To mark its 30th anniversary, Bloomington, In.-born indie label powerhouse Secretly Canadian has announced What Comes After the Blues: Secretly 30, a three-night concert series running Aug. 27–29 at hometown venues the Bluebird, Buskirk-Chumley Theater and Switchyard Park. Each is tied closely to the label’s origin story and ongoing community roots.
It’s the first major event in a year-long anniversary rollout, and the lineup reflects the label’s past, present and future in equal measure. Opening night at the Bluebird features June Panic, whose album Glory Hole was Secretly Canadian’s first release in September 1996, and Bloomington-reared band Early Day Miners, which included members of formative local instrumental trio/fellow label signees Ativin. Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co, will also perform; the group features musicians who played in multiple projects with the late Jason Molina, including Centro-Matic’s Will Johnson, who has stepped in on lead vocals and rhythm guitar.
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The following evening shifts to the Buskirk-Chumley with marquee names Sharon Van Etten and Kevin Morby, while the final night expands outward with a park takeover headlined by Durand Jones & the Indications alongside rising voices like Jensen McRae and Angela Autumn. Three-night passes go on sale Friday (April 24), with limited single-day tickets following in May.
Presented in collaboration with Granfalloon and local partners, the series leans into the same DIY ethos that defined Secretly Canadian from its founding by North Dakota brothers Chris and Ben Swanson, its eventual growth far beyond the local basement show scene in a pre-streaming college town and eventual rise to one of the most respected and successful labels of its era. Still based in Bloomington, Secretly Canadian is now housed under Secretly Group, which also includes Jagjaguwar, Dead Oceans, Saddest Factory Records and reissue specialist the Numero Group.
“Some of the most rewarding moments of the last 30 years have been with our artists, colleagues and community in a single room,” says Ben Swanson. “I couldn’t be more stoked to celebrate our anniversary with old friends and new in the town we love.”
Meanwhile, throughout 2026, Jagjaguwar will mark its own 30th year with a series of archival reissues revisiting its so-called “Virginia Years,” a formative late-’90s stretch that began, improbably, with a snowstorm. Label founder Darius Van Arman famously used overtime pay earned during a blizzard (while working at a care facility in Charlottesville) to fund the label’s earliest releases, which included Drunk’s A Derby Spiritual, South 1998’s criminally underappreciated South and the Union of a Man and a Woman’s only album, The Sound of the Union of a Man and a Woman. Van Arman then moved to Bloomington to partner with the Swansons in 1999.
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