We are now on our third day of the big gig known as Summerfest. There are over 700 bands peforming. Some you may know, others you don't. Throughout Summerfest, I will be looking for relatively new bands worth checking out. The other day I recommended Chicago's The Right Now, who put on an amazing show. Today at Summerfest, Chicago's Kids These Days and South Africa's Civil Twilight are definitely two artists that should be on your radar.
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Kid These Days, Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard Stage, 8pm, July 1
Chicago's Kids These Days are a hip hop soul-jazz band whose members are barely out of their teens, but don't let that fool you. This 8 member band sounds like mixture of The Roots and G. Love and will be opening for Third Eye Blind on the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard stage. Kids These Days includes members Vic Mensa on rap vocals, Macie Stewart on lead and background vocals, Liam Cunningham on guitar and lead vocals, Lane Beckstrom on bass, Greg Landfair on drums, Nico Segal on trumpet, J.P. Floyd on trombone, and Rajiv Halim on saxophone. They all met at the age of 15 at a magnet school where they started to play cover songs such as Common's "Be" and Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night In Tunisia." In 2009, Kids These Days beat out 150 Chicago bands in Congress Theatre's 'Next Big Thing' battle of the bands. After that victory, their path was set.
The band started to work on original music and this past Tuesday just dropped their debut EP entitled "Hard Times." Kid These Days have performed with artists like Aloe Blacc, The Cool Kids, and Raphael Saadiq. The band has been getting love in the music blog world, and you now have chance to see what the hype is all about tonight at Summerfest. Check out the videos for their catchy bluesy-song "Darling and the summer theme song "Summerscent." ( Kid These Days, Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard Stage, 8pm, July 1)
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Civil Twilight, Summerfest Rock Stage, July 1 at 8pm
If you wonder what Coldplay or U2 would sound like if you add a little spice to their sound, just check out South Africa's Civil Twilight. Some of you may I have heard of this band or at least their music. The band recently moved to Nashville, Tennesee, and released their debut self-titled album back in 2009. Their amazing cover of Massive Attack's "Teardrop" is what got me curious about this band (thanks Kallao).
Since then, their music has been featured in TV and movies such as 'One Tree Hill' and 'I Am Number 4.' The band consists of two brothers and long-time friend and they started emulating the sounds of U2, Verve, Radiohead and Muse till they found their own sound. In their song "Letters From The Sky," you can definitely hear the influences. I see big things happening for this band, and you can catch them on the way up tonight at Summerfest on the Summerfest Rock Stage opening up for Red Jumpsuit Apparatus at 8pm.
