New Outdoor Concert Series Brings Out Girdwood's Finest

Summer comes alive in the small recreational mountain community of Girdwood with an enchanting outdoor concert series. Locals and visitors gather under open skies as music fills the crisp evening air in the downtown Girdwood Square, echoing through nearby spruce-covered forests. The town square transforms into a lively stage, where bluegrass, folk, rock and acoustic artists perform weekly. Families spread blankets, children dance barefoot, with local food restaurants in abundance. The magical Mount Alyeska backdrop transforms these concerts into more than entertainment—they’re a celebration of community, nature, and the simple joy of music shared beneath the serene alpine setting See the story below. (Photos by Soren Wuerth w/captions from publisher)

By Soren Wuerth

TNews Editor

For many years, between the late 90s and early aughts, a music scene percolated alongside  Holmgren Place in downtown Girdwood.

In a slumping one-room cabin called Studio B, the legendary Photon Band(later just "Photonz") rehearsed original jams, bluegrass staples and, occasionally, funky disco hits. 

As the space fell into disrepair and the Photonz drifted into different orbits, the crumpled shed and adjacent yard became an itinerant open mic—sans mic, que fire—for guitar pickers, jam sessions and sing-alongs. 

A winter evening might bear a footpath leading to stumps and rickety lawn chairs with dark, hunched figures and Old Crow Medicine Show renditions in gravelly voices.

Bordering the smoke-drifted yard stood a ramshackle second-hand store, "Thriftwood", and farther in back the building housed the offices of building contractor Ralph Brodin.

Some of those musical magicians have passed onto the cosmos like sparks from their fires: Sean, Jonas, Dusty, Dion, Dennis and Vesna. Everyone local heard them, were helped by them.

In the past few years, 148 Holmgren has experienced a revival mostly under the drive of longtime dancer, drummer and builder James Glover, 49, who worked with Brodin as a sub contractor and would go on to lease and eventually own two lots next to the Girdwood Laundramall.

When Thriftwood closed during COVID Glover went to work revitalizing the building, ripping out drywall from the ceiling, painting the walls black and replacing a deck with a paved path.

Raw Market proprietor James Glover, left, and daughter, Cassidy, sling lush greenery providing an organic grocery store for locals and visitors to the Girdwood community. Glover was the cornerstone of reviving the Holmgren Place music scene in the Summer Concert Series.

Last year, Glover opened the Raw Market, an upscale organic grocery store to "create a space for mindful living" where, says its brochure, "everything we do is guided by intention and a deep love for this place we call home." 

The market carries bulk ingredients, sells produce and fruit, juices and smoothies and now offers a kitchen menu.

"We're trying our best to have naturally-sourced food with the fewest ingredients possible," Glover said. "Everything in here you can be certain is as good as possible for your body, or as good as we can do on the planet right now."

Four years ago, Glover helped start a farmer's market in town square, securing insurance and a permit and paying out-of-pocket expenses. 

Now, partly to help fund the farmer's market, Glover has launched a summer concert series called "Never Miss a Sunday Show" on a lawn behind the Raw Market and sandwiched between two black containers.

This past Sunday's show featured the Dead Phish Orchestra. Glover, who said he had never performed with the band before, joined as its drummer. He said he got the set list moments before going on stage. 

"Never Miss a Sunday Show" may be the only time the valley has had an outdoor concert series not affiliated with a bar. 

Glover said he's determined to have "art, music, and dancing in community settings like the farmer's market." 

"The Forest Fair is great, but it's only just once," he said.

Concert posters adorn the outside of the Raw Market in Girdwood advertising the artists which will be performing throughout the summer.

Decades ago, Girdwood's music scene placed it on the map. Multiple bands playing in different genres of music called Girdwood home:  jazz, hip-hop, jam, acoustic, rock-n-roll. 

But as housing became more affordable, musicians moved away. Dark homes and short-term-rentals dried up a once-vibrant, young hippy-redneck community who filled resturants, bars and taverns with dancing that shook floorboards. At one locale, Max's, even the bartenders danced.

Glover is trying to bring some of that era back. In the crowd at Sunday's show, many of the dancers from decades past bought tickets to enjoy the show. 

"I'm trying to do the right thing for the right reasons. And pushing it out into the universe for good should make the result good," he said.

Besides Alaska bands (Hope Social Club plays next) Glover wants to have national acts play in the Sunday concert series by inviting them to Girdwood during the beginning or end of an Alaska tour.

Last Sunday, between sets, Glover bumped into a member of the Photonz. 

"Maybe I can get the band back together to play here," the musician told a thrilled Glover.

If so, the legendary Photonz would perform yards away from old Studio B while its longtime Girdwood fans—faces a little more wrinkled, hair a little more slivery—would dance a Sunday night away.