Earlier this week Phoebe Bridgers announced a big tour that will include dates in Madison, Chicago and Minneapolis -- but not Milwaukee. It's part of a trend you may have noticed lately: It seems like a number of big tours, especially of the indie-rock variety, have been skipping Milwaukee. Courtney Barnett, Low, Waxahatchee, Cat Power, Microphones, Hop Along, Julien Baker and St. Vincent have all announced tours without Milwaukee dates in recent months. That's on top of big tours from Lorde, Bad Bunny, J. Cole and Lil Baby that have also passed over Milwaukee, too.
So what's going on? To be sure, Milwaukee is still getting plenty of great concerts this year -- including Summerfest's biggest lineup in at least half a decade. So it's not like we're going hungry here. But as Piet explains on this week's show, if it feels like you're planning on driving up to Madison more than usual for shows this fall, there are some reasons for that.
Piet also explains how festivals' infamous "radius clauses" may or may not be contributing to Milwaukee getting passed over by some big tours and debunks some common misconceptions about why artists may decide to skip a city.
He also shares some good news for anybody lamenting that their favorite artist is passing over Milwaukee: With so much touring for artists to catch up on after the pandemic, there's a decent chance that some of these artists could still add Milwaukee dates in the future.
Hear us talk about it all below.