The 20th Mission Creek Festival made news a couple of times before it even began. One week before they were set to headline the festival, Julien Baker & TORRES were forced to cancel several tour dates due to an injury in their touring company. After a few days of scrambling, festival organizers announced they'd booked Kim Gordon and her band for the Thursday night headlining spot at Hancher. Gordon is alternative rock royalty, thanks to both her solo career and her time with Sonic Youth, so she was a perfect choice.
It’s also worth noting that Gordon was already in town for the festival, speaking with author Rachel Kushner. Although I don’t want to assume this made it easier to book Gordon, it surely didn’t hurt. Also, as with every other year at Mission Creek, I didn’t make it to any of the literature events. Along with everything else, Mission Creek is my annual reminder to read more books.
Before Gordon’s performance, Mission Creek Artistic Director Andre Perry took the stage at Hancher and addressed the audience, where he commented that booking a headliner one week before the festival was “the most Mission Creek thing ever.”
It was a great line that brought the house down, and it also rang true. For all the top-tier talent it brings in and the high level of professionalism by everyone involved, Mission Creek has always felt like a DIY event run by folks who do it for the love of art, culture and music.
Take, for example, Your Smith, an artist who has performed in Iowa City many times over the years. She recently returned to making music after a six-year break, and employed what she called the “Iowa City Gabe’s setup:” no band, just a guitar, some backing tracks, and her amazing voice. That’s all Your Smith needed to turn Gabe’s into a dance party. There’s also Iowa City’s Dave Helmer, who led a five-piece band, including three guitars, bass and pedal steel, at the Black Angel Restaurant. There literally wasn’t room for the full band on stage — Blake Daly and his acoustic guitar were off to the side — but they made it work and they sounded great.
Of course, local music has always been a huge part of Mission Creek. In addition to Helmer and his band, Younger played a rocking set on Friday night in front of a packed house at Gabe’s. All three members of the band are talented singers, which made for some great vocal arrangements. Younger also pulled their friend Joe Ross out of the crowd to play drums so their regular drummer Sarah Mannix could sing lead on a cover of Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon” and do some crowd surfing. I’m sorry for you if you missed it.
Saturday is kind of “locals day” at Mission Creek, and as with last year, there were free shows featuring local bands at both Reunion Brewery and Trumpet Blossom Cafe. Trumpet Blossom Cafe was packed all afternoon and hard to get into, but we did manage to catch a little bit of Samuel Locke Ward, Iowa City’s resident avant-garde folk rock genius whose DIY ethos is perfect for Mission Creek. Over at Reunion, my friend Jordan Sellergren played what amounted to an album release show for Banner Year, her brand-new third album. Sellergren’s songs are full of heartfelt emotions while touching on relatable, everyday topics, and they keep their intimate feel in a large room with a big crowd and large backing band. Sellergren told me after the show she’s hoping to do another album release show in the fall. If you missed this show, hopefully you’ll be able to catch that one.
Also at Reunion on Saturday was Jack Lion, an all-instrumental band whose music brought to my mind both the French duo Air and electric-era Miles Davis, and Ion Alexakis, who got the afternoon started with some string-backed hip-hop songs from his debut EP Broken Glass. Alexakis is a longtime employee of Iowa City’s Englert Theatre, and he said this was his first day off during Mission Creek since he started there. Not a bad way to mark the occasion!
Speaking of the Englert Theatre, there’s that other bit of news we were talking about up at the top: beginning in 2026, the Englert will no longer be involved in producing the festival. We don’t know what the future holds, but for now we can rest easy knowing the Englert Theatre wrapped up its final Mission Creek with a bang — a few of them, actually.
By far, the most talked-about band of the weekend was Mannequin Pussy. You know you’re in for a show when the crowd has already gathered at the front of the stage at the Englert, of all places, before the band starts. Personally, I was only able to catch about 20 minutes of their set, in between having to be at other places. But they rock as hard as anyone and clearly were an inspiration for lots of folks there, because I heard about them from everyone I spoke to the next day. Mannequin Pussy are definitely my new favorite band (whose name I can’t say on the radio).
The festival ended Saturday night with a double-bill for the ages: from Lee County, Iowa’s own William Elliott Whitmore, followed by Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan.
Longtime Studio One listeners, and live music fans in Iowa, are almost certainly familiar with Whitmore and his music. Whether he’s performing in a tiny basement or at Hinterland, he has a way of connecting with the entire audience and making them feel at home. The Englert seems to be about the ideal venue for Whitmore, played older favorites and new songs from his upcoming album for a little over an hour.
Raekwon was there to honor the past. This year marks the 30th anniversary of his album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, one of the most influential rap albums of all time and widely considered the best solo album by a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. Many of the songs in Raekwon’s set were from that album, along with some other Wu-Tang classics. He also paid tribute to the “fallen soldiers” of rap, including Eazy-E, The Notorious B.I.G. and, of course, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Raekown’s fellow Wu-Tang member.
This led to my own “most Mission Creek ever” moment: seeing Whitmore dancing down the center aisle of the Englert Theatre during Raekwon’s set. Not only was it great to run into him again, it made everything click for me. A double bill of Raekwon and William Elliott Whitmore actually makes perfect sense, and that will only ever be obvious to the people who were there.
Whatever next year might look like, everyone involved with Mission Creek still has passion for what they’re doing and have the fire in their bellies needed to keep it going.
Oh, and one more note before I wrap this up: Saturday of this year’s Mission Creek was also my birthday. I’m well into middle age, but there’s nothing to make you feel young quite like waking up with a faded hand stamp from the night before.
