Monday, June 29, 2026

Utah Arts Festival

Greg AckermanLive MusicReview

Live music review: Shakey Graves headlined Utah Arts Fest Saturday with a huge crowd

On the 50th Anniversary of Utah Arts Festival, Salt Lake City’s premier annual arts event chose to host Austin folk-Americana artist, Shakey Graves on Saturday, June 21 on the street adjacent to Library Square in the downtown civic center area. As huge fans of Graves’ since his return to Austin from Los Angeles where he was pursuing an acting career we’ve seen his steady ascent in music.

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Greg AckermanInterviewsLive Music

Interview: Austin artist Shakey Graves is coming to Utah Arts Festival with a great new record

When The Cosmic Clash got to Salt Lake City one of the first annual events we heard about was the Utah Arts Festival. We were duly impressed that a city SLC’s size, invested so heavily in visual art, music and literature. There were panels, live music and tons of visual artists represented. It seemed like the story of Salt Lake’s Mormon monoculture was exaggerated fiction. In town, at least culturally it kind of is. The city founded by Mormons has more similarities to Austin, Texas than it does to the Vatican; Blue dot in a red sea, state capitol, big public university north of downtown? Sounds like ATX. We learned the UAF is celebrating its 50th Anniversary, doubling down on quality musical headliners including Austin’s own Shakey Graves. The singer and songwriter performs June 20 (Saturday) early on in his recently launched tour supporting his new record, Fondness, Inc.

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