Redmond Grew a Destination Stage, and Lonestar Is Proof (Aug 16 at General Duffy's)
For years the assumption in Central Oregon music was simple: the shows are in Bend, and Redmond drives down for them. General Duffy's Waterhole spent 2026 quietly dismantling that assumption. On Sunday, Aug 16, the Redmond venue's Summer Kickin' Concert Series closes its Central-Oregon-facing summer stretch with Lonestar, the Nashville group behind "Amazed" — a certified '90s-country juggernaut playing an outdoor stage 20 minutes north of Bend, on purpose.
The series has been the story all summer: eight ticketed outdoor shows running May 22 through Sept 5, ranging from Oregon country-rocker Jacquie Roar to Joe Nichols, Dylan Scott, Colt Ford, Cherokee country artist Bryan Martin (who played Jul 25), and — after Lonestar — Niko Moon and George Birge. Single tickets run roughly $33–$55; a season pass is $295. That's not a taproom side-hustle. That's a venue betting that Redmond can be a destination, not a suburb of Bend's nightlife.
Owner Tanner Robertson frames the whole thing less as a business than a barn-raising. He's called the concerts "community celebrations" and "a time to be together, loving each other and building our town camaraderie" — the kind of language that would sound like marketing if the lineup didn't back it up. Pulling a name like Lonestar to Redmond is the punchline to a season-long argument about where Central Oregon music happens.
Why it matters: Bend gets the amphitheater and the alt-weekly ink, but a healthy regional scene needs more than one center of gravity. General Duffy's has spent the summer proving Redmond can host the kind of show people plan a weekend around — and every dollar and every crowd that stays in Redmond is a dollar and a crowd that doesn't have to migrate south. For a town used to being the drive-through on the way to somewhere louder, that's a genuine shift.
And it's not the only heavyweight in the region's final stretch. The same mid-August window has electronic-jam titans STS9 at Bend's Midtown Ballroom on Aug 12 and, back on the big lawn, a run of amphitheater nights closing out the Old Mill's season. But there's something especially satisfying about ending this stretch in Redmond, under an open sky, with a stadium-country chorus everybody knows whether they admit it or not.
Go for the sunset, stay for the singalong. And give Redmond its due — it built this stage while Bend wasn't looking.
Sources: General Duffy's announces remaining acts for Redmond summer concert series — Redmond Spokesman; Midtown Ballroom/Domino Room/Annex — Bandsintown