The following article is part of QuadCities.com’s partnership with local music website The Echo. For more, check out theechoqc.com! The Alternating Currents festival makes a strong return in 2021. For the first day of the Davenport festival, the AC team extended their festival grounds into Rock Island, with events at The Spot, Quad City Arts, Rozz-Tox, Ribco and Daiquiri Factory.  Alternating Currents put a stronghold on downtown Davenport for their fourth annual festival. Different bars, restaurants, venues and outdoor spaces host over 100 artists for the four-day festival. For more, check... Read More

Saturday in the Arts is a weekly feature covering a trend, subject, event or personality of local interest. It runs every Saturday morning on your site for the best entertainment and arts coverage in the area, QuadCities.com! Brianna Hobbs was in middle school when the then-new River Music Experience first opened its doors June 12, 2004, in the historic Redstone building at 2nd and Main streets, Davenport. Now, the 28-year-old East Moline native is thrilled to join the growing nonprofit’s staff as new programs director, as the veteran RME leaders Bret Dale and his wife Kate transition out as... Read More

Remember Valentine’s Day 2020, when life was still normal, before the world as we knew it ended? Well, the Midwest Writing Center (MWC) and River Music Experience (RME) are here to help you celebrate the holiday of love, 2021 pandemic-style. MWC is partnering with some of the best poets and writers in the community to offer bespoke poems this month, written for anyone you’d like to gift a poem. By participating in this limited-time program, “you’re not only giving unique poems to people you care about, but you’re also supporting local writers and writing/literacy programs in the Quad-Cities,”... Read More

Though long-awaited funding for live-music venues is part of the federal Covid stimulus bill recently signed into law, several Quad-Cities entertainment spaces are taking a “wait and see” attitude regarding the reality. Scott Mullen, executive director of Moline’s TaxSlayer Center, said the $15-billion “Save Our Stages” act that was approved had included language noting some venue owners and arenas like his “don’t qualify due to a requirement they put in that says that 70% of the venue’s events must be artist performances, so buildings with sports tenants are excluded due to the... Read More

The next round of QC Beats, a local online audio streaming service, is taking submissions from Quad-Cities musicians the entire month of October. Thanks to the partnership of the Davenport Public Library, River Music Experience, and St. Ambrose University, QC Beats was created in early 2019 to showcase original music from Quad-City musicians. “Building a collection of featured local artists will expand the reach of our vibrant creative community by elevating musicians and connecting them with the larger community,” according to a Davenport library release. “QC Beats will also help support... Read More

Live music is returning to the River Music Experience, at 2nd and Main streets, Davenport, next month for the first time since Covid-19 shut down events in mid-March. The outdoor Live@Five series will resume in the courtyard, totally free, for all ages, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. each Friday in August and September. New guidelines will be enforced, to ensure safety of guests, staff and musicians – Face masks are required for entry and bar service. Guests will wear face masks when not seated and when not able to maintain six-foot distance from others. • Seating will only be allowed in the boxes... Read More

Galva’s summer music series will be postponed a year, and a virtual one will take its place soon, a trend which seems to be gaining momentum as the uncertainty of a summer under the cloud of Covid-19 looms before us. As part of the cascade of Covid-19-related closures, the third-annual Levitt AMP Galva Music Series this summer is canceled, and its organizer is working on creating a more compressed online series in its place. The 12 Sunday night concerts in Wiley Park, free to the public, were due to start May 31. John Taylor of Cambridge, president of the series and concert organizer, said it... Read More