Tré Burt hometown show highlights concert calendar — Sacramento Beat rings in new year
Local artists, message Aaron Davis on Instagram if you have upcoming shows, @adavis_threetosee.
Happy New Year, Sacramento. Homegrown singer/songwriter Tré Burt is back in town at the end of the month (with a whole new bag of tricks) as the 2024 concert calendar gets heated up. Let’s go!
The first Saturday of the month at 27th and J streets seems built to firmly challenge all those “Dry January” pledges. The annual Irishapalooza (which somewhat hilariously does not take place on or around St. Patrick’s Day) unleashes a jubilant bevy of Irish-themed ruffians including the Pint Thieves, One Eyed Riley, Stout Rebellion, Lions of the North and the McKeever School of Irish Dance. (6 p.m. Saturday, $20. harlows.com). We anticipate a battle for beer-swilling rock ‘n’ roll supremacy between the downstairs and upstairs stages, as ebullient Sacramento mainstays the Brodys play their first gig of 2024 the same night at Starlet Room, joined by Knocked Down and the Knockoffs (8 p.m. $13. harlows.com). Too bad there’s no way to knock down all the walls and make it one big party ... is there?
Folk virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist John McCutcheon makes his return to the Center for the Arts in Grass Valley, performing (as has become a seemingly annual tradition) a benefit concert for beloved foothills radio station KVMR-FM (7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 6. $30-$45. thecenterforthearts.org).
Behold, a new portal to peek inside the madcap mind of Mike Dillon, the wildly inventive and ever-eccentric vibraphonist/percussionist who has lent his chops to Les Claypool, Billy Goat, Garage A Trois, Clutch and countless others in addition to leading his own hodgepodge of often manically unique acts. His new outfit, Mike Dillon’s Punkadelic, features superstar co-conspirators Nikki Glaspie, who manned drums in Beyonce’s all-female backing band as well as for the likes of Nth Power, Dumpstaphunk and Snarky Puppy, and Brian Haas, former ivory-tickler of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. The trio’s 2023 release “Inflorescence” spews a molten lava flow of smoldering freak-flag jazz and twisting psychedelic jams (9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20 at Torch Club. $15. torchclub.net).
You don’t have to show up to Torch hungry for that evening Mike Dillon gig. Earlier in the day, the venerable Owlfest team is hosting the Owlfest Chili Hoot, with eight chili chefs competing for weekend passes to the upcoming twelfth iteration of Owlfest. Your ticket gets you tastings and sides, with music from stalwart rockers Loose Engines, Owlfest hosts MAU, and the Max Riley Group (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20 at Torch Club. $25. facebook.com).
The annual benefit concert for Cast Hope, a nonprofit group devoted to outdoors experiences (specifically, fly fishing) for kids throughout California and Western Nevada, returns to Goldfield (at the Roseville location). Ben Nichols, frontman of tumbling Americana rockers Lucero, headlines, joined by frequent event performer Chuck Ragan of Hot Water Music to form a one-two punch of rock frontmen-turned-troubadours. Cory Branan and Manzanita join the party (7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 27. $20. goldfieldtradingpost.com). Nichols will be back in the region on April 6 when, for the second year in a row, he’ll headline Claimstake Brewing’s annual hootenanny, the Kith & Kin Music Fest, joined this year by his Lucero sidekick Rick Steff for a duo performance. Forever Goldrush, Michael Dean Dameron, Ben Abney and others join the bill (eventbrite.com).
It seems not so long ago that many fans in Sacramento felt they knew (or at least had ideas about) exactly where local folkman Tré Burt’s career was likely to go, when the hometown singer-songwriter was performing a smattering of local gigs and eventually inked a deal with the legendary John Prine’s Oh Boy Records label in 2019 (one of very few new artists to sneak onto that label in recent years). Was he forever betrothed to life as a folk singer and troubadour? That seemed a natural assumption, but Burt’s “Traffic Fiction,” offered up in October as his third release on the label, essentially sets fire to whatever those preconceived notions and expectations were - and what a smoldering and welcoming blaze it is. Burt’s bedrock folk and blues forays are now bursting with Muscle Shoals-era soul and spewing embers of electric retro-rock - a sound as scintillatingly expanded as it was perhaps unexpected, crafted in tribute to his late grandfather and the music the two bonded over in Burt’s youth. Skyway Man joins this Burt homecoming gig (8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28 at Harlow’s. $22/$25. harlows.com).
A few shows titillating us for the weeks ahead: Indie psych-rock standouts the Nude Party and Futurebirds bring their co-headlining tour to Goldfield Roseville on Valentine’s Day (8 p.m. Feb. 14. $26. goldfieldtradingpost.com); a remarkably unexpected but endlessly welcomed pairing of “An Evening with Dawes and Lucius” stops off at Ace of Spades, where the two acts will play as a combined band and performing songs from each act’s catalog, with a level of firepower that feels borderline terrifying, in the best possible way (7 p.m. March 23. $53.50. aceofspadessac.com); In April, the always delectable WinterWonderGrass Festival welcomes a lineup topped by breakout maven Sierra Ferrell, acoustic punk-grass hellcats Devil Makes Three, Paul Cauthen and Infamous Stringdusters, with Kitchen Dwellers, Andy Frasco, Lil Smokies, supergroup Mighty Poplar (featuring members of Punch Brothers, Watchouse and Leftover Salmon) and many others joining the fun (April 5-7 at Palisades Tahoe. winterwondergrass.com/tahoe).
