Honestly, Leap Day is not as, well, hoppin' as I'd expect—it only comes once every four years, people! But we've got a lot of weekend recommendations for you.
Tuesday, February 27
The Cameras, Vinny Franco and the Love Channel, Electric Church, & Silver Warehouse @ Amsterdam
International Reggae All Stars @ Bunkers
Balaklava Blues @ Cedar Cultural Center
Masters of Hawaiian Music @ Dakota
St. Dominic's Trio @ Driftwood
Karaoke With On Call Entertainment @ Eagles 34
Daphne Jane (Residency) with Killed By Kiwis, Oister Boy, Soulflower @ Green Room
Twin Cities Latin Jazz Orchestra @ Jazz Central
Nova Jazz Orchestra @ Minnesota Music Cafe
Pop Punk Princess @ Mortimer's
Music for a Better World @ Orchestra Hall
Until Apocalypse, Two Weeks Past Never, Fr/end @ Pilllar Forum
All Nighter Tuesdays @ ROK Music Lounge
Industrial Strength with DJ Sin @ Terminal Bar
Worker’s Playtime: Doug Otto @ 331 Club
February Conspiracy Series featuring Robin Kyle, Lonesome Dan Kase, Kiernan Tollefson @ 331 Club
Mouthbreather @ White Rock Lounge
The Mary Cutrufello Band @ White Squirrel
Los Pinches Güeys (Tuesday Residency) with Dystopian Dispatch, Superheater @ White Squirrel
Wednesday, February 28
MN Songwriter Showcase @ Aster Cafe
Bandits on the Run & John Gallagher Jr. @ Bryant Lake Bowl
Maggie's Wednesday: Mia Dorr @ Crooners
CANDY-OH! The Cars Tribute @ Dakota
6625 jazz..mark johnson email @ Driftwood
Call Me Fritz, Nice & Blue @ Driftwood
Twin Cities Hot Club @ Eagles 34
Miss Shannon's Swing Night @ Eagles 34
The Beaches with Boyish @ Fine Line
Ready or Hot with DJ Tricky Miki and Denzel Belin @ First Avenue
Candlelight: Neo-Soul Favorites @ Granada
Molly Dean + Jack Klatt Trio @ Icehouse
Cain & Co. with Whiskey Burn @ KJ's Hideaway
Maurice Jacox and the We Still R Band @ Minnesota Music Cafe
Music for a Better World @ Orchestra Hall
KFAI'S Desert Islands Presents ~ Smokin' Joe hosted by Theyself @ Palmer's
Squirm, The Aftergreens, Yuhh @ Pilllar Forum
Dance Church Open Decks @ ROK Music Lounge
BZ3 Organ Trio @ Schooner Tavern
Karina Rykman with Cloudchord @ 7th St Entry
Harold’s House Party on KFAI with Buffalo Galaxy @ 331 Club
Starin' at the City: MN Rap League @ Underground Music Venue
Sarah Morris and the Sometimes Guys @ White Squirrel
Nights with Tim @ White Squirrel
Thursday, February 29
Davu Seru/Nathan Hanson/deVon Gray @ Berlin
Cheikh Ibra Fam @ Cedar Cultural Center
Chrys Matthews, Seth Glier @ Cloudland
McPhail Presents It Takes Two @ Crooners
Leap Day Tap Dance Night with Sarah Reich and Friends @ Crooners
Maygen & The Birdwatcher, Ty Pow & The Holy North, & Clare Doyle @ Dakota
32nd Street Jazz, The Willey August Project @ Driftwood
LGBTQ+ Twin Cities Latin Dance @ Eagles 34
Karaoke With On-Call Entertainment @ Eagles 34
Raffaella with WHY NOT @ Fine Line
2nd Annual Bangers-Only Ball with Lupin and Miloe @ First Avenue
The Desire Store (Record Release) @ Granada
"Snapped" Live Band Open Mic @ Green Room
South High: Play It Forward @ Hook and Ladder
Drake University Jazz 1 @ Jazz Central
Erin Livingston @ KJ's Hideaway
Voodoo Bender @ Minnesota Music Cafe
Battery Eyes, Dystopian Dispatch, Warcake @ Mortimer's
Music for a Better World @ Orchestra Hall
Cerveza Muscular, Serious Fraud Office, DeBlitzed @ Pilllar Forum
Mik Cool, Jonger, Leslie, and SYFN @ ROK Music Lounge
Scott Allen & the List, Bleek & Grimm @ Schooner Tavern
Flip Rushmore, The Briefly Gorgeous, 26 BATS!, and Kiernan @ 7th St Entry
Fluidic, John Keston, NelsDotLive @ 331 Club
Triple Threat Tribute Night @ Turf Club
Electric Wonderland @ Underground Music Cafe
Damned Bountiful Vows @ White Rock Lounge
Matt Caflisch Happy Hour Listening Party @ White Squirrel
Phantom Fields Leap Night Blowout with Goatroper @ White Squirrel
Left Field Leap Year @ Zhora Darling
Friday, March 1
Off Book: The Improvised Musical @ Amsterdam
LSR/CITY V3 by Gareth Emery @ Armory
Katy Vernon and Paul Odegaard @ Aster Cafe
Mikey Saint @ Caydence Records & Coffee
Haze Gazer (EP Release), Psylo, Mystery Meat, Mold @ Cloudland
Aja Parham and Quartet Carioca @ Crooners
- L.A. Buckner and Big Homie @ Crooners—We're still waiting for new music from Buckner, the virtuoso north Minneapolis drummer who combines a gospel fervor with various fusion styles. In the mean time, he's reaching out to new audiences—Big Homie killed it at the final act at First Ave's Best New Bands night, rousing the crowd from its closing time stupor after a long night of music, and I'm curious to hear how he goes over with the well-heeled supper club crowd at Crooners.
Delfeayo Marsalis & Uptown Jazz Orchestra @ Dakota
Alibi, If I May, Sugar Lads @ Driftwood
Katia Cardenas Quartet + Miss Shannon's Dance Lessons @ Eagles 34
1947, Citrine Shandy, Son/Boy, Cross Stitch @ Eagles 34
Em Beihold with Madelline @ Fine Line
- Cat Power @ Fitzgerald Theater—Even as a big-time fan of both Chan Marshall (Cat Power) and Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan), I approached last year’s Cat Power Sings Dylan with low expectations—how many more interpretations of those endlessly re-interpreted songs do we need, really? Well, joke’s on me because that faithful run through Dylan’s classic 1966 acoustic/electric Royal Albert Hall performance serves as a gorgeous companion to the original. Things really could’ve really gone any direction with these 15 songs; lord knows Dylan sometimes chops ‘n’ screws his own source material to the point of barely being recognizable. But, in the end, the reverence with which Cat Power approaches this vital Dylan era comes off like a fully committed love letter with an obvious hook for fans: At 52, Ms. Marshall’s smoky voice sounds as outstanding as ever. A sneezin’ jelly-faced woman she ain’t! Don’t believe me? Check out this Tonight Show performance of “Like a Rolling a Stone.” —Jay Boller
The Smallweeds @ Ginkgo Coffee
Some Shitty Cover Band @ Green Room
Crush Scene (Single Release) @ Hook and Ladder
Magic Castles, Muun Bato, & Floodwater Angel @ Hook and Ladder
Tina Schlieske (Album Release) @ Icehouse
The 241’s and James Eugene Russell @ KJ's Hideaway
The Johnnie Brown Experience @ Minnesota Music Cafe
House Sessions feat. Michael Grey & DJ JEN-E @ Mortimer's
Los Inquietos Del Norte @ Myth Live
Greensky Bluegrass with The High Hawks @ Palace Theatre
Chairman Chair & The Chairmen, Deletist, and My Vigilante Superego @ Palmer's
Lunasa with Daoiri Farrell & JIGJAM @ Pantages
Tommy Bentz Band with Dan Israel @ Schooner Tavern
- Katy Kirby with Allegra Krieger and Lana Leone @ 7th St Entry—Overanalytical relationship songs and bouts of yearning are Nashville singer-songwriter Kirby's stock in trade, and on her latest, Blue Raspberry, her writing is sharper than ever. She flings the phrase "mutually assured distraction" at a self-serving ex and ponders a lover's "Face framed by hoodie like an oyster in a shell." Her voice, with its timbral hints of Aimee Mann's cool edge, often settles prettiness rather than acuteness of delivery, her melodies meander a bit, and her wordplay doesn't always land ("good neighbors make good fences"?). But she remains one to watch.
Flips for Tips, the Tolerables, Last Shot At Redemption @ Terminal Bar
HebbaJebba, Mountain Made Low @ 331 Club
Run Westy Run with Black Eyed Snakes @ Turf Club
Cause for Concern, Labrador Wild, Threads Electric @ Underground Music Venue
Voivod and Prong @ Varsity Theater
Illusion of Fate @ White Rock Lounge
The Matt Arthur Contraption with Jesse Anderson @ White Squirrel
Saturday, March 2
Push and Turn, Modern Joey @ Acadia
Atlus: High Expectations Pt. 2 with Ryan Charles, Starletta @ Amsterdam
Haley E Rydell with Jason Roberts @ Aster Cafe
Erik Brandt and the Urban Hillbilly Quartet, Wilkinson James @ Caydence Records & Coffee
ASI's Midwinter Folk Festival: Midwinter Nordic Dance + Helena Hallberg @ Cedar Cultural Center
Glitterer, Glixen, She's Green @ Cloudland
Geoff Jones Presents Swinging Motown @ Crooners
Huntertones feat. Louis Cato @ Dakota
Sampica, The Stretch @ Driftwood
Becky Kapell & the Fat Six @ Dusty's
Mouthful, Jenny Matrix, & Melanerpes @ Hook and Ladder
The Way Down Wanderers with Cassandra Cole @ Hook and Ladder
The Other Ol' Blue Eyes @ Icehouse
Bryan Nichols + Zacc Harris @ Icehouse
Powerpuff: A Queer Dance Party @ Icehouse
Better Mistakes @ Jazz Central
Ryan Picone Quartet @ KJ's Hideaway
Ross Clowser Quartet @ KJ's Hideaway
The Tyte Phitt Band @ Minnesota Music Cafe
Troupe Vertigo: Cirque Fairytales @ Orchestra Hall
- Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with Palehound @ Palace Theatre—I guess Isbell’s a movie star now—his reserved turn as Bill Smith in Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon was pretty impressive. Back at his day job (well, night job) he’s touring behind his latest, Weathervanes, which is grim and desperate even by Isbell’s gritty standards, with even the softer moments regretful. “Cast Iron Skillet” sprinkles homey aphorisms in a tale of doomed interracial love, “Save the World” grapples with parental anxiety in the age of school shootings, and several songs about splintering or busted relationships acknowledge the strain of a harshening world outside. If Isbell sometimes seems ready to succumb to the fatalism that lesser songwriters begin with as a tenet of faith, he travels an honest path to get there. And not to get too biographical about things, the recent end of Isbell’s marriage to Amanda Shires likely played some role in the album’s bleak tone. Opening is Palehound, whose album Eye on the Bat, showcases El Kempner’s deepening songcraft and muscular guitars that spiral upward like a power-pop Built to Spill.
Greg Volker & The River, Matt Arthur & The Bratlanders, and Nathan Griner @ Palmer's
- Jess Williamson with Esther Rose @ Parkway—Various gems are scattered in the discography of Jess Williamson, though the L.A.-based singer-songwriter evolved into her finest form with last June’s Time Ain't Accidental. On it, the Texas-born indie vet embraces twang, constructs a cohesive universe of cosmic heartache, and cements herself as an S-tier lyricist. Top to bottom, it was far and away my favorite album of 2023. Williamson, similar to her Plains bandmate Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee), is able to deliver emotional haymakers via expert inflection and detail—find me a more devastating song than “Stampede.” But she’s also funny, paging through Raymond Carver at a poolside bar during a doomed romantic rendezvous, and musically adventurous, deploying drum machines and horns to liven up the country-folk foundation of her songs. Fans of Townes and Lucinda should run—not walk!—to the Parkway.
PsyTrance feat. Oxya, Ancient Fruit, Gadget-G @ ROK Music Lounge
- Disconcé ⏤ Night of 1000 Beyoncés with Lady Cummeal Cassadine, Cariño and Priscilla Es Yuicy @ 7th St Entry—Some Saturday nights you just feel like dancing to Beyoncé. Some Saturday nights you just feel like seeing some drag artists perform. And some Saturday nights you just feel like going to the Entry. Well *Laurence Fishburne voice* what if I told you that you could do all of those things at once this Saturday night? DJ OMIGIGI’s latest installment of Disconcé dance ‘n’ drag night, dubbed “Night of 1000 Beyoncés” (that’s an awful lot of Beyoncés to fit in the Entry—if you go, please make sure this count is accurate) will feature the nutritiously named Lady Cummeal Cassadine, as well as Cariño and Priscilla Es Yuicy. Given Bey’s recent country move, I predict there will be more than a little yee and possibly even some haw on the agenda.
Jack Knife & the Sharps @ Schooner Tavern
Valors, Blood Cookie, Sex Ray @ Terminal Bar
Unattractive Giant Monster, Pink Tower, Big Intro @ 331 Club
IV and The Strange Band, Possessed By Paul James, Fire & Pine @ Uptown VFW
Tomeka Reid Stringtet @ Walker Art Center
Empty Graves, Souls, Den of Thieves, Unfit @ White Rock Lounge
Tender Comrade with Wish Wash @ White Squirrel
Superfloor w. Soft Topics, Lone Rock Bride @ White Squirrel
Sunday, March 3
Swing Brunch with Patty & the Buttons @ Aster Cafe
Dave Power’s March Madness: PRINTS with Tarek Abdelqader @ Berlin
Bluegrass Jam @ Caydence Records & Coffee
John McCutcheon @ Cedar Cultural Center
Gwen Matthews and William Duncan @ Crooners
Honky-Tonk Jump: Texas Swing Music of Bob Wills @ Crooners
Phine Friends, Shotgun Ragtime @ Driftwood
Sphincter Felch, Xkwizit, Defiled Sacrament, Embedded in Flesh @ Eagles 34
Twin Cities Country Dancers @ Eagles 34
Karaoke with Reina Starr @ Eagles 34
Petey with the Slaps @ First Avenue
The 2 Million Dollar Duo @ Granada
Old Country Buffet @ Green Room
The Drums of Navarone @ Icehouse
David Harland and Jill Conzemius with Nikki Lemire @ KJ's Hideaway
Troupe Vertigo: Cirque Fairytales @ Orchestra Hall
- Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with Palehound @ Palace Theatre—See Sunday's listings.
Church of Cornbread @ Palmer's
1st Sundays Eclectic Collective: Thinkers, Thumpers, Wailers & Baby Makers @ Palmer's
- Freedy Johnston with Molly Maher @ Parkway—It's been three decades since Can You Fly set a bar that everyone, maybe even this Kansas-born singer-songwriter himself, knew its maker would never top. And so what? Johnston hasn't released a bad record since then, which is a much rarer feat among rockers than busting out of the gate with the best that you've got. His latest, Back on the Road to You, is top tier among the runners up, with lyrics that remain open-ended without being vague and Susanna Hoffs, Aimee Mann, and Susan Cowsill offering up harmonies, just to give you a sense of the craftswomen who appreciate his work. Highlights include "That's Life," an uncle's loving bedtime advice, and "There Goes a Brooklyn Girl" (on her way to work).
Jhariah with PIAO @ 7th St Entry
William Fitzsimmons with Baerd @ Turf Club
Emmy Woods, Thomas Sticha @ White Squirrel
Monday, March 4
Toby Ramaswamy/Robert Lehmann @ Berlin
Bobby Commodore & Friends @ Dakota
Tango Desperados Practilonga @ Eagles 34
Mondays with JT Bates: The Rhodes Quartet @ Icehouse
Auto-Tune Karaoke @ Mortimer’s
Tim Schumann, Greg Rekus and Nato Coles @ Palmer's
Cowaoke with Ben Moooker @ Palmer's
Damage, Salivus, Southbound, Barretta @ Pilllar Forum
Kelsy Karter & The Heroines with Alexa Villa and Emi Jeen @ 7th St Entry
Matt Arthur Contraption @ 331 Club
Senor Ghost with Time Room, Oyster World @ White Squirrel
