This year’s Live on the Drive Concert Series will be kicking off the summer with Davina and the Vagabonds on June 8th from 6pm-8pm.
Davina Sowers and the Vagabonds have created a stir on the national music scene with their high-energy live shows, level A musicianship, sharp-dressed professionalism, and Sowers’ commanding stage presence. With influences ranging from Fats Domino and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Aretha Franklin and Tom Waits, the band is converting audiences one show at a time, from Vancouver to Miami and across Europe. In 2011 Davina released her first full length, all original album Black Cloud . It was named one of the 10 best releases of the year by the Minneapolis Star & Tribune and awarded 4 ½ stars from Downbeat Magazine. Their next release in 2014, Sunshine, hit number 13 in the Billboard Blues Chart and led them to be a musicial feature on the hit BBC show, Later with Jools Holland.
DATV’s shows are filled with New Orleans charm, Memphis soul swagger, dark theatrical moments that evoke Kurt Weill, and tender gospel passages. Davina’s voice and stage presence defy category in a different way. Davina has been compared to Etta James, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday and Betty Boop, but comparisons don’t suffice: Sowers is a true original.
Bringing you 100 years of American music and Davina’s originals, which lend themselves to the American Songbook, the band brings edgy nostalgia to older generations and fresh new music to younger ears. This rollicking quintet is held together by Sowers’ keyboard playing, with acoustic bass, drums, and a spicy trumpet and trombone horn section. The group’s focused, clean sound and emphasis on acoustic instruments is novel to both blues and jazz worlds, and sets the show closer to New Orleans than to Chicago. This has set the Vagabonds apart at festivals in Thunder Bay, Ontario; Sighisoara, Romania; Sierre, Switzerland; Kemi, Finland; the 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and 2013 Monterey Jazz Festival ( in 2014 was asked back to play their main stage in 2014, Vache de Blues in France, and North Sea Jazz Festival. Catch this one-of-a-kind live show while they are in town!
-DavinaAndTheVagabonds.com
“Listening to Davina & the Vagabonds is like stepping into a wondrous musical time machine. They have the panache and superlative musicianship to recreate the retro sound and ageless appeal of golden age Americana in high-definition reality on stage for your immense pleasure and enjoyment.” -Thunder Bay Blues Festival/Canada
“….one of the most distinctive and expressive vocalists to come around in a while, with tight backing from the Vagabonds” –Phoenix Blues Society
“…easily among the breakout stars at this year’s [Monterey Jazz] festival.” – Monterey Herald
Unfortunately due to weather, we’ve had to cancel the August 18th date and reschedule for 
I am pleased to announce that Kristel Porter joined us on August 8, 2016 as the new Executive Director for the Cleveland Neighborhood Association.
The annual Northside summer concert series Live on the Drive continues with local talent, #MPLS for a family-friendly jam on Thursday, July 14th, from 6 to 8pm. The second of three concerts held outdoors this summer on the scenic Victory Memorial Drive at 34th Avenue North in Minneapolis, one of the most beautiful concert settings in the city.
We’re talking about Cooperatives tonight! We’ll be joined by Brandon Hallstrand who will share the story of 
This Saturday, May 7th, we’ll join as a neighborhood with our friends and neighbors starting at 10am for a spring clean and celebration. We’ll meet at the Cleveland Community Garden at Vincent and Lowry to receive gloves, pickers and bags and meet neighbors from your street team (Penn through Xerxes Teams). Together we’ll walk the blocks from Lowry to Dowling picking up litter and helping make the neighborhood sparkle. We’ll finish with a celebration lunch complete with music and resource tables. It’s going to be a great event and we hope you and your neighbors can make it out to join us. Bring a water bottle and a willing spirit and we’ll see you Saturday!
Rio Nido – June 9th
#MPLS – July 14th