If It's Too Loud...

Normally on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend we're heading in for Boston Calling, but the premier festival in the area is taking this year off. Actually, taking a year off (hopefully) is the theme for 2026, with Hartford's The Capital Groove, Portland's Back Cove Music & Arts Festival, and Worcester's New England Metal and Hardcore Festival all skipping this year. Luckily, there are still plenty of festivals happening this year. Here are our recommendations for the summer of 2026, presented in chronological order! Backwoods Metal Fest, Henniker, NH, May 29 and 30 Taking place up in Henniker, NH, Backwoods Metal Fest is a two day rager in the woods of New Hampshire. It's a hike, but the bands make it well worth the drive. You'll get performances from False Gods, Tree, Afghan Haze, Druid Stone, Suicide Forest, Sick Dude Hell Yeah, Trunk, North Star the Wanderer, Lizzy, Holy Bowl, Eight Foot Manchild, Scuzzy Yeti, VRSA, Witchspire, Hobo Wizard, ERGI, Bvrt B@c...

2026 is a rough year for festivals with many of our favorites either taking the year off or calling it a day after 2025. Nice, a Fest took 2025 off, which had us a little worried, but they are back for 2026 and returning to Davis Square! This year's edition will run from July 24-26 and take place at The Rockwell, Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater, and Dragons Lair. Of course, the important thing is the music, and Nice, a Fest once again have an amazing all local line up with many, many of our favorites. It will feature Battlemode, Class President, Coral Moons, Downtown Boys, Evan Greer, Gymshorts, JVK, Landowner, Mal Devisa, Meg Elsier, Perennial, Pinklids, Rick Rude, and a ton more! This is always one of my favorite musical weekends of the year, and attending is strongly recommended! Nice, a Fest takes place in Davis Square, Somerville from July 24-26. You can get more information and tickets here .

Doing Anything this Weekend? is a feature here at If It's Too Loud... where we feature some live shows in and on the far outskirts of the Boston area. Our main rules are that they have to be reasonably priced shows that you can attend last minute. They'll feature If It's Too Loud... approved bands, and we'll provide event links when possible. And since we're in outdoor music season, these events are weather permitting. If you're looking for last minute plans this weekend, we recommend: Friday July 26 Rick Rude, Qvickdraw, and Tin Fish at The Dance Hall, Kittery, ME Nice, a fest featuring Noble Dust, TIFFY, Jake McKelvie, Hannah Mohan, Mallcops, and more at Crystal Ballroom and The Rockwell, Somerville, MA Eric Gaffney at Shelburne Springs, Shelburne Falls, MA The Shirts and Shoes, The Ghouls, Dee Tension & The Secrets, and Melt at Thirsty First, Lowell, MA Freak Pit, Eight Foot Manchild, and Mister Wonderful at The Boiler Room at Wes's Rib House, Provide...

Last week we previewed upcoming music festivals in June, so this week we're taking a look at July. It's a little more quiet festival wise than other months, but that may be a good thing seeing what the temperatures can be like in July. The options are still great, so let's take a look! Levitate Music and Arts Festival July 5-7 Marshfield Fairgrounds, Marshfield, MA Taking place over Fourth of July weekend (which is both good and bad), Levitate tends to lean towards the more hippie/jam band side of things than we do, but there is still a lot for us to like. It features the first New England appearance of the current version of Sublime (I'm always torn on how to feel about Sublime since I used to love them before Brad Nowell's death, but current fans turn me away from them), Jon Muq, Lake Street Dive, G. Love and Special Sauce, and more! It's a long running festival I haven't made it to yet, but I know people that go religiously. www.levitatemusicfestival.com/...

Taking place in Somerville, NICE, a fest has been slowly growing and becoming one of the go-to festivals every year despite an increasingly stacked festival schedule. This will be their fourth year, and hyperbole aside, they've grown even bigger and more impressive for 2024. This year will see over eighty bands with ties to Boston playing over four days. They're back to Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater and The Rockwell for 2024, but they've added a larger outdoor stage for Saturday at the Grove Street lot. The line-up is stacked and features many of our favorites. Vundabar, Palehound, Model/Actriz, Dutch Tulips, Hannah Mohan, House of Harm, Burp, Jake McKelvie, Sweet Petunia, Noble Dust, TIFFY, Vivid Bloom, Zip-Tie Handcuffs, and many, many more are playing. Every single time I look at the poster I notice a band I had previously missed and get even more excited for! And there are still two unannounced bands that are pretty high up on that poster, so let the speculatio...

It's a cliche when festivals proclaim that this year is their biggest and best line up every single year, but when Nice, a fest does it, they mean it. 2023 marks their third year, and sees the festival expand to four days and seventy four (!!!!) bands. The festival will take place July 20-23 once again between Crystal Ballroom and The Rockwell in Somerville's Davis Square. If you went last year, you know that topping last year's killer line up was damn near impossible, but Get To The Gig Boston pulled it off. Once again Nice, a fest features an all local line up headlined by post-rock/emo legends Karate, indie rock legends Swirlies, dance-punk/neo-psychedelic favorites Guerilla Toss, singer-songwriter Frances Forever, alternative rockers Ovlov, alt-rockers Valleyheart, art rock band Bent Knee, neo-folk artist Izzy Heltai, indie rock/emo artist Dino Gala, and Boston legend Will Dailey. The undercard is equally as impressive, but we obviously can't list every band here, s...

In its second year, Nice, a Fest took over The Rockwell and Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater for three night (four if you count the "after party" on Sunday). I wasn't able to go for all three (or four), so I made it for just Saturday. And seeing how I couldn't pull off twelve hours of live music at my advanced age, I made it a late afternoon/early evening start time. So apologies to all the bands I didn't see! Here are my five favorites from Saturday at Nice, a Fest, in no particular order. Circus Trees This one came out of nowhere for me. Circus Trees are a band out of Marlborough, MA made up of three sisters. Saturday night they had a replacement drummer, and they announced that they would be playing sad music before they started, which, they did. But Circus Trees are hardly a mopey band. Sure, their songs do have mopey parts, but it's more like if shoegaze was really, really heavy as well as beautiful. Their quiet parts were shockingly lovely, but whe...