Last weekend was absolutely chaotic, but you know your friends at WiParty.com can’t stay away when live music calls! Even with a jam-packed schedule, I managed to dash out and grab a piece of the magic at the famous Mile of Music festival in downtown Appleton, WI. Spanning a full walkable mile of 100% original music, this festival is always an absolute blast, and even a quick visit delivers big-time energy.
On night one, I only had about an hour to spare, so I made a fast sprint over to Jones Park. Good call, because I caught Ron Artis II doing his thing on stage! Hailing from Hawaii and raised in a legendary musical family, Ron brought incredible warmth, soul, and world-class vocal chops to the crowd. He was super engaging and honestly just an absolute joy to listen to.
From there, I sprinted down into the flats to meet up with some friends at Tandem Wine & Beer. Caught a fantastic band tearing up the patio—though between the crowd and the good times, I didn’t manage to catch their band name (if you know who was rocking Tandem, hit us up in the comments!). To wrap up the evening's whirlwind trip, I headed over toward the riverfront at Riverside to catch Michael Grabner and the Ghosts of Electricity bringing down the house with some serious rock energy.
By Sunday, the fest energy was still buzzing, so I zipped back downtown to soak up every last drop of live tunes. I ran into the Paper Valley Hotel venue just in time to catch—unfortunately—the very last song of Kyle Megna & The Monsoons. Even just one song from the award-winning Wisconsin favorites was enough to remind me why their soulful blend of rock, jazz, and blues always draws a massive crowd.
Not ready to call it quits, I made a quick dash over to Appleton Beer Factory and got to catch Gabriel Harris, a killer singer-songwriter out of Milwaukee. With his smooth, bluesy guitar licks and dynamic pop-rock/soul vocals, he had the taproom totally locked in.
There were so many ridiculously talented artists crammed into one weekend. Wish I could have caught even more, but hey, such is life when the Wisconsin music scene is thriving this hard! Scroll down to check out the photos and videos captured from the weekend, and stay tuned to WiParty.com for more local show coverage!
