This week at the Koger Center —

The Koger Center for the Arts is bringing back its free outdoor concert series, Live Outside, for a third consecutive year. This time, as opposed to Sunday evenings, the concerts will be on Friday evenings starting at 5 p.m., allowing you to kick off your weekend with a lowkey yet exciting concert! All concerts will be on the Koger Center Plaza Stage.

The season starts on Friday, August 22, with a star-studded lineup of South Carolina-based talent curated by Black Nerd Mafia. The lineup features performances from Dem Boyz Good, Death Ray Robin, Milah, JB SamSon, Dooozy, Kuntry, and Kenya Spinz.

Come early and check out The Jasper Project’s Gallery Space — The Nook — on the 2nd tier of the Koger Center Lobby. The featured artist for August is Lori Isom!

The full season schedule includes the following performances:

September 5: Longtooth, featuring an opening act from The Transonics

September 12: She Returns From War

September 19: John Hollier

October 3: J Roddy Walston & The Automatic Band

October 10: The Ramblers

October 17: Indianola

Concessions will be available for purchase at each concert. Grab a bite to eat and bring your chair or blanket to the Koger Center front lawn, and start your weekend right!

For more information about the Live Outside series and the Koger Center Presents programming, visit www.KogerCenterForTheArts.com.

Sure, the hype for the return of the annual St. Pat’s in Five Points festival is focused on the headliners Blues Traveler and national acts such as Surfaces, Laney Wilson, and Big Something, but what often gets lost in the coverage is that St. Pat’s is also one of the biggest local music festival opportunities of the year. Columbia bands are well represented on the main stages in 2022, and every year there are additional acts playing at unofficial side stages, local bars, and restaurants in the area, and more. To help you plan a locals-focused day at the festival, here’s a rundown of area artists and when to find them on what stage:

Villanova

2:40 pm, Greene and Harden St. Stage

Possibly the most popular local act to play St. Pat’s multiple times, Villa*Nova brings the noise every year. The current lineup includes founding members Bobby Dredd and DJ Able One alongside singer and guitarist Brian Conner. The band released their first new music since 2015 last year, the single “Vipers,” which revealed a commitment to a heavier sound within their melodic funk roots. There’s still plenty of the funk/rock/hip-hop hybrid left in the band’s back catalog to please their longtime fans, however.

George Fetner and the Strays

1:10 - 2:10 p.m., Greene and Harden St Stage

George Fetner has corralled his band of musical misfits into a herd of magnanimous proportions that turns any stage into a groove-laden party. Despite the near double-digit number of band members on stage, tight arrangements make the proceedings chug along purposefully. If you’re into bands such as Lake Street Dive, or the classic jams of WAR, there’s plenty to love in the joy-filled, tuneful workouts that Fetner and the Strays produce.

Stranger Company

12:00-12:50 Harden and Blossom St Stage

A newer presence locally, this young quartet has tapped into a jam band style of rock, blues, and jazz that hearkens back to the 70’s classic rock of acts such as Wet Willie, Santana, and Sea Level, where the grooves and the guitar licks were what mattered.

Ashley Wright and the Vance Gap Ramblers

12:00-12:50 Saluda and Devine St Stage

Ashley Wright and her band have managed to create twang-friendly tunes that transcend stereotypes and cut close to the emotional bone. The band’s delicate arrangements juxtaposed with Ashley Wright’s full-throated alto voice bring to mind Gillian Welch and Watchhouse.

Sourwood Honey Tribute Band

7:00-8:30, Home Team BBQ Stage

The beloved Sourwood Honey was a bar-packing mainstay of the regional club circuit in the 1990s, with the dual front of Ryan Goforth and Chris Conner and ace guitarist Herbie Jeffcoat taking on the wingman position. Their brand of jam-friendly southern country rock was always a cut above the rest due largely to Conner’s songwriting skills, showcased on the pair of full-length albums the band issued in their prime.

Conner passed from cancer back in 2007 but a few years back most of the remaining band members reconvened around Chris’ younger brother Brian Conner (of Villa*Nova), and called it a “tribute,” with Brian taking over his late brother’s parts; the goal is to keep the memory of Chris alive and reintroduce the band’s classic songs to audiences old and new.

The Ramblers

4:10-5:10, Home Team BBQ Stage

Taylor Nicholson logged plenty of miles as the lead singer for the popular regional rock act Atlas Road Crew; this outfit aims to provide plenty of classic rock and blues vibes on familiar material.

Danielle Howle & the Tantrums

2:40-3:40, Home Team BBQ Stage

The nostalgic aspect of this year’s St. Pat’s Festival is encapsulated in the fact that Howle, a former Columbia resident and musician who now calls the Charleston area home, was playing the festival as early as the 1990s with her band Lay Quiet Awhile. The Tantrums was her next full rock band, featuring members from another late great local act, Blightobody, and the group recorded several albums for Daemon Records in the late 1990s, gaining airplay locally and regionally with songs such as “She Has A Past.”

Soul Mites

1:10-2:10, Home Team BBQ Stage

The perennial party band for many Columbia natives, The Soul Mites only come out and play any more on special occasions like this.. The gruff, insistent voice of Tim Davis may be the focal point, but his supporting cast gives him a funky soul drenched rock ‘n’ roll machine to carry his crooning to another level.

Free Concert Series Returns to the Koger Center THIS FRIDAY with Black Nerd Mafia -- And What's Happening This Week at The Koger Center!