(Live Review) SUMMERFEST (Day 3) - 6/21/25
- Mark McQueen
- Jul 3
- 4 min read
Greetings friends, fans, and followers. It is the Beard & Little Johnny reporting on our final day of Summerfest weekend one. Although it had been a good first couple of days, day three of Summerfest had two main themes.
1. Hot as Hades at 95 degrees and windy.
2. Ten active stages and absolutely no bands I knew. It would be almost impressive if it didn’t completely suck.
So, we will hunt and peck amongst the stages until we either get too miserable or Johnny gets arrested for being in the fountain without his pants. Guaranteed one of the two will happen today.
No School of Rock kids. All the sucking will be by so-called professionals. First up on the Uline stage was Justin Nozuka. Allegedly he is an R&B Soul act. We will give this a song or two. Well, on a day where the arena headliner is James "I’ve seen Fire & I’ve seen Rain" (probably back when they were both invented) Taylor, Nozuka, an American born Japanese Canadian was certainly genre appropriate. If you are into soft, clean folk, pop type of songs, this might be your kind of act. (Ed: Next!!)
Even in the little shade there was, it already felt like a million degrees out here. We gave Nozuka three songs and then voted unanimously that we No-like-a Nozuka and we moved on.
Next we caught the last few numbers from Brie Stoner. With a name like that, we were hoping she might be a little doom rock oriented. Instead, Stoner was a lilting indie dream rocker that dressed a bit like a cowgirl. Honestly, she wasn’t bad vocally, but sitting in this heat, her slow soft voice could put you right to sleep. After Little Johnny woke me up the second time, he said “Beard, maybe that’s why they call her dream rock.”
It was too hot to walk more, so we just filled our glasses with water and waited for the next act at the BMO stage. It was called Collections of Colonies of Bees.
Johnny was initially concerned about this, but Miss Kelly assured him that there were going to be no real bees. He seemed puzzled by this and said “Wait. So, bees are fake?” Miss Kelly glanced at me and said, “I will need more money next time.”
This band had an experimental, alternative post rock sound that was rather light. In fact, Collections of Colonies of Bees was musically like drinking a room temperature Diet Fresca. You can get it down, but it sure isn’t hitting the spot.
As Sweltering Saturday continued into the mid-afternoon this doesn’t seem to be a good day. The Beard is sticky, sweaty, cranky, and probably at least two other “B” roll dwarves that didn’t make the Snow-White movie. At this point we are sweating just sitting still. The Beard was already thinking about a shower and an air-conditioned pub with a cold beer instead of this musically desolate day in Mordor.
Johnny came up at one point and said, Beard, it’s so hot here because of dragons.” “What in the hell are you talking about little dude?”
Ok, once you start seeing dragons, it is time to head for home. We decided to traverse the circuit one more time making a slow pass across all the stages. We found only emo, DJ hip hop and country music. I found myself hallucinating and thought at one point I may have gone metal with a talking sub sandwich, but then again this may have been a fever dream.
The south side entrance gates loomed before us and recognizing when we were beaten, our sweaty trio decided to head back to the hotel and some air conditioning.
After everyone showered and cooled off in the room, it was bordering on darkness here in downtown Milwaukee. We debated what new place to try and decided on Central Standard Crafthouse & Kitchen. Although the main section was an hour wait, there was a little table near the front that we were able to squeeze into provided we went to the bar ourselves for all the ordering.
Miss Kelly tried a Milwaukee Old Fashioned (which she declared a no-go style drink), I had a subpar Whiskey Sour, and Johnny went with a Canadian Club Destroyer which he said needed more destroyer. We never did figure out what he meant by that. (Ed: Being of Canadian descent, let me help you. The Little Guy wanted more maple syrup in the drink. Us lumberjacks up here love the sweet stuff.)
Since we talked about our involvement yesterday with the Johnsonville brats and sausages, naturally we ordered the sausage tray which featured a Cheddar Brat, A Black Pepper Brat, and a Brat that even the Beard thought was spicy. There were three different flavors of mustard dipping sauce, some onions, pickles, and peppers, plus three large pretzel sticks. The perfect size meal for three weary fest goers who just spent Saturday night discussing the other two days’ worth of events. (Ed: Hate to be sharing a room with you folks afterwards though.)
We finished the evening with a Manhattan for the Beard, a shot of 95% Rye Whiskey for Miss Kelly and a Dark Chocolate Bourbon on Ice for Johnny. We all toasted our fantastic, brilliant, benevolent, and all-seeing boss Chris Tighe from The Mighty Decibel and then bid goodbye to Summerfest for another year.
Thank you for following along on our three-day adventure. Remember to check out the videos on our TikTok page at thebeard0728. Friend or follow Mark McQueen or thebeard&littlejohnny on social media and get your Metal news from The Mighty Decibel.com Until we review again, this has been The Beard & Little Johnny. Thanks to johnny sitter Miss Kelly and remember Live Life. Stay Heavy & Horns Up.
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