03-05-2025
Fridays on the Plaza is throwing it back with summer 2025 lineup
CHEYENNE – This year marks 20 years of Fridays on the Plaza, and they're taking Cheyenne on a "journey through time."
The event, which is put on by Cheyenne Presents, is Wyoming's largest outdoor summer music festival, bringing free live entertainment to downtown Cheyenne every Friday in the summer.
This year, the lineup features 23 artists spanning decades and genres, with highlights that include Grammy-nominated and award-winning performers, artists with multiple gold and platinum records, and musicians boasting over 10 million monthly Spotify listeners and more than a billion views on YouTube, according to a press release from Cheyenne Presents. The artists chosen this summer have also shared stages with legends like Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Linkin Park, Nelly, Incubus and more.
"Cheyenne Presents returns with a season that's bold, nostalgic and unlike anything the community has experienced before," according to the press release. "So grab your favorite throwback tee, rally your crew, and get ready to relive the moments, music and memories that made us."
Each week will have a headliner and an opener, with the opener beginning at 6 p.m., and the headliner starting at 7:30.
Friday morning, city officials dropped the Fridays on the Plaza lineup on their social media pages with a video captioned, "Here's to 20 years, friends ..."
The band kicking off Fridays on the Plaza is Gym Class Heroes on June 6. Gym Class Heroes is best known for "Stereo Hearts," featuring Adam Levine, "Cupid's Chokehold/Breakfast in America" and "The Fighter," featuring Ryan Tedder.
The opener for June 6 is It Gets Worse, one of the five bands that performed at Fridays Sound Surge on April 17. Fridays Sound Surge was a collaboration between Black Tooth Brewery and Cheyenne Presents to give exposure to local artists, and give them a chance to show off their talents on the Fridays stage this summer. It Gets Worse is a ska/punk rock band with members from Cheyenne and Fort Collins, Colorado.
The other performers and winners of Fridays Sound Surge were rock band Year of the Pig, country artist Jared Strayer, reggae band Gene Clemetson & the Mashup and hip-hop artist Winct.
The second weekend will have headliner Those Crazy Nights: Journey Tribute Band, and the opener will be Year of the Pig on June 13.
The next headliner will be Chingy on June 20. Chingy is a hip-hop artist with hits from the early 2000s like "Right Thurr" and "Pullin' Me Back." The opener will be Fridays Sound Surge fan-favorite Winct, along with Beige Boy.
For the last Friday in June, the headliner is Midnight Star on June 27. Midnight Star is a band from the '80s with a synth-funk and R&B sound. Their most well-known hits are "Freak-a-Zoid" and "Midas Touch." The opener will be DJ Sammy G.
Skipping July 4 and moving to July 11, the month will kick off with Boys Like Girls, a rock band from the mid-2000s with hits like "The Great Escape" and "Two Is Better Than One" featuring Taylor Swift. The opener will be Public Figure.
On July 18, the headliner is Digital Underground, a hip-hop/rap group from the '90s and early-2000s known for "The Humpty Dance," and the opener is Real Deal Music.
July also marks Cheyenne Frontier Days, which means that Fridays on the Plaza will be offering even more local music with Fridays Extended. This concert will be in the middle of the week during CFD, on July 23, on top of their Friday show. This year, soul band The Burroughs will headline with Third Rail. Third Rail headlined last year for Fridays Extended.
The headliner for July 25 will be rock band Hoobastank, best known for "The Reason" and "Crawling in the Dark," both from 2003. Opener for this day is Shotgun Opera: A Tribute to alternative rock band Linkin Park.
Kicking off August on the first of the month is the Takes, a folk rock group from Portland, Oregon, that began making music together in 2021. Jared Strayer will open for them.
On Aug. 8, the headliner is the Expendables. They're a band that dabbles in reggae rock, ska and surf rock, and have been making music since 1997. To match their sound, Fridays on the Plaza paired them with Gene Clemetson & the Mashup.
The final headliner of the summer is the Wallflowers, a rock solo project spearheaded by Bob Dylan's son, Jakob Dylan. The final opener for the Aug. 15 show is Aaron Lee Tasjan.
The announcement video ended with a thank you to their sponsors, which include Arts Cheyenne, Warehouse 21, the Cheyenne Depot Museum, TDSi The Design Studio Inc., Comfort Inn and Suites, Mike Quintal Herc Rental, Visit Cheyenne, Ranch Eats, Bluepeak, The Albany, Appaloosa Broadcasting, Downtown Cheyenne, Toilets On The Go, Ken Garff Toyota, Everhome Suites and Red Lion Hotels.
For more information and up-to-date details about Fridays on the Plaza, people can follow Fridays on the Plaza on Facebook or follow @FridaysOnThePlaza on Instagram.
