Worth Bragging About: 80 Bands, 20 Stages in Macon

Wednesday, July 27th, 2016

Macon has been on a recent roll, musically speaking. Its legendary Capricorn Music studios are the centerpiece of a downtown redevelopment effort, the Allman Brothers Band Museum at The Big House remains a major draw, and a weekend celebration of what would have been Otis Redding’s 75th birthday is just around the corner in September.

Saturday, July 30 brings one of the city’s flagship musical events, when Bragg Jam will take over the town with a 12-hour “concert crawl” featuring wall-to-wall bands playing numerous venues — most within a two-block radius.

Roughly 50 of the more than 80 bands on this year’s bill hail from Georgia and run the stylistic gamut, including local sensation the Floco Torres Big Band and wildly eclectic Atlanta sisters Larkin Poe. Headliners Shakey Graves hail from Austin, Texas, and the lineup also has a distinctly Nashville vein running through it, but my personal pick is NYC indie popster Frankie Cosmos, who happens to be the daughter of ’80s heartthrobs Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates.

2016 marks the 14th edition of Bragg Jam, which began as a low-key memorial following the death of beloved local musician brothers on a 1999 road trip. Building a lasting legacy from that tragic situation, the event remains all-volunteer and channels its surplus to area causes dear to the Bragg brothers, such as the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail and Amerson River Park.

An all-access ticket includes shuttle bus service between the many venues, spanning the Cox Capitol Theater, which made our recent list of iconic Georgia music venues, and the Hummingbird Stage & Taproom, which narrowly missed our list of Georgia music venues worth the drive. Most sites are all-ages, though some of the clubs are 18-and-over.

Bragg Jam’s free Arts & Kids festival will take place from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, leading into the concert crawl’s 2 p.m. start. Food trucks will be parked near the Cherry Street Plaza site, but for those interested in sitting down for a meal, organizers also suggest the Taste and See Coffee Shop, the Bearfoot Tavern and Just Tap’d, all of which double as music stages for the day.

From the Georgia Department of Economic Development: Georgia.org.