Every Thursday since June 4, downtown Concord has split into two crowds. One shows up at Todos Santos Plaza with a folding chair and a five dollar bill for kettle corn, settles in before the farmers market packs up, and stays for whatever tribute band is playing that week. The other buys a ticket months in advance, drives up the hill, and settles into a seat or a stretch of lawn at Toyota Pavilion at Concord to watch a national touring act. Most people in this city are loyal to one crowd or the other. Few realize both calendars trace back to the same source, and that as of this week, one of them is five Thursdays from closing while the other barely slows down.
If you live in Concord and haven't been paying attention to either lineup, here's what's actually left of the season and why the two venues are more connected than they look.
Same city, two different price tags
The free plaza series and the amphitheater in the hills didn't start as competitors. The Concord Jazz Festival launched in 1969 and ran right on Todos Santos Plaza for more than four decades, through 2013. In 1975, the city built a permanent amphitheater specifically to give that festival a bigger stage. That venue is the one known today as Toyota Pavilion at Concord, and it marked its 50th anniversary in 2025. The festival that inspired it was founded by Carl Jefferson.
That history is why the free series calls itself Music & Market and not just a concert night. This is the plaza's 37th year running the format, and it still leans on the same idea the jazz festival started with: put musicians in front of the whole city for nothing.
What's left of the free season
As of this week, five Thursdays remain before Music & Market closes for the year. The farmers market opens at 4 p.m. and runs to 8, with produce that shifts with the calendar, right now that means almonds, apricots, blackberries, and the last of the summer cherries. Music starts at 6:30 and runs until 8.
| Date | Act | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 27 | Aja Vu | Tribute |
| Sept 3 | Strange Daze | Doors tribute |
| Sept 10 | Steve Snyder Big Band | Big band jazz, tribute to the Concord Jazz Festival |
| Sept 17 | Sacred Fire Band | Tribute |
| Sept 24 | House of Floyd | Season closer, Pink Floyd tribute |
The Sept 10 date is worth circling. Steve Snyder's Big Band is playing that night specifically as a tribute to the old jazz festival, in the same plaza where that festival got its start in 1969. It's the one night this season where the free series stops borrowing the festival's format and actually plays its music.
Parking and admission are both free. The city runs two structures within a short walk of the plaza, the Todos Santos Parking Center on Concord Avenue between Salvio and Pacheco, and the Grant Street Garage on Salvio between Grant and Colfax. Concord's BART station is close enough to skip parking altogether if you'd rather walk.
The ticketed side doesn't stop when the plaza does
While the free series wraps on Sept 24, the Pavilion's fall calendar keeps running well past it. Styx and Chicago play a joint show on Sept 4. Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson come through on Sept 20, four days before the plaza's season finale. Roxette's 40th anniversary tour lands Oct 3, TLC and Salt-N-Pepa co-headline Oct 11, and Bryson Tiller closes out October on the 27th.
That's the real split between the two seasons. The plaza books a rotating cast of tribute acts on a fixed summer schedule, and it ends when the calendar says so. The Pavilion books whoever is touring, charges for a seat, and keeps going as long as artists keep routing through the Bay Area. One is a community tradition with a hard stop. The other is a commercial venue with no particular reason to care what month it is.
If you're headed to the Pavilion for any of the fall shows, it's worth knowing the venue enforces a chair and blanket policy, professional cameras and video equipment aren't permitted, and lots typically open two hours before showtime. None of that applies at Todos Santos, where you can walk up with a lawn chair and nobody checks your bag.
Where to eat before either one
If dinner is part of the plan, the plaza has the market vendors built in, along with the restaurants already lining Todos Santos and the surrounding blocks. Anyone driving up toward the Pavilion has a newer option worth knowing about. California Fish Grill opened last month at the Willows Shopping Center, a stretch of retail that's been picking up energy since the Veranda development landed next door. It's not downtown, but it's a reasonable stop if you're coming from that side of the city before a show.
How to actually use the next five weeks
The free series only has a handful of nights left, and the ones with built-in name recognition, House of Floyd's Pink Floyd set on closing night especially, tend to fill the plaza early. If you want a spot up front, plan to arrive by 5:30 rather than cutting it close to 6:30. Bring cash for the market vendors even if you're not staying for the show. And if Sept 10 is the night you finally make it out, know that you're watching something closer to the plaza's original purpose than any other night this year.
The Pavilion's fall lineup, by contrast, rewards patience rather than punctuality. Tickets for Styx and Chicago or Roxette are the kind of thing you can plan around a weekend instead of a Thursday commute, and the venue's own policies mean the logistics look nothing like a folding chair on the lawn at Todos Santos.
Either way, the next five weeks are the last chance this year to catch both versions of what Concord calls a concert season, the free one that's closing and the ticketed one that's just getting started on its fall run.
Concord's calendar changes fast, and so does its housing market. If you're weighing a move into this neighborhood, or thinking about what a home near downtown is actually worth once you factor in things like this, May Taliaferro Bell can walk you through it. Schedule a free consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
