The Independent has served as one of the premiere music venues in the United States since its opening in 2004 by a group of local entrepreneurs and music lovers. Next month, the venue celebrates its 20th Anniversary with a week of shows starting on February 22 with NEIL FRANCES. Other artists enlisted for the festivities include TOKiMONSTA, André 3000, Trixie Mattel, Young The Giant, Emotional Oranges, Real Estate, and Reggie Watts.

The Independent in San Francisco, hosted three up-and-coming bands for a night of funk and fun on Thursday, January 11, 2024.  If you’re looking to get a party started, keep it going, or make it last all night, you might want to check out Object Heavy, Boot Juice, and Litty deBungus.

Nat Keefe’s Concert Carnival came to town and performed “without a net” at The Independent on Sunday night, December 17, 2023. The venerable San Francisco club was full of talent, musical and otherwise, for the 18th annual fundraiser produced by Keefe (Hot Buttered Rum, BeatMower).

There is unquestionably an art to the super jam. It can’t just be a bunch of talented musicians thrown onto one stage with a few hours of rehearsal, then go! There has to be context if not history, empathy between the players, and of course chemistry. Often times musicians of the same craft will have such different approaches that the live performance result is far from copacetic. One city that harbors an authentic understanding of musical collaboration is New Orleans.

It’s interesting to be able to think back on the music of the 1990s, let alone the 2000s and what evolved in the live music concert experience. The reemergence of the multi-day music festival gave the jam band revival a venue to gig multiple shows at once and get closer with the fans. What also changed was what kind of music was being performing in a live setting. There was always a separation between the deejay persona and electronica music from the whole rock’n’roll bands that jammed. That certainly changed with the growing popularity of summer music festivals.

James Brown, dubbed the hardest workingman in show business, is long gone. If anyone were to carry the torch in the contemporary touring scene Karl Denson would be a chief contender.