Summer Concert Series

Want to perform? The Public Arts & Culture Planner oversees the Summer Concert Series. Interested performers should fill out the Summer Concert Series Performer Application. Question about the concerts? Contact Liz Helfer.

Submit your song! The Public Arts & Culture Committee as launched "WaterTunes," a community-wide project to create a Watertown playlist. Residents are invited to submit songs that hold special meaning to them – a favorite tune, a song that evokes a memory, or a piece of music with personal significance. These submissions will be collected throughout 2025 and Summer 2026 and will be featured in an online playlist for all to share. WaterTunes will culminate in a community party at the finale of the 2026 Summer Concert Series, where a selection of submitted tunes will be played. Submit your song here.


July 1: Sound Bridges
Sound Bridges, led by composer Andy Algire, is a six-member, NYC-based global music ensemble founded in 2019, blending traditional West African music with contemporary jazz, blues, and groove-based styles. Centered on the balafon alongside djembe, drum set, bass, and guitar, the group creates dynamic, accessible performances for audiences of all ages. Sound Bridges has been recognized with numerous awards and commissions, including the NYFA Fellowship in Music Composition (2025), a commissioned work for the Carnegie Concert Series at Nyack Library (2025), SU-CASA funded workshops, Puffin Foundation Grant (2022), New Music USA Development Fund (2022) and others. Through their vibrant performances, Sound Bridges fosters intercultural understanding, inspires creativity, and makes world music accessible to all, using rhythm as a tool for connection, inclusion, and joy.

July 8: Soggy Po Boys
The Soggy Po Boys, native to New England, have quickly become an institution. They are spreading the good news of New Orleans music across the northeast and beyond, playing at concert halls and street corners; music festivals and burlesque festivals; bars and libraries, wherever the party requires. Part of the beauty of New Orleans music is that it's celebrated and appreciated wherever it goes, from the street to the theater.

July 15: School of Rock
School of Rock Watertown is a performance-based music education program. Our House band is an advanced, audition-based group that demonstrates what School of Rock has to offer. The set is a mix of pop, rock, funk, etc. throughout the decades featuring songs by acts as diverse as Rush, Stevie Wonder, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, and Michael Jackson

July 22: The Honey Steelers
The Honey Steelers are a Lowell-based Americana band playing original tunes and reimagined covers from artists like Asleep at the Wheel, Ray Charles, John Prine, Lucinda Williams, bob Dylan, and the Beatles. Their blend of cowboy swing, country rock, folk, and blues features sweet harmonies, rotating vocals, and solos on pedal steel, mandolin, guitar, and keys. They’ll have you stomping your feet one moment and humming a lullaby the next – often while laughing at their onstage banter. Smart, soulful, and just a bit goofy, the Honey Steelers turn any venue into a friendly barnyard bash. 

July 29: Sons of Levin
Sons Of Levin performs a mix of jam band and classic rock sounding original material, as well as rock/pop/funk covers in their own way. Our name for this conglomeration is "Dad-Rock". We are a band comprised of, mostly, Berklee graduates and have been performing together since 2019. 

August 5: The Rico Barr Band featuring the JJR Horns
Rico Barr Band featuring the JJR Horns is New England’s Premier Party Band. Although the Band was nominated as Swing Band of The Year by the National Swing Awards, their repertoire includes much more. They perform selections from the Jazz and Rock decades including Motown and R&B, as well as Latin.

August 12: The New Grown-Ups
The New Grown-Ups are an octet taking a modern twist on American Roots music. Winners of the 2024 Thomas Point Bluegrass Festival Band Contest, they blend Traditional Folk, Country, Blues, Celtic, Old time, Originals, Bluegrass, and Pop into a snafu of contemporary acoustic music. The band has toured regionally around New England, and has an infectious onstage energy that comes with loving to perform, and being around each other.

August 19: Mixtape Revival
A Watertown band featuring high energy ‘90s and ‘00s pop-rock and alt-rock covers.

August 26: WaterTunes
After collecting songs that are special to the Watertown community in 2025 and 2026, we’re having a party to celebrate the music that is special to you. Enjoy a DJed selection of the WaterTunes playlist and life-sized puppets from the Puppeteers Cooperative!

Bonus concert on September 2: The Love Dogs
Keep the summer going with one last concert. The Love Dogs are a high energy 6-piece swing and R&B band with two horns, rockin' piano and three vocalists. It's a fun, family friendly show with lots of funny, clever original songs and some recognizable favorites.