Skip to main content
GO: Tabor Dance
Midweek ennui got you down? Ditch your hump day blues and shake your malaise loose every Wednesday at this free dance party. Though typically an outdoor, all-ages affair at Mount Tabor, this extra-special edition is an adults-only, 21-plus disco fandango at Buckman music venue The Den with a boozy bar for dancers who want to put a little more wiggle in their wind-down. The Den, 116 SE Yamhill St., thedenpdx.com. 6 pm Wednesday, July 1. Free. 21+.
HEAR: Waterfront Blues Festival
Portland, are you ready for this three-day extravaganza featuring blues rewired, cumbia rhythms, punk royalty, soul revivalists and viral Tiny Desk breakout stars? Even festival-averse homies can find ways to experience this event in small chunks. Check out one of the varying blues cruises, sprawl across the lawn for a single afternoon, or go all in for the full festival experience. And if you’re the type who digs through record bins for funsies, this lineup was built for you. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, 1400 SW Naito Parkway, waterfrontbluesfest.com. Noon–10:30 pm Thursday–Saturday, July 2–4. $55–$1,200. All ages.
GO: Conversation Lube
Conversational Lube is a live comedy dating show where singles are matched, meet for the first time then join a comedian onstage for a first date. Each couple will date onstage alongside a licensed professional (a fully unlicensed comedian). Hosted by comedian and writer Cait Chock, this blind date-o-rama promises to be at least a helluva lot more fun than another boring and slightly deranged Tinder meetup. Al’s Den, 303 SW 12th Ave., mcmenamins.com. 7 pm Friday, July 3. $26. 21+.
SEE: Light Up the Sky at Wonderlove
While Blues Fest dominates the waterfront, across the river, the fancy food cart pod WonderLove welcomes Beatrox, Fourth World and then USBCHECK for one of the city’s most decadent Fourth of July celebrations. This event debuts WonderLove’s outdoor main stage for the summer, so this audience has the honor of being the stage’s beta audience. Snatch your tickets and low-key brag about it for the rest of the season. WonderLove, 262 SE Main St., wonderlovepdx.com. 9 pm Saturday, July 4. $20. 21+.
SEE: Telephone
Portland Experimental Theater Ensemble presents Ariana Reines’ Telephone, a play that explores the limits and limitlessness of communication between people, between rooms, between continents, and even into the afterlife. Telephone draws on Avital Ronell’s The Telephone Book, the life of Alexander Graham Bell, as well as the writings of Carl Jung, asking the audience to grapple with the way technology seeks to answer a pre-existing desire in all of us to be closer to one another. Reed College Performing Arts Building, 3017 SE Woodstock Blvd., petensemble.org. Various times thru Saturday, July 11. $5–$188 (BIPOC free). All ages.
SEE: This Is An Awesome Comedy Show
Kyle Kinane and Sean Jordan team up for their only Portland shows of the summer in support of the new documentary This Is an Awesome Rock Show. Directed by Laura Sams Jordan and Robert Sams, the doc covers the monthslong creation of an epic multimedia rock concert featuring artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., revolutionhall.com. 6:30 pm Monday, July 6. $50. 21+.
