Some of the biggest names in Heavy Metal music brought 50,000 people to the sixth annual Aftershock Music Festival in Sacramento. A cold front moved through the region days before the event began, blowing away the smokey skies that had engulfed Sacramento from the devastating fires in the nearby wine country. The cold front gave way to nearly perfect weather for the two-day festival, with warm sunny days and cool nights prevailing.

Fans lined up well before the gates opened at the Vina Robles Amphitheater as a beautiful fall sunset painted the sky in myriad colors, Sunday, October 15th in Paso Robles. Arguably the best live music venue in California, the new amphitheater holds about 3000 people. There isn’t a bad seat in the house with a lawn section in the back, nearly as popular with patrons as front row tickets.

Kansas, one of the most successful American rock bands to come out of the 1970's, brought their progressive rock jam sounds to the opulent Thousand Oaks Civic Center, Wednesday, September, 13th. The marathon performance featured no less than 24 songs in a nonstop show that stretched nearly three hours into the late summer evening.

Four young Nashville based musicians brought their new band, Nightly to an excited crowd of mostly college-age music fans, at Velvet Jones nightclub last week. The group was formed by cousins Jonathan Capeci and Joey Beretta originally from Philadelphia. The pair had early success in a former band “Dinner And A Suit.” The two cousins eventually regrouped and enlisted Stephen Cunsolo and Nicholas Sainato to form Nightly.

A true English rock legend brought nearly six decades of rock music history to the Samala Showroom at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez California last weekend. Steve Winwood has been a rock star all of his adult life, beginning his musical career as a child prodigy in Birmingham England. The 69-year-old singer-songwriter, master Hammond B3 organist, and smoking blues-rock guitarist joined his first rock band, the Spencer Davis Group, in 1963.

Clouds rolled into the final day of Lockn’ cooling the summer sun and creating a pleasant last day for the festival. Collaborations abounded on the last day much to the delight of music fans who stuck it out for the nearly none stop four-day musical jam. This year Lockn’s audience was nothing other than exuberant, cheerful and respectful. The multigenerational crowd seemed almost like a giant extended family on a huge holiday picnic.

The third day of Lockn’ was another beautiful day with warm summer sunshine peeking out occasionally through welcome waves of high clouds. Day three of the festival featured more bands than Friday, with only Widespread Panic and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead playing extended jam sessions. The day started early out in the forest with a 10 am wake-up set by keyboard player Holly Bowling at the Terrapin Station stage.

It was another beautiful day Friday, August 25th at the Lockn’ music festival. The music began early on this second day of the festival. Most of the 20,000-people attending the festival had arrived by the time the main stage sprang to life just after 4 pm.

The fifth annual Lockn’ Festival on Thursday, August 24th got underway under partly cloudy skies after a cold front moved through the area the night before. The resulting forecast for the four-day nearly non-stop festival is for high temperatures in the low 80’s and lows at night near 60F, a rain free forecast perfect for festival goers. Many festival goers arrived early on Wednesday to set up campsites and were greeted with a much more organized festival than past years.

Classic rock music fans descended on the Greek Theatre located in the hills above Hollywood, Thursday, August 10th, for a show by veteran rockers Steve Miller and Peter Frampton.