Upper Keys Weekend: Sunset, Bonfires and Seven Nights of Music at the Lorelei
If you think the music stops north of the Seven Mile Bridge, you have never watched the sun go down at the Lorelei with a slide guitar in your ears. This weekend the Upper Keys does what it does best: it turns the horizon into a stage.
The anchor is the Lorelei Restaurant & Cabana Bar in Islamorada, MM 82 bayside, which advertises live music seven nights a week and a daily Sunset Celebration happy hour from 4–6 p.m. under the giant mermaid sign that's been a Overseas Highway landmark for decades. Aggregator listings show the Cabana Bar stage lit again this Friday, July 10, with an early-evening set timed to the sunset crowd. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the room also runs its long-running Rock-N-Roll Magic Show with Michael Trixx, the "America's Got Talent" alum.
A few mile-markers up the road, Morada Bay Beach Café at MM 81.6 keeps its own tradition alive with the monthly Full Moon Party — bonfires in the sand, fire dancers, DJs and a live band as the moon comes up over Florida Bay. Check the lunar calendar and the café's page before you drive; the party floats with the full moon, not the weekend.
Here's the honest part, because a good preview doesn't oversell. July is the quiet season up here. You will not find a marquee touring act on an Islamorada deck this week; what you'll find is working Keys musicians playing three- and four-hour sets to a room of regulars, fishing guides off the water and a handful of travelers who booked smart. That's not a consolation prize. That's the actual product — the unhurried, salt-cured version of live music that the winter crowds pay triple for and rarely slow down enough to hear.
So point the car north. Catch the Lorelei happy hour, stay for the band, and let somebody else fight for a parking spot on Duval. The best seat in the Keys this weekend faces west and costs the price of a cold one.
Sources: Lorelei Restaurant & Cabana Bar; Live Music in Islamorada — AllEvents; Morada Bay's Full Moon Party — Islamorada Times