LIVESTREAM AVAILABLE: Michael Perry and the Long Beds at Big Top Chautauqua Sunday August 6, 2023 at 7:30 PM.

Michael Perry and the Long Beds are heading up to perform under the Big Blue Tent at Big Top Chautauqua Sunday August 6, 2023 at 7:30 PM.

Can’t make it up to the Big Blue Tent? The Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua folks are making the event available via livestream for $14.99. Click this link for more information. [NOTE: the livestream is under the care and direction of the Big Top, please contact them here with any technical/connection questions.]

This will be a fun one. The Big Top is a welcoming venue, and the Long Beds are a collection of top-notch players. Mike writes the songs and sings them, but his favorite parts of the show come when he can step back and let them rip.

Every Long Beds show is built on roughneck ballads and freight train rockers interspersed with hilarious off-the-cuff tales from Mike’s diverse experience as a Wisconsin farm kid turned cowboy turned nurse turned best-selling author. Michael Perry’s original songs are a direct reflection of his life experiences. Raised in rural Wisconsin by farmers, preachers, and tough country women, his songs reflect certain wisdoms available only from whistlers, frauds, and sinners. Ranging from straight-up twang to churchly harmonies and populated by characters drawn straight from rural and small-town America, they launch from places like the overpass outside Perry’s beloved hometown of New Auburn, Wisconsin, a gospel service in a granary, and the kitchen floor of a woman about to drop a world of hurt on her drunken husband.

To prepare for the show, have a listen to the band’s most recent singles:

• “Forty Acres Deep” (same title as Mike’s new novella)
• “Little Bird”