Six Nights, Six Genres: Wichita's Concert Week Is a Buffet, Not a Menu

Some weeks you get a show. This week you get a curriculum. From Tuesday to Sunday, Wichita's two busiest rooms — WAVE on East 2nd and INTRUST Bank Arena on the river — are running a relay so varied you could attend every night and never hear the same chord twice. Metalcore, indie psych, stadium country, Memphis rap, Canadian arena-rock royalty, and Texas Southern rock. That's not a lineup; that's a personality test.

WAVE opens the week loud. Tuesday, July 21, Portland's Dying Wish brings its bruising metalcore to the indoor stage with Holder in support — part of a summer run the band announced alongside Guilt Trip and Contention. If you like your Tuesdays with a two-step in the pit, this is your church. Then WAVE pivots hard: Thursday, July 23, of Montreal touches down on the tour behind aethermead, Kevin Barnes' 20th studio album, released in June on Polyvinyl. More on that show later this week — it's the sleeper pick of the bunch.

Thursday is also when the Arena earns its keep. Jason Aldean rolls in on the "Songs About Us Tour," a stop announced back in the spring with an openers' bill deep enough to be its own festival: Chase Matthew, Mackenzie Carpenter, and turntablist Dee Jay Silver. Aldean has been a reliable INTRUST sellout for a decade, and the new material gives the faithful fresh reasons to lose their voices before the encore. Expect trucks, tailgates, and a parking lot that fills up two hours early.

Friday, July 24, the genre wheel spins again. Big Boogie, the Memphis rapper who came up in the Yo Gotti / CMG orbit, headlines The Cotillion — the beloved 1960s ballroom out on West Kellogg that has somehow hosted everyone from touring metal to touring country to, now, one of the South's hottest hip-hop exports. It's the kind of booking that reminds you the Cotillion's dome has heard it all.

Saturday belongs to the legends. Bryan Adams brings his "Roll With the Punches" tour to INTRUST Bank Arena, and — in a genuinely stacked bit of co-billing — he's got Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo as special guests. That's "Summer of '69" and "Heartbreaker" under one roof, two catalogs that between them have soundtracked roughly every wedding, road trip, and last call in modern memory. Bring earplugs and your parents; both will thank you.

And then the week exhales into Sunday. Whiskey Myers, the Texas outfit that has quietly become one of the hardest-touring Southern rock bands in the country, closes things out on WAVE's outdoor stage July 26 with Southall opening — part of a summer run the band announced in March. An open-air Sunday night, cold craft beer, and a band that plays like the bar's about to close: that's how you land a plane.

Why does a week like this matter for a city Wichita's size? Because range is the whole point. A scene isn't measured by whether it can land one big name — it's measured by whether a metalcore kid, a country traditionalist, a hip-hop head, and a classic-rock lifer can all find their Tuesday-through-Sunday in the same six blocks. This week, they can. Pace yourself, hydrate, and pick your battles — you cannot, physically, do all six. But you can try.

Sources: WAVE, Wichita concert setlists (setlist.fm); INTRUST Bank Arena (Songkick); Big Events in Wichita — July (Visit Wichita); INTRUST Bank Arena — Jason Aldean announcement; Dying Wish tour announcement (Theprp.com); Whiskey Myers summer dates (Whiskey Riff); Bryan Adams / Pat Benatar (Ticketmaster)