It’s a new year which means there are new musical adventures waiting to be had. What adventures await Seattle music fans in 2024? The year in only nine days old, so many of those adventures are yet to be known. However, there are a few things certain to happen this year that are worth being excited about.
Here are four things happening this year any follower of this blog, and just about any local music fan, should look forward to during the next 12 months.
Seeing old friends at the new Crocodile
Winter is typically a slow time of year for the local music scene. It is looking like that will hold true this year but that doesn’t mean nothing exciting is happening during the early months of this year. Case and point, on Jan. 13 local boutique label Latent Print Records is holding an album release show for its latest release “Live at the Crocodile: Back to Belltown.”
The record features 18 songs from 18 different local artists who performed at the original Crocodile Cafe between 2000 and 2007. The album release show will include sets from Goodness, The Divorce, John Roderick, Argo, Sweet Water, Kinski, Dolour, Aqueduct, Dear John Letters and Radio Nationals.
The concert looks the be a celebration of all that made the Emerald City’s indie rock scene great during the first decade of the century, as well as a great trip down memory lane for those who lived through this often forgotten and underappreciate period of local music history. As for the reason for the show, not only is it a great primer on what was happening in music scene at the time, it is a must-own for anyone who loves local music.
Tickets for the show, which surprisingly has not sold out, are $30 and can be purchased in advance online or at the door the day of the show.
The return of the return of Bumbershoot
Last year marked the return of Seattle’s music and arts festival Bumbershoot after a hiatus of several years thanks to a global pandemic and changing of the guard in the operations and production departments.
The festival featured low ticket prices, including a sweet $50 ticket deal, an emphasis on local artists, a wider scope of what fall under the arts umbrella and a scaled-down production compared to past years. It was both a redefinition and a rebirth for one of the cherished jewels of the local music and arts scene. It was also a massive success, or at least I thought so after my experience with the 50th edition of the festival.
And while the 2023 edition was a success, was it successful enough to bring fickle Seattle music and arts fans back to the festival again? New Rising Sun, the festival’s new organizers and producers, seemed to come up with a winning formula that led to an event that received rave reviews and positive press, but will that same formula be successful this year?
A new Pearl Jam album, and tour too (with Seattle dates!)
Earlier today Pearl Jam announced it will be headlining the annual Bottle Rock Festival in California this spring. Members of the band have also been pretty vocal about an upcoming album that will supposedly be released at some point this year. Guitarist Mike McCready called the record, which is produced by the hot rock producer du jour Andrew Watt, “a lot heavier than you’d expect.”
A new album and at least one North American tour date on the books means there is going to be a 2024 North American tour. Pearl Jam has not played a hometown show since its infamous two-show stand at T-Mobile Park in 2018. The group’s former longtime manager Kelly Curtis was a consultant for the development of Climate Pledge Arena and once hinted at the band playing a residency at the venue after it gets a world-class sound system.
Pearl Jam has suspiciously yet to play a show at the new arena and with a new album and accompanying tour on the way it’s almost a guarantee they will perform at the Building Formerly Known as KeyArena. If they did, it would be the group’s first performance at Seattle Center in more than a decade.
So, will Seattle’s most famous 90s band play a Seattle date, or dates, this year? All signs are pointing to yes. And in fact, the sleuths on the Pearl Jam’s Ten Club fan forum believe Pearl Jam will play two dates at Climate Pledge Arena May 28 and 30.
A whole bunch of big shows are coming to town
Speaking of big shows in 2024, The Seattle Times recently posted a rundown of the big-name artists who will be bringing supersized stadium and arena shows to Seattle this year. The list is headlined by The Rolling Stones, but there’s a lot more than an AAPR-sponsored stadium date on the docket this year.
Other big names scheduled to perform in the Seattle area this year include P!nk, Madonna, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Billy Joel, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chris Stapleton and Olivia Rodrigo. And those are just the shows that have been announced so far. I’m sure there will be at least a few other heavy hitters coming to town too, so start saving your dollars concert tickets because the concert calendar looks to be loaded in 2024.
