LEVITT AMP STEVENS POINT
The 2024 Series
Levitt AMP Stevens Point, at the Pfiffner Park Bandshell, was our eighth series of FREE summer music! Concerts started at 6:00 PM and ran until 8:30 PM, with headlining bands taking the stage at 7:00 PM. The lawn was bustling again with the CREATE Market, food trucks, PWYC community yoga, beverage sales, and some new surprises. You didn’t want to miss Portage County’s favorite way to relax together!
Thanks to our 2024 sponsors
Also thanks to Prevail Bank and Lands’ End for their support
The 2024 Lineup
Thursday June 6
Alysha Brilla
Alysha Brilla is a 3X JUNO Award nominated composer, music producer and multi-instrumentalist weaving together global roots sounds into healing music. Alysha is the 2024 Canadian Screen Award nominated music composer for the score of Fawzia Mirza's 2023 Feature Film "The Queen Of My Dreams"
Touring the world performing live music and collaborating with communities, Alysha's musical mission unites cross-culturally by featuring a mosaic of genders and ancestral backgrounds on stage. Her distinct and powerful voice and musical tapestry have taken her across Australia, South America, Canada, Europe and Asia.
Opener: Scorched Waves
Concert Sponsor
Thursday June 13
Roberta Lea
With a voice like cinnamon and a pen like butter, Roberta Lea is a rising artist, ready to give the world a taste of what she's made of. Fellow musicians have described her sound as "country-neo-pop". As a millennial, it's often quite difficult to pin her down to one particular genre. Her influences range from 80s RnB legends like Roberta Flack, Anita Baker and Sade, to pop 90s girl-power players like Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, Shania Twain and everything in between.
Her single “Sweet Baby Ray” hit the spot in the hearts of fellow artists and music lovers alike and drove her to record her very first country project “Just A Taste”. Now, she’s been nominated for 6 music awards including Song of the Year and Best E.P.! “Just A Taste” showcases the different flavors of country she infuses in her songwriting. She goes from classic country, to country soul, country rock, pop country and country folk. As a songwriter, she has no limits when it comes to expressing herself through song and telling a good story.
Opener: Horace Green
CONCERT SPONSOR
Thursday June 20
Tedious and Brief
Tedious & Brief is a Chicago-based alternative pop artist whose airy synth and smooth vocals create nostalgic anthems. Her debut single “Papercuts,” a sentimental track touching on themes such as longing for the past and its “moments of gold,” is Jamie Jacobsen’s first release as Tedious & Brief. The song serves to set the mood for the rest of Tedious & Brief’s debut self-titled EP. Her latest single, “Slow Down,” introduces new pop elements and catchy melodies while maintaining the anthemic feel of the EP.
With strong family ties to music, Jacobsen, now 22, took up guitar and songwriting at a young age. Jacobsen identifies some of her earliest influences as Stevie Ray, Muddy Waters and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, though her style has strayed greatly from the nostalgic rock of her childhood to form a more polished sound featuring airy synth elements and smooth vocals akin to Maggie Rogers or Lorde.
Opener: Justin Zopel
Concert Sponsor
Thursday June 27
Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials
In Chicago, a city overflowing with unrivaled blues talent, world-renowned Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials have been standing tall for almost 30 years. The band’s big sound, fueled by Lil’ Ed’s gloriously rollicking slide work and deep blues string bending, along with his rough-edged, soulful vocals, is as real and hard-hitting as Chicago blues gets.
The Chicago Reader says the band’s music “is a soundtrack for dancing and celebration infused with a sense of hard-won survival. Williams attacks his lyrics like he attacks his guitar: with bare-bones intensity that makes each word sound like a matter of life or death.”
Opener: Ultimate Polka Band
Concert Sponsor
Thursday July 11
Emmitt James
From the DIY circuit to playing bigger stages like the Roxy and the Novo, Emmitt is a well celebrated and experienced performer. The Midwest bred emcee and now LA based hip-hop artist has been said to be reminiscent of acts like A Tribe Called Quest, Anderson. Paak and The Internet.
Since being billed for Pharcyde Phestival (2018), Emmitt has been gaining momentum from opening for legendary acts such as The Pharcyde and Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) to contemporary acts like Cuco, Joey Purp, Duckwrth, Old Man Saxon, Jay Prince, Banesworld and more. He also was a semi-finalist (top 12 out of 1,000) in the Adidas Originals Sound Lab grant competition where he scored a meeting with Pusha T at ComplexCon 2018.
Opener: Ukelyptus
Thursday July 18
Kommuna Lox
“In Odesa, people find togetherness. In Odesa, all will laugh and sing." Ukraine’s Kommuna Lux validates these words from an old poem, performing their own style called "Odesa Gangsta Folk”.
Odesites have always been known for their great tolerance, easy-going lifestyle, and very special sense of humor. This multicultural port city is world-famous for its significant Jewish culture and for being the birthplace of the Urban Chanson genre. Kommuna Lux plays joyful songs and melodies from Odesa and all Eastern Europe in spiced up arrangements.
Opener: Amy Maria
Concert Sponsor
Thursday July 25
Lone Piñon
Lone Piñon is a New Mexican string band, or “orquesta típica”, whose music celebrates the integrity and diversity of their region's cultural roots. With fiddles, upright bass, guitars, accordions, vihuela, and bilingual vocals, they play a wide spectrum of the traditional music that is at home in New Mexico.
Through relationship with elders, study of field recordings, connections to parallel traditional music and dance revitalization movements in the US and Mexico, and hundreds of local and national performances, they have brought the language of the New Mexico orquesta típica back onto the modern stage, back onto dance floors, into a contemporary aesthetic/artistic conversation, and into the ears of a young generation.
Opener: Mattea Joy
Thursday August 1
Leon Timbo
The singular singer and songwriter Leon Timbo is a veteran artist who brings “a unique, rootsy sound that incorporates equal measures of vintage soul, gospel, folk, R&B, funk, dance music, and even modern blues” (All Music Guide) to a style he calls “transparent soul."
The son of parents who are both church pastors, Timbo was raised in Jacksonville, Florida and steeped in gospel music since birth. He began pursuing music seriously at 16 and worked the club circuit steadily into his 20s, when he was seen by actor and R&B superstar Tyrese Gibson, who asked the budding musician to open for him at the Dallas House of Blues. Tyrese introduced Timbo to GRAMMY-winning vocalist and producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, who signed Timbo to a record deal and took him on the road, cementing Timbo’s rapidly expanding career as one of the major young artists reclaiming American roots music’s association with the Black experience in the 21st century.
Opener: The Foxfire Affair
Thursday August 8
Bassel and the Supernaturals
Bassel & The Supernaturals tells the story of Bassel Almadani's experience as a first generation Syrian-American using soulful melodies, funk inspired rhythms, and captivating lyrics regarding love, loss, otherness and the war in Syria.
Echoing Stevie Wonder’s rhythm and blues, Jamiroquai’s social justice centered lyricism over jazz-infused funk, and Steely Dan’s seamless amalgam of American music, Bassel & The Supernaturals uses the stage as a vehicle to unite his listeners and share the story of his cultural duality. Their work is featured on a new PBS docuseries starring Dule Hill entitled The Express Way, regarding the transformative power of the arts.
Opener: The Fred Rogers Vibe
United way campaign kickoff!
Thursday August 15
newSONG & Michelle Elle
Co-Headliners
newSONG (pictured left) is an emerging Hmong singer-songwriter based in Minneapolis, strives to promote body positivity, fuse her cultural music with modern day beats, and showcase her boundless talents as an artist.
Michelle Elle (pictured right) is a music enthusiast, songwriter, and singer from Wisconsin. Her passion for music began at an early age — she was always listening to Hmong music, top hits on the radio, and anything that had a catchy tune. Michelle has enjoyed song writing since her teenage years, but it wasn't until 2022 that she'd embark on a musical journey and release her first single, "Tseem Tsis Tau Lig".
Thursday August 22
Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce was recently handpicked to be the special guest opener for the NEIL YOUNG Coastal Tour. He recently gained additional worldwide prominence with “We Can Always Come Back to This”. His hit song aired on 3 episodes of the #1 NBC primetime series ‘THIS IS US,' then went on to #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart. Pierce has also done worldwide headlining tours and has performed with: Neil Young, B.B. King, Seal, Al Green, Steve Earle, Allison Russell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Rodrigo y Gabriella, Jill Scott, Keb’Mo, Blind Boys of Alabama, Aaron Neville & others.
At a young age, Pierce developed a rare hearing disorder called Otosclerosis that led to the loss of hearing in one ear and partial deafness in the other, a setback that would deter many young musicians forever. The reality, however, fueled Chris’ passion and determination all the more, forcing him to re-learn almost everything he had known prior to his condition. To Chris, music was, and still is, an unconditional companion.
Opener: Valley Fox
The Levitt AMP Stevens Point Music Series is supported in part by the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, which partners with changemakers and nonprofits across the country to activate underused outdoor spaces through the power of free, live music—bringing people together, fostering belonging, and invigorating community life. Presenting high-caliber talent and a broad array of music genres and cultural programming, Levitt concerts are welcoming and inclusive destinations where people of all ages and backgrounds come together.
In 2024, the national Levitt network of music venues and concert sites is presenting 650+ free concerts in 45 towns and cities, with audiences over 750,000. In addition to supporting free concerts, the Levitt Foundation is dedicated to advancing equitable music ecosystems through research and partnerships.