Milwaukee’s concert scene has a lot going on, so we look at the shows coming up to find the ones you’ll look back on and be glad you went. Then we add them to our weekly Milwaukee Concert Picks, sponsored by Urban Ecology Center.
It’s always more fun to put together this post when we can pull a couple significant threads from the fabric of Milwaukee’s local-music scene and tie them together to create a back-to-back-to-back concert schedule for your weekend. This is just such a weekend, and it starts with a reunion we weren’t sure would ever happen.
It was quite a few years ago that Milwaukee scramble-pop legends The Fatty Acids quietly wound things down and started working on other projects. For band member Josh Evert, that includes co-owning/operating Silver City Studios and just this past Friday releasing new solo album Photogenic Memory.
That record will get some recognition this Friday at Linneman’s, where Evert will celebrate its release as he joins forces with his Fatty Acids compatriots for the first night of their mini-residency at the Riverwest venue. The show on night one has Dogs in Ecstasy, Evert and Mol Sullivan in the lineup, while Saturday’s concert will also feature Sat. Nite Duets, Mortgage Freeman (for their own record-release party) and Evert solo once again.
If you’re a live-music nomad, Saturday could take you from one end of Milwaukee to the other, starting on the more southerly end of town and the Bay View Bash. The delightful grab bag of local music, vendors and dogs in adorable costumes has been going for more than 20 years, and it’s back on Kinnickinnic Avenue between Potter and Clement from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
As we usually do with the neighborhood festivals, the 2026 edition of the Bay View Bash gets its own webpost with plenty of details. But a few Radio Milwaukee favorites worth mentioning include Wave Chapelle x NilexNile, Gego y Nony, Chapped Lips and Emmitt James. You can find the full schedule here.
The last entry in the tripleheader is another artist who has won hearts within the Radio Milwaukee walls (and across the city as a whole): Graham Hunt. A former resident of the city’s music scene, he now does his tunesmithing in Madison and recently released his latest album that emerged from those efforts, American Pyramid.
Hunt deliberately minimized tech’s role in the project, noting that “I wanted to keep it to just chords and melody and then figure out the rest with a group of people in a live room studio setting, I just hadn't done it like that in a very long time.”
By the transitive property, a live-focused album will sound just plain super in a live setting, which this Sunday will be Cactus Club as Hunt headlines a night that includes openers Innuendo and Apollo Vermouth.
Best concerts in Milwaukee this week
- Sept. 16: Violet Grohl w/Suzy Clue @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
- Sept. 16: Jim E. Brown w/Holy Pinto, Andy @ Falcon Hall, 8 p.m.
- Sept. 17: Improvement Movement w/The Point @ Vivarium, 8 p.m.
- Sept. 17: Caley Conway & Ellie Jackson @ Jackalope Lounj, 7 p.m.
- Sept. 17: Alejandro Meola @ The Argo, 6:30 p.m.
- Sept. 18: The Fatty Acids w/Dogs in Ecstasy, Josh Evert (record release), Mol Sullivan @ Linneman’s, 8 p.m.
- Sept. 19: The Fatty Acids w/Sat. Nite Duets, Mortgage Freeman (record release), Josh Evert @ Linneman’s, 8 p.m.
- Sept. 19: Bay View Bash @ Bay View 11 a.m.-10 p.m.
- Sept. 20: Graham Hunt, Innuendo, Apollo Vermouth @ Cactus Club, 7 p.m.
- Sept. 20: Brian Fallon & The Painkillers w/Ben Nichols @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
- Sept. 20: Michelle Shocked @ Anodyne, 7 p.m.
- Sept. 20: Your Arms Are My Cocoon w/Septemberistheonlytimeidontthinkofyou, Snag, Frantic Repair @ Falcon Hall, 7 p.m.
- Sept. 20: Tom Morello w/The Ike Reilly Assassination @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
- Sept. 20: R&B Live MKE 17th Anniversary Show @ The Cooperage, 6 p.m.
