Three Tuesdays Left: How Ketch'em Alive Lands Its Summer Plane

Every Tuesday from mid-June to mid-August, a Ketchum park turns into the most democratic room in the valley. Ketch'em Alive — the city-sponsored, admission-free concert series at Forest Service Park, running 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. — is the closest thing the Wood River Valley has to a weekly town meeting that happens to have a backline. This year's edition runs June 16 through Aug. 11, and with the series now in its home stretch, here's how the final three Tuesdays shape up.

July 28 — Jampoke. A collective born out of the Montana State University scene that welds Americana storytelling to jam-band elasticity, Jampoke is the kind of booking Ketch'em Alive does well: young, road-tested, loose enough to stretch a song out while the sun drops behind Baldy. Expect the lawn to still be filling when they start and packed by the second set.

Aug. 4 — Christie Huff. The wildcard. Huff is a Nashville-based country artist with a pop sheen who has toured internationally and opened for the likes of Keith Urban, Eric Church and Jason Aldean — a bigger-stage résumé than a free park series usually pulls, and a sign of how far the Ketch'em Alive budget now reaches.

Aug. 11 — The Pisten Bullys. The finale, and the hometown one. The Pisten Bullys are a West Ketchum alt-country outfit — four local guys, a debut record, and a reputation for keeping a dance floor moving until someone makes them stop. Closing the series with a local band instead of an out-of-town headliner is a quiet statement of values, and a good one.

The through-line here is range: a Montana jam collective, a Nashville crossover act, and a Ketchum bar band, three consecutive Tuesdays, all free. The city expanded the series this year with more artists and a fuller schedule, and the payoff is a lineup that refuses to pick a lane — folk to soul to country to rock, depending on which blanket you're sitting near.

Why it matters: free weekly music is deceptively load-bearing. Ketch'em Alive is where valley kids see their first live band, where newcomers meet their neighbors, and where local acts like the Pisten Bullys get to play to a crowd that dwarfs any bar. It's also, bluntly, a public good the city chooses to fund every year — the kind of line item that's easy to cut and impossible to replace once it's gone. The best way to defend it is to show up.

So: three Tuesdays. Pack a picnic, corral the dog, and get there before 6:30 if you want lawn real estate near the front. When the Pisten Bullys close it out on the 11th, that's the sound of a valley putting its own band on its own stage — which is the whole point.

Sources: Ketch'em Alive Returns for 2026 With Expanded Schedule, More Artists (City of Ketchum); City announces Ketch'em Alive lineup (Idaho Mountain Express)