Earlier this summer I was walking through a residential part of Lincoln Park south into Old Town when I heard . . . could it be . . . live music? It’d been so long since I’d been to a full-band concert (March 4, to be exact) that as I approached the sound I had visions of that old Looney Tunes bit where Bugs Bunny bursts from his tunnel thinking he’s on Miami Beach, then runs off whooping into what turns out to be the Sahara Desert.
Red Door Band by Danny Bauer and Jack Macklin Front-porch concerts continue every evening, weather permitting, until it gets too cold. Personnel vary from day to day. 5-7 PM or so, Eugenie Street west of Wells, free, all ages
The mastermind of the series is pianist, vocalist, composer, and arranger Danny Bauer. He moved here last August and spent the next several months traveling, shuttling between Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, where he led a band called Safety Squad. He finally committed to Chicago full-time in February, and you know what happened next. Pandemic. Venue closures. Lockdown. Isolation.
“I’ve always been able to get lots of people to come together, whether it was in high school getting people to do an after-school prank, or in college, getting bands together,” Bauer says. “It’s just always been something that’s been a part of me. I’ve just been like a community person my whole life. So it’s kind of manifested itself again in this.”
