(Photo Courtesy of The Town and The City) “The Town and The City poster with all the different artists performing.”
Tristin Henson
Connector Editor
In roughly two weeks, The Town and The City Festival will be coming to downtown Lowell. This is a multi-day festival occurring in multiple downtown venues such as on April 24th, 25th, and 26th. Venue locations include Taffeta, Warp & Weft, Smokehouse Tavern, Cobblestones, and Brew’d Awakening, plus many more. The event will feature some big-name musicians such as Couch, Lady Lamb, Ezra Furman, Jeffrey Foucault, Loudon Wainwright III, The Sheila Divine, and Heretix. However, there will also be many local artists at the event, many from Lowell themselves like Gross Girls, Class President, Dead Vapor, and Hazel Adeline just to name a few. Music is not the only thing that will be performed at this festival, as a few comedians will also take the stage such as Frank Santorelli, Kristin O’Brien, and Greg Boggis. A spoken word/poetry program will also be going on at lala books on Saturday, April 26th, and audiences are encouraged to check out local visual arts as well.
The event celebrates the spirit of Jack Kerouac, an American novelist and poet who was born in Lowell, MA. The event itself is named after one of Kerouac’s novels, according to The Town and the City Festival’s website, as this particular novel primarily took place in Lowell. The novel itself focuses on the contrast between small-town life and fast-paced city living. However, The Town and the City (1950) was one of Kerouac’s earlier works, and he became famous after he published On the Road (1957), a novel that was very influential in
the 1950s literary movement called the Beat Generation (Poetry Foundation, 2025). Kerouac’s works influenced many writers, including Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, Tom Robbins, and Richard Brautigan. He greatly affected popular rock musicians of the 1960s, with artists such as Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, the Grateful Dead, and the Doors saying he was an influence in their work.
Thus, Kerouac was seen as the perfect person, both from Lowell and a huge influence to the artist scene, to name after this celebration of the arts in Lowell. As The Town and The City Festival’s website stated, “The Town and The City Festival is inspired by the creativity and exploration for which the author was so famously known and will present a diverse mix of musical genres and artistic disciplines to inspire discovery and to celebrate a love of life.”
Each event at every venue includes several different artists, with the cost per event ranging from around $10-$30. There are also multi-day and day passes that cost a little extra, but allow you to enter any event occurring that day, so long as you are old enough to attend. Event times also vary, but most last around two to three hours, guaranteed to be chock full of unique artists. People who are interested can also possibly volunteer, as there is a form people can fill out online if they would like to work at one of these events. For more information on where and when certain events are taking place, or if you would like to just learn more about the event in general, please visit The Town and The City Festival’s website: thetownandthecityfestival.com.
