live music

Shows by Kansas City rap mainstay The Popper, artistic polymath Terence Blanchard, legendary soul singer Gladys Knight, and beloved pop star Mariah Carey punctuate our selection of the month’s best live music. They represent the year’s last gasp of greatness before winter puts a freeze on many touring acts.

Ten years ago on a cold dark night of the soul, Freight Train Rabbit Killer began its life as a scary band/opera/near-death experience for Kansas City music fans. This Halloween season, there's a flurry of live shows to celebrate their new record.

Ahead of her concert on Saturday in Lenexa, Sarah Lee Guthrie joined KCUR's Up to Date to discuss growing up in a family of folk music royalty, her love of Austin's honky tonk scene, and why she loves touring so much.

PorchfestKC took the last three years off, but now it's back. On Oct. 14, around 135 bands are set to perform on 49 porches and stages in Midtown's Roanoke and Valentine neighborhoods.

Prairie landscape used to occupy broad swaths of Kansas, but only a fraction of the original ecosystems remain. A central Kansas photographer hopes his new exhibition will sound the alarm for this ecological emergency. Plus: The Kansas City Latin Jazz Orchestra celebrates 20 years of fostering cross-cultural appreciation.

After arriving from Chile, Pablo Sanhueza made it his mission to spread the sounds of Latin America, and create an inclusive and radical space for cross-cultural appreciation.

As temperatures fall and outdoor performers take the show inside, these aural options offer the most bang for your buck. Whether it’s bluegrass, Bach, or sludge rock that you get down to, Kansas City’s live music scene has something to offer.

50,000 Beyoncé fans are coming from near and far to see the final stop in the pop star’s Renaissance World Tour. Visit KC expects the show to generate more than $13 million for the local economy. KCUR spoke to Beyhive members in Kansas City and across the world about how they're preparing for the concert at Arrowhead Stadium.

Treeline Music Festival in Columbia, Missouri, was supposed to feature popular bands like Japanese Breakfast, MUNA and Salt-N-Pepa. But the festival owners announced they would be calling off the event, citing low ticket sales and "significantly higher than expected expenses."

When silent films ruled the silver screen, pipe organs were used to enhance the drama of an otherwise quite medium. Now a Lee's Summit musician is bringing back that tradition. Plus: There's more federal dollars behind the push to get locally grown food into school cafeterias.

Before sound came to the movies, silent films ruled the silver screen and music from a theater pipe organ enhanced the drama. A Lee's Summit musician is reviving that tradition at the Kansas City Music Hall.

You won't hear gendered terms like "ladies" and "gents" at a new square dance in the West Bottoms. Organizers of this do-si-do scene put an inclusive spin on the traditional American art form.