This Weekend: A Staircase, A Beach Bunny, And A Hometown Win
The last full weekend of July hands Indianapolis two very different flavors of pop, both parked inside the Old National Centre complex, and one of them comes with serious hometown bragging rights. Here's where to point yourself July 24 through 26.
Friday, July 25 — Audrey Hobert, Egyptian Room, Old National Centre. Hobert rolls into the Egyptian Room on her "Staircase to Stardom Tour," and if you're going to make an ascent to stardom, you could do a lot worse than doing it under the Moorish-Egyptian ceilings of one of the most photogenic rooms in the state. The Egyptian Room holds north of 2,000 standing, which means this is the big-room option of the weekend — go early, look up, and let the architecture do half the work before the lights even drop.
Saturday, July 26 — Beach Bunny with Wishy, The Deluxe, Old National Centre. This is the one to circle. Beach Bunny headlines the adjoining Deluxe ballroom, but the reason to show up on time is the opener: Wishy, Indianapolis's own. The hometown band has been having a moment, and catching them supporting a national act on a home stage is the kind of night that people bring up years later with an insufferable "I was there." Consider this your official permission to be one of those people.
The pairing is a smart one. Beach Bunny's bright, hook-forward indie-pop and Wishy's fuzzed-out shimmer live in adjacent neighborhoods, which means the whole night should flow rather than lurch. The Deluxe is the smaller of Old National Centre's two rooms, so the sightlines are friendlier and the whole thing feels less like a spectacle and more like a really good party you happen to have a ticket to.
Two nights, two rooms, one building — you could theoretically do both and never change your parking strategy. Friday goes big and glossy in the Egyptian Room; Saturday goes intimate and local in The Deluxe. If you can only pick one, the tiebreaker is easy: supporting a hometown act on a rising trajectory is a civic duty around here, and Wishy has earned the room.
A quick heads-up for anyone already planning past the weekend: Cat Power brings her singular voice to The Deluxe on August 1. Chan Marshall in a room that size is the kind of booking that rewards buying now and thanking yourself later — these things do not tend to loiter on the shelf. If your July is spoken for, at least get August 1 into the calendar before someone else does.
But that's next week's problem. This weekend, the assignment is simple. Friday, climb the staircase. Saturday, come for the Beach Bunny and stay a fan of Wishy — or, if you already are, show up early and act smug about it. Either way, the Old National Centre is where Indy's weekend lives, and the doors are open on both sides of the building.
Get your tickets before the door lines get ideas, tip your bartenders, and for the love of terrazzo, look up at those ceilings at least once. This is one of the prettiest places in the city to lose a Friday or a Saturday night, and this weekend it's giving you both.
Sources: The Deluxe at Old National Centre (Concert Archives); Wishy on their new music (Consequence)