Pat McCurdy brings his singalong cabaret to The Music Box

The Milwaukee songwriter with 600-plus originals plays downtown Rockford's 175-seat listening room on Thursday, Dec. 3.

If you have ever been in a bar where an entire crowd knew every word to a song about beer, there is a decent chance Pat McCurdy wrote it. The Milwaukee singer-songwriter is coming to The Music Box in downtown Rockford on Thursday, Dec. 3, and the room is going to sing back.

The show was announced Oct. 14. It starts at 7 p.m., and tickets are on DICE. The Music Box holds 175 people, which is small for a performer whose following stretches across the Upper Midwest, so this is one to sort out early.

McCurdy has been at this a long time. Wikipedia dates his career to 1977, when he was a founding member and singer of the Milwaukee power-pop band Yipes!, a group Milwaukee Record revisited in its MKE Music Rewind series. The solo career that followed is the one most people know: a catalog of albums running from *The Sound of Music* in 1991 to *Now is Not the Time for Sad Songs: A Pandemic 2020 Souvenir*.

The show itself is hard to describe and easy to love. Event listings call him a cabaret singer-songwriter, and in practice that means one man, one guitar and a lot of improvised back-and-forth with the audience. A University of Wisconsin event page puts his output at more than 300 shows a year and more than 600 original songs, on subjects from lost love to beer. Milwaukee Record singles out titles like "Sex and Beer" and "Screw You" as examples of the novelty side of his catalog; regulars will tell you the crowd participation is half the reason they keep coming back.

One man, one guitar, 600 songs and a room that knows the words.

The Music Box is a smart fit for that. The venue, at 218 E. State St., opened in 2024 as what it calls an upscale listening room and bar, and it is co-owned by Miles Nielsen, son of Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen, along with singer-songwriter Kelly Steward and partners Trea Mihalovich and Drew Gibson, as the Rock River Current reported when the project was announced. The name pays homage to Ralph Nielsen's Music Box Gift Shoppe, and the decor leans into Rockford's music history with retro touches, artifacts and photos. The room celebrated its first anniversary in May 2025, per Rock River Current.

A listening room is usually where you keep quiet and let the songwriter work. McCurdy flips that. In a space this size, the call-and-response becomes a room-wide conversation, and a Thursday night in early December, with the holidays picking up speed, is exactly when Rockford could use one.

It is also a reminder of what the Music Box has added downtown since it opened: a place where touring songwriters from Milwaukee, Chicago and beyond can play to a room that is actually paying attention, a short walk from State Street's restaurants and bars.

Grab tickets on DICE, bring the friend who claims they do not sing in public, and see how long that lasts.

Sources: Pat McCurdy (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); MKE Music Rewind: Yipes! (Milwaukee Record) (milwaukeerecord.com); Pat McCurdy (Wisconsin Union) (union.wisc.edu); Here's the vision for The Music Box of Rockford (Rock River Current) (rockrivercurrent.com); Photos: The Music Box of Rockford celebrates 1-year anniversary (Rock River Current) (rockrivercurrent.com); Tickets (DICE) (link.dice.fm); Pat McCurdy at The Music Box (JamBase) (jambase.com)