(Live Review) MILWAUKEE SUMMERFEST (Day 1) - June 19, 2025
- Mark McQueen
- Jul 1
- 7 min read
Greetings friends, fans and followers, it is the Beard and Little Johnny and we are reporting from our yearly trip to the Midwest’s largest music event, Milwaukee Summerfest 2025.
This long-standing salute to the Midwest has been running for over a half century and has boasted some great names over the years. Once running ten straight days, now Summerfest runs for three consecutive three-day weekends during June and July. The Beard and Little Johnny are attending the opening weekend for the third year in a row.
Lately, (as far as Metal is concerned) Summerfest has been a Summer bust with extraordinarily little. That said, with the IPAs flowing and the girls scantily clad in the summer heat, adventure tends to abound here and one just never knows where a day will lead.
6/19/25 Opening Day
Our merry gang of three, the Beard, Little Johnny, and new Little Johnny sitter Miss Kelly, arrived at the Southern gate of the fest (on the shores of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin), at noon for opening day of the 2025 festival. We took a picture by the main fountain sporting a very aqua-marine coloration.
The Beard asked, “Johnny, does that water look really blue to you?” “I don’t know Beard. It seems as happy as any other water.”
Day One of the festival was offering free hats to the first 5,000 attendees. Since neither the perpetually bandanna sporting Beard nor Miss Kelly needed a free hat, Little Johnny ended up with three. “One for each day of the fest this weekend huh Beard.” He said with a smile and then asked “So, what’s on today’s agenda?”
“Well, little dude the first three hours of day one, all the stages are dedicated to the School of Rock kids from all over the country. We might get a look at tomorrow’s next superstars doing their first live gig today.”
Both Johnny and Miss Kelly nodded approvingly. “I like watching the kids play.” Miss Kelly offered up. Johnny said, “Yeah, if they had this kind of thing at the orphanage, maybe I would be headlining tonight instead of those hard of hearing Leopard guys.” “Uh, that’s Def Leppard John. Remember we saw them at the big baseball stadium a couple years ago.”
“Oh yeah. That was a cool gig. I remember those dudes that looked like ugly chicks headlined and they had those strippers on stage with them.” “That was Motley Crue John, but essentially yes. That show.”
Johnny smiled and then noticed the first beer stand and offered, “Hey Beard, float me your plastic and I’ll get us the first round. Rocking kids sound better with a beer.” Looking at Miss Kelly, I quietly whispered, “and now you see why you’re here.”
School of Rock is truly worldwide and allows kids from 6-21 to live their dreams of being Rock musicians with training, instruction and the opportunity to play in front of live audiences like here at Summerfest. While most will never see a legitimate opening gig (let alone headline anywhere), someone out there always wins the Lottery and as Michael Jordan once famously said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” So, kudos to all of them for trying.
Our merry, and early drinking trio wandered throughout the Summerfest grounds (and their ten live stages), cheering and checking out a few numbers at each stage.
While most groups had an audience of just friends, family and other School of Rock students and teachers, a few did stand out musically and drew more attendees to their stages. Each band played three songs and then made way for the next group. As far as musical styles, it was all over the map, but we looked for kids playing and paying homage to the greats of both Metal and Classic Rock.
One stage had a fair guitarist doing some Carlos Santana leads but nothing else memorable. Another stage had a female fronted act trying to cover Van Halen, but not very well. A third stage had ten lily white kids covering Kool and the Gang. Johnny watched for approximately twenty-seven seconds then chugged his beer and vanished. We were close behind him. So far this was not good.
As we moved on across the grounds, stage four had a girl’s band trying to do an ELO song. Even the always congenial Miss Kelly said, “I think I know why Mr. Blue Sky is going to stay hidden.” Miss Kelly is perpetually polite but also understands sometimes it’s just not particularly well performed music. We were still searching for that first good band.
On stage five was another group of girls trying to perform Rio by Duran Duran. “Oh Rio Rio that is not the way you sound.”
We caught up to Little Johnny who had found a stage with the first real band of the day. “Good job Johnny, you found a regular band.” “I did? I just stopped here because the stage said, “Miller Lite.”
The Bryan Cherry band only had a fair singer but a decent blues guitarist. Of course, after five School of Rock stages, decent was a low bar to clear. Since the Bryan Cherry band was real we will award them a grade. 76/100
We wandered back through the School of Rock stages and continued to hear effort, but little success. A fifteen-year-old and his band tried to cover songs from Cream & The Band, both unsuccessfully. Miss Kelly duly pointed out though that the point of all this was the willingness to make the effort. (Ed: That doesn't mean the paying public have to make the effort of listening to it!)
We did hear one decent version of Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll". They were at least on the beat and knew the lyrics and fills. Then the next group up really butchered “All I wanted was You” by Paramour. Little Johnny said “All I wanted was for her to stop singing.”
Finally at 4:30 we got to the day’s real bands.
Buffalo Nichols started with a violin intro into some soft acoustic blues with not much in the way of firepower. He did morph into some decent old school electric blues. No histrionics, or wild innovative playing, just some solid old school blues including a good cover of the original version of “When the Levee Breaks.” 80/100
Next it was time to head to the amphitheater for the headline acts:
TESLA
Tesla is a long-time band having morphed from their 1981 moniker The City Kids to Tesla by 1983. They found some success in the mid 1980’s during the great Hair Metal movement with charting hits such as “Modern Day Cowboy”, “Little Suzi”, “Love Song” & “Signs.”
Tesla still sports three fifths of their classic era line-up, including founding members bassist/keyboardist Brian Wheat & underrated guitarist Frank Hannon.
Long time vocalist Jeff Keith sounded like he was getting some help all evening from the magic of today’s technical wizardry, but really Tesla was better than I expected, and I knew more songs from their set than I thought. (Although to be fair, they did do three covers including The James Gang’s "Walk Away", "I love You" by The Climax Blues Band, and of course "Signs", originally from Five Man Electrical Band.
By the end of their set, Tesla had won me over as a fun band with a good guitarist. 88/100
DEF LEPPARD
Summerfest night one headliners were the aging, but still going Metallica-of-the-hair-metal set, Def Leppard.
Joe Elliot and his band of merry Englishmen have indeed aged, but it seemed to me that Elliot was using fewer vocal effects than when they were playing the stadium tour a couple of years ago. Sure, there was sustain and delay to assist his voice here and there, but Elliot actually sounded like a 65-year-old man up there, which I enjoyed. I want to hear Joe Elliot, not autotune.
Phil Collins continues to be the 60+ Charles Atlas of guitar players. I should learn about his fitness regimen because that guy stays ripped. Rick Savage and Rick Allen continue to impress, and the biggest change this time was Vivian Campbell back in the fold. 2023 saw Campbell having issues with his Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and requiring more chemotherapy. It was great to see the full Def Leppard line up again.
Leppard played a largely expected arena set with 99% big hits. "Die Hard the Hunter" was an unexpected surprise that I enjoyed. Otherwise, it was their usual “give the people what they want” kind of show, and it certainly got over with the crowd. In a fun moment, someone threw a green/blue bra onstage and when Joe Elliot picked it up, he wryly chuckled and said, “It’s been a bit since that has happened so thank you for that.” No word on whether the tosser had a backup bra ready.
Def Leppard gave us a fun night, but not much in the way of surprises. 86/100.
Afterwards, we made a very brief stop by the Miller Lite Stage for Gary Clark Jr.Johnny said he played guitar well, but sang like a girl and had a porcupine for a second guitarist. We only stayed for two songs so no grade.
As we exited, we did catch one song from The Almond Betts band. It looked like they had about eleven guys on stage so after expenses, their per member cut for this gig was probably going to be about 53.45 each.
All in all, a fair first day at Summerfest. We saw a couple nice sets, we all got home safely, and Little Johnny kept his pants on the entire day. Now, it’s time for a bottle of Gatorade, a cookie, and a shower before calling it at just after midnight. It is also now June 20, so I guess summer has now officially arrived.
As always be sure to check out all the videos from day one on our TikTok page at thebeard0728. Read The Mighty Decibel for all your latest metal news, and follow Mark McQueen, or the Beard & Little Johnny on all our social media sites for the latest episode of Beard reviews as well as our fifty-two previous ones so far this year. Until next time, this is the Beard & Little Johnny saying, Live Life, Stay Heavy & Horns Up.
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