Each year there are a ton of official and unofficial afterparties across Newport Folk Festival weekend, but more often than not, we find ourselves at Jimmy’s Saloon for the Newport Nights series. For the past four years, it’s been a nice little halftime reprieve from the action at Fort Adams State Park, a friendly Saturday night refresher that brought Americana and roots away from the sunburns and shores and back into the boozy wooden dives.
With Newport Folk right around the corner next month, Newport Nights returns to Jimmy’s, this time expanded to two nights, Friday, July 28 and Saturday, July 29. On tap this year from Oldjack, Narragansett, and SXNE: a Friday slate with The Horse-Eyed Men, Dan Blakeslee and the Calabash Club, Zach Schmidt, Hayley Thompson-King, and The Z-Boys; with a Saturday rager featuring Town Meeting, These Wild Plains, Oldjack, Tigerman WOAH, and The National Reserve.
“We have been trying to get two nights from the club for a few years but they had a promoter who did Fridays so it was never available,” Oldjack’s Dan Nicklin tells us. “It was available this spring so we jumped… SXNE has always been focused on New England music so we looked to some friends to see what they thought. The line up came together fast and really represents some great New England based music. At this point I am looking forward to a sixth year and hoping we’ll see one of our bands go official one of these days… until then it’s Newport Nights!”
Preview all the performing bands and artists, in order of appearance, and check out the excellent party poster designed by Blakeslee. For updated info, hit up the Newport Nights Facebook event page. Featured National Reserve photo by Jonathan Snyder.
