There were a handful of new shows announced yesterday 

The Used will be performing at Steelhouse Omaha on Saturday, September 23rd. The rock band saw great success starting about 20 years ago and is touring on their album Toxic Positivity, which came out in May. Also on the show are Dead American and Sleeping With Sirens.

Indie pop band from Memphis, The Band CAMINO, will be at Steelhouse Omaha on October 4th with Bad Suns. Their new album, The Dark, comes out on August 11th, and you can pre-order it now at your local indie record store. 

Rapper Kevin Gates will perform at The Astro on October 19th. Gates is a pretty massive name, and we sell his album Islah constantly at Homer’s, even though it came out seven years ago. That album peaked at number two on the Billboard album charts and has gone triple platinum. He has followed that up with two more Top Ten albums, including 2022’s Khaza.

On Sunday, Joshua Ray Walker and Jade Jackson finished up their tour at The Waiting Room Lounge. Jackson took to the stage solo with an acoustic guitar and performed songs from her first few albums. She didn’t introduce any new songs, even though it has been a few years since she put out an album. Highlights included “Bottle It Up” and “Long Way Home” off of her 2019 album “Wilderness”. She talked about how the song “No Guarantees” used to be the name of a person because it was about that person. She talked about how she was so hungry for a record deal that she let them talk her into changing the name of the song and eliminating her friend’s name as it was ‘not marketable’.  She says she now has the balls to sing it correctly, and she did. She was charming and engaging, and she sounded wonderful. I like her songs and hope there are more coming. 

Walker and his band hit the stage, with Walker sitting and playing electric guitar most of the night. His band was a big part of the show, with pedal steel player Adam “Ditch” Kurtz making the pedal steel sound like an organ and sharing many genuine jam-out moments with Walker. Bassist Billy Bones provides a lot of backup vocals and keeps the energy flowing on stage. I thought that Walker would play some songs off his upcoming album of cover songs by female performers. He did not, and unless it was the one song I missed to take a work phone call, I didn’t even hear the current single, his cover of Lizzo’s “Cuz I Love You” We did get a cover of Lionel Richie’s “Hello” that started off as a hillbilly stoner rock jam before turning into a fast paced country cover. Walker performed close to twenty songs on this night, including favorites like “Lot Lizard”, “Dumpster Diving” and “Sexy After Dark”. This was my first time seeing him, though he has been through the area a couple times before and talked about how he opened the Charley Crockett show at The Waiting Room when the power went out in Benson. I had a hard time reading if Walker was enjoying himself or not, though he would certainly smile during moments he and Kurtz would have on stage. Some of his songs are about his time on the road with his father, who was a long haul trucker, his relationship with his father, and his father’s passing after a long battle with cancer. These songs would be the most poignant of the night, and even though he has sung them hundreds of times, they still came across as fresh and full of emotion. “Canyons” seemed to talk about looking for his father’s approval, and during the faux encore, he played a song that he said he hadn’t played yet on this tour. That song was “Flash Paper,”  about a video his father made for him to play after his passing. I really enjoyed his performance and look forward to seeing him again and watching his young career unfold.