The 20 best Milwaukee concerts of 2023 — and the most disappointing show of the year
When it comes to live music in 2023, five words will be remembered more than anything else: "Taylor Swift The Eras Tour."
The "Trouble" is, Time's Person of the Year has become so popular there isn't a big enough venue in Milwaukee where she could play, Swift's longtime tour promoter Louis Messina told the Journal Sentinel.
But even if Milwaukee missed out on the touring phenomenon of the year (as well as Beyoncé's blockbuster "Renaissance" stadium tour), it was a landmark year for concerts in the city. In 2023, the city had a record number of shows at American Family Field, plus 21 concerts at Fiserv Forum, 19 concerts at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater, an ultra-rare Veterans Park music festival, and stuffed calendars at theaters and clubs across town.
These 20 concerts stood out most in an exceptional year — as did one particularly dreadful performance.
20. Hozier (May 19, Eagles Ballroom, The Rave)
The Irish singer-songwriter woke up May 19 with "zero voice," but by that evening, he was wowing a Milwaukee crowd — including the local doctor who helped him through the ordeal — with a golden voice at a special "pop-up concert" at a venue far smaller than the arenas and amphitheaters he spent most of 2023 playing.
19. Lainey Wilson (March 30, Eagles Ballroom, The Rave)
Running off the momentum of dominating the 2022 CMA Awards, Wilson, at one of her biggest shows of her career up to that point, seemed to be gunning for Entertainer of the Year for 2023 — a long shot given the CMA's dreadful history of giving the top prize to women. But sure enough, Wilson clinched that prize and four others — all of which, her Milwaukee show made clear, she deserved.
18. Santa Fe Klan (June 24, Miller Lite Oasis, Summerfest)
A breakthrough booking for one of America's largest and longest running music festivals, the fast-rising Mexican rapper and singer brought the breathless dancers, sharp musicians and magnetic swagger he showcased in his debut arena tour to a Summerfest grounds stage. The festival needs more diverse bookings like this one — and the packed and passionate Summerfest crowd for Klan's concert suggests it won't be the last.
17. Bob Dylan (Oct. 11, Riverside Theater)
The renewed vigor that the at-times apathetic live performer brought to the Eagles Ballroom in 2019 was still vibrant four years and one pandemic later at the first of two shows at the Riverside Theater. The 82-year-old legend enhanced the delicious delivery of his signature lyrics with some piano dazzle and a couple of uncharacteristic but inspired fist pumps.
16. Lucinda Williams (Oct. 12, Pabst Theater)
Not allowing a stroke in 2020 to stifle her creativity or slow down her career, Williams in 2023 released a memoir and album, and embarked on her most personal tour to date, where several off-the-cuff stories — some sweet, others somber — about the idols and loved ones who inspired her life and life's work enriched her esteemed songbook.
15. Tool (Nov. 1, Fiserv Forum)
Notorious for taking lots of time between albums, Tool had no new music to share at the band's return to Fiserv Forum. But the metal titans gave a sold-out crowd a dramatically different show from its last local appearance in 2019, swapping out nearly half of the songs they played four years earlier and demonstrating that the meticulous, patient craftsmanship on returning epics like "Fear Inoculum" yields new rewards with each performance.
14. Os Mutantes (March 13, Cactus Club)
Singer and guitarist Sérgio Dias might have had some vocal issues due to a cold, but nothing could dim the brilliant opportunity to see the influential Brazilian psychedelic rock legends live up to their envelope-pushing, six-decade-plus pedigree in the tiny confines of the Cactus Club.
13. Paramore (Aug. 1, Fiserv Forum)
Paramore had to scrap some shows a few days before a tour stop in Milwaukee when frontwoman Hayley Williams developed a lung infection. But she gave one of the most animated and demanding physical performances of the year, her body-flailing, stage-sprinting feat all the more jaw-dropping in the wake of health issues that sidelined the band again less than two weeks later.
12. Billy Porter (May 20, Bradley Symphony Center)
Safe to say the newish home of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra has yet to host a wilder performer than Billy Porter, who channeled James Brown’s relentless energy and Whitney Houston’s peerless pipes at a show stuffed with deeply personal confessionals, rousing political outrage and a whole lot of liberating dancing.
11. Nick Cave (Sept. 27, Riverside Theater)
Cave’s Milwaukee performance, as he described it on stage, may have been “extremely reduced”; he sang and played piano, Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood played some ambient bass, and that was it. But Cave’s emotions were heightened, his brooding and bleeding songs, despite and even because of the spareness, almost unbearably intense at times.
10. Peter Gabriel (Oct. 2, Fiserv Forum)
Gabriel may be the only arena rocker in his seventies daring to play mostly new material. That may have led to some soft ticket sales, but Gabriel’s conviction as he performed his engrossing new songs, enhanced by a spellbinding band and mesmerizing staging, was a bold undertaking inspiring to behold.
9. Janet Jackson (May 28, American Family Insurance Amphitheater)
Milwaukee may not have gotten a Beyoncé date, but we got to see the artist who’s probably had a greater influence on Queen Bey’s acclaimed live shows than anyone else. Through a dazzling, painstakingly choreographed and impeccably executed set — nearly 45 songs, many creatively reimagined — Jackson showed, at 57, that she’s still in a league of her own.
8. Los Bukis (Aug. 24, American Family Insurance Amphitheater, Mexican Fiesta)
Mexican Fiesta scored one of the greatest booking coups in recent city history for its 50th anniversary: Los Bukis, essentially Mexico’s answer to the Beatles, playing one of the group's first shows since reuniting after a 25-year hiatus. It was, in all likelihood, a once-in-a-lifetime event, and the passion expressed by a gracious Marco Antonio Solís and his reunited band mates lived up to the occasion.
7. Jelly Roll (Aug. 18, American Family Insurance Amphitheater)
There wasn't a more emotional concert in town this year than Jelly Roll's triumphant sold-out Milwaukee show. The convicted felon and former drug dealer and addict, and his fans, shed tears as they exorcised their demons, processed their traumas and found hope from what the country singer and rapper perfectly described as "real music for real people with real (expletive) problems."
6. Zach Bryan (July 7, American Family Insurance Amphitheater, Summerfest)
With Summerfest's 55th anniversary in the books, one concert years from now will be best associated with the celebration: Zach Bryan's swiftly sold-out American Family Insurance Amphitheater performance, a lightning-in-a-bottle moment when an artist early in their transformation to bona-fide phenomenon performs for one of the largest crowds of their career, made all the sweeter by an already impeccable catalog and a spirited band largely made up of lifelong friends. I'm expecting good things from Bryan's Milwaukee return at Fiserv Forum in March — but the electricity from that Summerfest show is going to be hard to replicate.
5. Violent Femmes with Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (Oct. 3, Bradley Symphony Center)
In honor of the 40th anniversary of the breakout debut album from Milwaukee's most accomplished band, the Violent Femmes did something special, performing those songs, and others, with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Any concerns that those folk-punk gems would lose their edge to strings and woodwinds were quickly stifled; the 54-piece orchestra frequently enhanced the anxiety and whimsy, resulting in what may have been the Femmes' finest showcase in their hometown.
4. Foo Fighters (July 15, Veterans Park, Harley-Davidson Homecoming Festival)
Harley’s 120th anniversary and return to a music-driven celebration — anchored in Veterans Park for the first time since 2008 — was not without some sadness. The return of Foo Fighters as the closing headliner was the band's first Milwaukee show since the death of the group’s beating heart, drummer Taylor Hawkins. But Dave Grohl and company, including explosive new drummer Josh Freese, honored their fallen friend the best way possible with a no-holds-barred set, giving Harley and some 45,000 fans a party for the ages.
3. Drake (Aug. 4, Fiserv Forum)
It’s not an overstatement to suggest Drake changed the world, bringing vulnerability and melodic flows to the hip-hop ecosystem, which has become the dominant genre in the wake of his influence. But he had never played Milwaukee — until this summer. The explosive energy from the crowd, finally witnessing an artist with a peerless track record who’s still at the center of the zeitgeist, is something I’ve never experienced, and the significance wasn’t lost on the superstar. His bravado and cutting-edge production ensured that the show was worth the very, very long wait.
2. Pink (Aug. 14, American Family Field)
It’s embarrassing how long it took for a tour led by a female artist to come to a Wisconsin stadium, but Pink gave a towering performance that lived up to the historic, glass-ceiling-shattering event with radiant vocals, a down-to-earth casualness, and signature, jaw-dropping acrobatics — the most daring set pieces attempted by any artist on the planet.
Our favorite concert of 2023: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (March 7, Fiserv Forum)
Few artists of his generation, of any generation, exhibit more gravitas on stage than Bruce Springsteen. But several of the Boss’ peerless songs were more profound at this staggering three-hour show, where Springsteen brought literal tear-swelling sadness and giddy exuberance made possible by deep introspection and 73 years of pain and joy. Live "every moment of every day," Springsteen preached at one point. His heaving, sweat-covered chest by night's end showed he did just that in Milwaukee.
The most disappointing concert of 2023: Trippie Redd (July 1, American Family Insurance Amphitheater, Summerfest)
I can't count how many artists I've been able to see as a full-time music writer for 11 years — but none has come close to treating their devoted (and paying) fans as terribly as Trippie Redd. For his first show in town in 2018, his DJ didn't make it to town, dooming his set. For his second appearance, he showed up on stage 80 minutes late, then left his own show for 20 minutes a half-hour into his set. And as a Summerfest headliner at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater this year, Redd had the nerve to be late again — taking the stage 76 minutes behind schedule — and call it a night after a lifeless performance that lasted just 28 minutes. "Shameful" doesn't suffice.
Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or [email protected]. Follow him on X at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee's 20 best concerts of 2023 — and the most disappointing show
