The Beths and Beach Bunny Close Out ZooTunes Season on a High
Summer doesn't end in Seattle so much as it gets one last, great night on a lawn. This Sunday, August 16, BECU ZooTunes hands its North Meadow to a double bill built for the season's sweet-spot finale: The Beths and Beach Bunny, two of the sharpest hook-writers in modern guitar-pop, sharing a stage as the light goes long over Woodland Park Zoo.
The Beths, out of Auckland, New Zealand, have spent the last several years quietly becoming a critical darling and a live juggernaut — Elizabeth Stokes writes anxious, whip-smart songs and then buries the anxiety under some of the most joyful power-pop guitar interplay going. Beach Bunny, Lili Trifilio's Chicago project, works a parallel magic: bright, buzzsaw hooks about the specific heartbreaks of your twenties, engineered to be shouted back word-for-word. Put them on the same lawn and you get a night of songs that sound like sunshine and read like a diary.
It's a fitting bookend to a marathon summer at the zoo. The series has run the full gamut since June — Pavement's reunion, Maren Morris, Ani DiFranco, Suki Waterhouse, the Mountain Goats and Hold Steady, Jason Isbell — and it doesn't fully close until Courtney Barnett (Aug 18) and the Breeders (Aug 20) roll through the following week. But Sunday's guitar-pop summit is the last weekend show, and there's a reason the ZooTunes faithful circle these lighter, louder bills: they're pure serotonin.
If you'd rather stay in the clubs this stretch, the city obliges. Art-rock oddballs Man Man play Neumos on Wednesday, August 12, and singer-songwriter Will Swinton headlines Barboza on August 10. But for a proper farewell to the season, the lawn is the move.
The usual ZooTunes rules apply, doubly so for a finale: shows sell out, parking is a bloodsport, gates open early, and the veterans arrive with low chairs and a cooler strategy. Do the prep and the reward is a near-perfect Seattle evening — two great bands, a cooling meadow, and the specific ache of knowing the drizzle is only a few weeks out.
Summer's almost gone. Spend the last good Sunday of it on the grass, singing along. You'll miss it when it's raining.
Sources: ZooTunes 2026 lineup (Seattle Refined); Neumos calendar (ConcertFix); Seattle listings (ConcertFix)
Drafted with AI from the sources below and our show listings, then checked and approved by an On at 8 editor before publishing. Spot a mistake? Report an error.