by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A quick addendum to yesterday’s post regarding upcoming indie tours coming to Omaha… or the lack of them.

Yesterday, a small caravan of Omaha music fans drove to Kansas City to see music legend Nick Cave perform at their convention center. Cynics, pragmatists and realists will argue Cave could not draw a big enough crowd to justify a performance in Omaha sandwiched between the Twin Cities and Kansas City, and they may or may not be right. 

But that logic doesn’t necessarily apply to every indie act that bypasses Omaha. And there are a lot of them. Which acts? 

Well, just over the next week alone, Omaha is missing out on Lucy Dacus, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, Lambrini Girls, The Magnetic Fields, Gang of Four and Youth Lagoon. 

In the coming weeks, we miss out on Sasami, Peter Bjorn and John, Momma, Bartees Strange, Tennis, Matt Berninger and The Wedding Present. All are playing in Minneapolis.

The list continues in June, as Preoccupations, Robyn Hitchcock, Annie DiRusso, Blondshell, Sleigh Bells, Sunflower Bean, Perfume Genius, DEVO and Dean Wareham all will skip Omaha. And these are only the indie bands I see listed on the first-avenue.com website. I’m sure there are others.

While bands bypassing Omaha is nothing new, it does seem like we’re seeing a shift from indie tours being booked in Omaha to more metal, country and pop tours, or just fewer smaller tours. Tour bookers, promoters and venues make decisions based purely on financial questions: Which shows will sell tickets in this market? Which won’t? And so on. 

The result for indie music fans means putting a lot more miles on your SUVs as you travel to Minneapolis and Kansas City to see your favorite bands…

I guess the lesson here is you can’t always get what you want. At least we get Future Islands tomorrow night, right?

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.