Matthew Altruda still can’t wrap his mind around something. He is a big part of the organization that comes together year after year to make Sonic Lunch happen, and has now been doing it for long enough that kids who grew up loving it are now old enough to go to college, and have have told him several times that they grew up with Ann Arbors free summer concert series.
“It’s truly incredible when people tell me, like ‘my first concert was here when I was seven.’ It’s like – wow, and you’re in college now. We’re at the point now with Sonic Lunch that people have grown up with us,” Altruda said. “But it makes sense when you’re 18 years old. Sonic Lunch is an adult.”
But it is true. The first Thursday of June will kick of season 18 of Sonic Lunch – Ann Arbor’s homespun, free concert series, which has a habit of highlighting Michigan-grown musical talent and producing musicians who take the national and global stages by storm with music that builds upon the best of the past and transcends the formulas of pop music to produce the next smash hits that future genres and sub-genres get built around. Some kids who were brought to Sonic Lunch as toddlers, tweens or teenagers are now adults and becoming musicians themselves.
One of those kids who was wowed by the concert series was a 13-year-old girl from Toronto, who was at the Michigan Theater for band camp. Now, years later, she will be taking the stage as an opening act.
“My uncle took me to Sonic Lunch, and I just remember being like: ‘Whoa, this is a really cool, free concert’ …. and ‘this is crazy that this is just here in the middle of the day.’ It was definitely not the kind of thing you see in Toronto, because there was a big community feeling,” Maddy Ringo said. Now a full-time musician, Ringo says “I am trying to bring a full revival of folk music. A new wave of cultural conversation through this longstanding tradition of American folk music. I want to be conversational with it and make sure that I am connecting to people, that I am creating something that people can participate in a dialogue…”
Season 18 of Sonic Lunch
The eighteenth season of Ann Arbor’s community summer concert series will start on the first Thursday of June. Altruda spends all year promoting Michigan-local musicians on his Sunday show, Treetown Sound, on Ann Arbor’s 107-one.
But at 9 a.m. on Friday, he joined the morning show to announce this summer’s 12 show lineup:
- June 5 – Mike Posner w/ opener Joe Hertler
- June 12 – The Accidentals w/ opener Maddy Ringo
- June 19 – Al Bettis w/ opener Ark Laci
- June 26 – Michigander w/ opener Jake LeMond
- July 3 – Laith Al-Saadi w/ opener Judy Banker
- July 10 – May Erlewine w/ openeer The Rebel Eves
- July 24 – The Record Company w/ opener Chloe Kimes
- July 31 –Phillip Phillips w/ opener Ben Goldsmith
- August 7 –Andrew Horowitz (and friends) w/ opener Casey Shea & Friends
- August 14 – Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe w/ opener Ki5
- August 21 – Neal Francis w/ opener Rabbitology
- August 28 – JR JR w/ opener Absofacto
“Andrew Horowitz and friends is almost like a Tally Hall reunion,” Altruda added. Andrew Horowitz brought a lot of the Tally Hall sound to Ann Arbor with his show last year, which became the largest show of the season. “And it’s going to be like that, just beefed up with more members.”
Sonic Lunch makes a point about bringing balance to its lineup. Longtime fans of the show can look forward to a lot of recurring acts, but just about half of the shows openers and main acts will be new to Sonic Lunch this year.
“I just love getting a chance to play in Michigan. Any time there’s an opportunity to come to the home state, its hard to say no to, and you can’t be upset that your show ends at 1 p.m., and you have the rest of your day,” Jason Singer, who goes by his Michigander stage name, said. The Nashville-based favorite has played Sonic Lunch several times, and therefore is going to keep a few of his old classics while also going heavily into his new music “because we’ve played it so often that you have to shake it up as much as possible.”
Bigger better than ever
The concerts are so big now that they will have to shut down the block of Liberty Street adjacent to the plaza (between Fourth Avenue and Division Street) every single Thursday to accommodate the expected crowds. That used to be something that was only necessary one, maybe two times per season in previous years. Typical Sonic Lunches can average 800 people – which are always a mix of ages, walks of life, races, religions and income levels.
Altruda feels proud about keeping the concert going as so many live music venues have gotten more expensive or simply shut down. He said this year’s lineup is “better than I could have hoped for” and is in fact so good that “I’m already stressed out about next summer. Trying to put a lineup that can compare to this seems almost impossible for me.” In fact, Altruda said that he usually jokes with Michigander, “I’m going to keep booking you until we can’t afford you.”
RELATED: Tally Hall Fans Pack Sonic Lunch During Andrew Horowitz Performance
Sonic Lunch is generally a rock ‘n’ roll-centric concert series. But every show is different, and that rock label is the loosest possible one – as they frequently get pop, blues, country, soul and funk acts in too. Each show is unique in that it isn’t just a laid back and very Ann Arbor-feeling free concert – it feels like the most in-the-know music aficionado in the world is letting you into the too-good-to-share selection of contemporary music that they only let their closest friends know about.
Michigander fits that aesthetic quite well. The new songs he’ll be playing will be coming out of his new self-titled album, to which Singer said “the cohesiveness of the sound is pretty intentional. But I would say that the incohensiveness of the genre of what each song is, is also intentional.”
And there will be bubbles – shot out lazily from a rotating bubble cannon perched on one of the concrete planters that breaks up the block, spinning at a stroll pace – little spheres reflecting light as the summer sun wears away your stress as you sit or dance to the music. There are always at least half a dozen elementary school kids dancing in front of the stage. Some people bring folding chairs, but it is mostly a standing room event, with elbow rubbing inevitable as so many people packed into one of Ann Arbor’s tiniest parks – but Altruda is confident that they will never outgrow the plaza.
It would be a mistake to conflate Sonic Lunch being free with a low standard of quality. Laith Al-Saadi has won the Detroit Music Award. The Philip Phillips who will play July’s final show is that Philip Phillips that you may remember from American Idol. Going through all of the artists who have won or been nominated for Grammy’s and other awards, and are regulars at Sonic Lunch, could easily double the length of this article.
Ringo added that “In a very broad sense [my songs] are about the experience of living in this postindustrial, techno-caplitalist environment, while also having a body, heart – and it is sometimes kind of an alienating experience to have both at the same time. And I think that this idea isn’t confined to today, it’s more about a longer narrative of being alive.”
A social event
In an age of America’s longstanding loneliness epidemic, this free concert is a welcoming and inclusive event where it is normal for you to find yourself sitting or standing next to complete strangers. Chatting is normal. As long as you bring your best self to the corner of Liberty and Division, unity can be found by this concert functioning as a place that encourages you to chat with someone you’ve never met – doing the heavy lifting for you to find new people to becomes friends with.
“It’s the essence of community. You bring people together with music and your community flourishes,” Altruda said. “I know a lot of kids in Ann Arbor who Sonic Lunch is indirectly responsible for because their parents met at Sonic Lunch! Music is such an incredible vehicle for people together, joy in their life and the vibe that Sonic Lunch brings is contagious. Get away from work, close your computer, walk down the street, see live music, get some food, work hard, play hard. That’s the kind of vibe that we try to bring to this.”
That is why it is free. The Bank of Ann Arbor has long held the strategy that sponsoring this concert is a better way to advertise than with pop ups or television ads. But it is also a community building exercise – a laid back, family friendly, artsy for the sake of being artsy vibe – where you are supposed to bring old friends that you have been meaning to talk to for forever, or to meet new people who you might never have interacted with otherwise, but may very well become a best friend.
It was not that long ago that a major label’s concert ticket cost pocket change, or the cost of a mid-level dinner. But last year the average concert ticket for the top 100 tour options was $135.92 according to the New York Times, who found last March that some Gen Z fans even choose to go into debt to attend concerts. In 1996, the Times reported that $25.81 was the average concert ticket.
The Times based its reporting partially upon a survey of 1,000 Gen Zers by Merge, the marketing agency, and found that while extreme cases like going into debt for concerts is indeed a extreme example, 33% of overspending on concerts was impulse buying, 22% was down to peer pressure, and 27% was based on a fear of missing out. Some tickets for major artists can approach the four figure mark.
President Trump also caused the stock market to go down massively after April 2, when he put double-digit tariffs on most countries, resulting in most countries responding with their own tariffs. That will likely make concert prices go up too.
The opening acts start around 11 a.m. every Thursday. The only break will be on the third Thursday of July to make room for the Ann Arbor Art Fair.
And if you do want to spend money, food will be available on Liberty Street. They usually provide some of the better food truck based options in Washtenaw County, but if you’re in the mood for something else, remember that you will be in the literal center of Ann Arbor’s culinary universe. Merch will be available at the Sonic Lunch tent near the corner of the two streets.
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
