother than a can of [beans] warmed on the campfire” (Cowboy Gazette). All in all, if you are looking for a dense show that will give you more inspiration fuel for self lovin’, world changin’, and consideration havin’ meet them where the music is made to be shared.
WONDERFUNK
7:30 - 9:00pm - Friday
Led by Ben Majeska of Armchair Boogie and Trevor Northsoul, Wonderfunk features a rotating cast of all-star musicians on a mission to funk things up. Each live performance delivers gold in the form of soul, tappin' feet from stanky beats, and fires off like your mother-in-law after one too many martinis. Have you the moxie to mettle with the beast that is Wonderfunk? The time is nigh, the vibes are high, and funk is fly.
Find them on Facebook
SATURDAY JULY 4TH
CHIP CRUZ
12:00 - 1:00pm - Saturday
Chip Cruz is a Spanish-American guitarist and composer. Cruz is known for his percussive and jam-tinged melodies, energetic live shows, use of multiple tunings on acoustic, steel and Weissenborn guitars and a diverse range in different musical genres.
WILD VIOLETS
1:15 - 2:15pm - Saturday
This all-female group displays their own distinct spin on the soulful R&B, pop & Hip-Hop hits from the 90s and early 2000s. They are active in the local Madison live music and festival scene, and are also deeply involved in the community, playing family-friendly events and participating in benefits for the Madison Girls Rock Camp and the Madison Area Music Association.
Find them on Facebook
COMPACT DELUXE
2:30 - 3:30pm - Saturday
How does an instrument become a musical group?! Almost twenty years ago, Compact Deluxe was named after a vintage Farfisa organ whose transistorized sound left its signature on a thousand pop hits of the '60s, 70's and '80s. During its evolution from one-man-band to duo, trio, and currently a shape-shifting musical project, Compact Deluxe stayed focused on its original inspiration: the instrumental Top 40 hits of the Cold War epoch. The lineup ALWAYS includes a vintage organ with bass and drums, plus some extra spice from guitar, pedal steel, percussion and the occasional vocalist or two....... (AND their stage resembles a Smithsonian exhibit from the early '60s)
Find them on Facebook
LOOSEY STONE
3:45 - 5:00pm - Saturday
Loosey Stone is an energetic string and harmony band based out of the Viroqua, Wisconsin area. The quartet features singer-songwriters Rose Bruce and Christina Dollhausen alongside Dave Bruce on guitar and mandolin and Adrian Hudson on stand-up bass and occasional hammered dulcimer. Members also perform with groups including The Iowans and Freaks of Nature, bringing years of songwriting and road-worn musicianship into the mix.
What defines Loosey Stone is trust - in each other, in the song, and in the space between notes. Their songs unfold naturally, trusting that the music moves where it needs to go.
The band released two albums in 2025, Call Me Story and Loosey Stone, with a third album slated for release in July 2026 — possibly debuting at Catfish! (stay tuned).
CHARLIE PARR
5:30 - 7:00pm Saturday
Charlie Parr is an incorruptible outsider who writes novelistic, multi-layered stories that shine a kaleidoscopic light on defiant, unseen characters thriving in the shadows all around us. Parr has a new record with only his name on it, and it isn’t shiny and perfect and commercial and catchy. It’s him. It’s pure Charlie Parr and that’s enough. He hasn’t moved to LA or Nashville; he’s stayed in the cold gray north of Minnesota, because that’s his home.
SALTYDOG
7:30 - 9:00pm - Saturday
Saltydog is a funk jam Improvisational exploration that takes the audience & band on a journey through their playfully crafted folk driven tunes inspired by the likes of everyone from The Talking Heads, The Band, those classic country and jam band staples along with everyone in between.
The band spawned on the banks of Duluth’s ice covered stones by brothers Jacob and Owen Mahon. This midwestern psychedelic cowboy review features Calvin (Calzone) Lund, Lefty Johnson, Gavin St. Clair, and Sam Deters.
The band’s genuine kindness, passion, enthusiasm and joy for their craft is apparent, enchanting & makes for an additive live performance. Their 2nd album Pepper dropped spring 2024 band is set to release their 3rd album in Spring 2025. The band has been known as differently original, very funky, and unpredictable in a delightful, soulful manner. There is something for everyone at a Saltydog show. You are beautiful, you are welcome, you will groove, we will vibe. We are Saltydog.
SUNDAY JULY 5TH
DAVE LANDAU
12:00 - 1pm - Sunday
Voted 2019 Children's Performer of the Year by the Madison Area Music Association
Storytelling and performing children's music are two of my passions and talents. I travel to elementary schools, preschools, and libraries to perform musical programs that are educational, entertaining, and motivating. While music is my passion, my love is teaching. For 11 years I taught first grade in Verona, Wisconsin. My programs are an extension of my favorite part of teaching, which is helping children understand themselves and the world around them.
HASSETT BOUND
1:15 - 2:15pm -Sunday
Hassett Bound Band is a bluegrass string band based in Madison, and you can hear them jamming on porches all over the isthmus. Inspired by classics like Doc Watson and contemporaries like Billy Strings, HBB plays new and old tunes for both the good and bad times.
MOONHOUSE
2:30 - 3:30pm - Sunday
Folkadelic Americana - check it out for a real good time!
THE PERIODICALS
4:00 - 5:30pm - Sunday
From Madison and Milwaukee, The Periodicals merge northern soul, classic R&B, and alternative rock to create an inventive, soulful, and searching sound that will have you snapping your fingers and tapping your feet, but can catch you off-guard just as easily as they catch you singing along.
THE JIMMYS
6:00 - 7:30pm - SUNDAY
The Jimmys are an award-winning festival favorite bringing people together from coast to coast, Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean since 2010! The Jimmys feature band leader Jimmy Voegeli phenomenal Hammond B-3 keyboardist, singer and songwriter; an experienced killer rhythm section steeped in blues with Perry Weber on guitar, Chris Sandoval on drums and John Wartenwieler on bass and the icing on the cake is the best horn section in the Midwest—Pete Ross on saxophone, Chad Wittinghill on trumpet and Joe Goltz on trombone. It doesn’t get any better than this – The Jimmys will deliver!.
"The Jimmys are excellent musicians, and every performance is like a party!” –Bruce Iglauer, Alligator Records