Tom Irwin

Here we go full bore into our November transition stage, from the usual outdoor spaces so popular in Springfield to indoor entertainment areas of the cooler season. Let's see what's up for this upcoming weekend in the here and now of the who and where.

The Ex-Bombers blow it up at Buzz Bomb Brewing Company this Saturday night in celebration of the duo's 14 years of making music together.

Here we come a-wassailing, among the leaves so green – no, wait a second – it's much too early for that song. Let's please get...

Rylie Bourne plays Slauterhouse Brewing in Auburn on Wednesday night.

Towse drops by Buzz Bomb Brewing Company this Friday night. Well, it certainly feels like December out there as Old Man Winter (whoever they are) showed up this week to be too cool for words. I suppose we can call it a good thing to remind us the winter holiday season is upon us and with it a slew of extra music in both quantity and quality. From Christmas concerts, seasonal recitals, holiday walks and other Yuletide extravaganzas all the way to an abundance of New Year's Eve events, including our long-running and quite fabulous First Night Springfield, December is in many ways "the most wonderful time of the year" if you like that sort of thing. Here's where you can insert "bah, humbug" and other types of anti-season's greetings if you so desire to go the other direction. Let's see what's out there this week.

This blog was originally published as an oped in the Concord Monitor on November 16.

Hello, fellow music appreciators and participators, who are perhaps currently all decked out with lovely to-do lists accompanied by less and less time to accomplish said lists. As we approach mid-December, I invite you to join me in experiencing the wonders of the season as seen through our Springfield music scene and forget about those lists for the time being.

Yo, ho, ho (plus another ho) and a bottle of Christmas cheer will get you here, there and nearly everywhere this weekend as we wind our way through the Yuletide season. With the big day on a Wednesday this year, our upcoming weekend of entertaining entertainment opportunities has been left unscathed from the actual celebrated date and actually enhanced by the nicely aligned, mid-week holiday. Let's see what's "up on the housetop" for our weekend before Christmas.

As far as entertainment factor times go, having Christmas on a Wednesday works very well to get the holiday behind us before the weekend appears, and this year that's the case. The only problem comes with covering New Year's Eve in the same issue as that night of all nights pops up next Tuesday. Let's get to going and see how far we get to go.

Yeah, I feel the same way as you do. How the heck did it get to be 2025 already? The last thing I remember was going to concerts promoted by Len Trumper at the Armory, and the next thing here we are fixing up the Armory, and it's 50 years later. Oh well, all I can say is I'm happy to be participating in it all. I'm assuming that you are, too.