ON Culture | Time to Dance, Draw and Sing It Out!

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This edition of ON Culture was originally emailed to subscribers on April 17, 2026. To receive Leslie Dinaberg’s arts newsletter in your inbox on Fridays, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

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ON the Stage

Nerf Herder celebrates its 30th anniversary with a show at the Lobero on Saturday. These witty local rockers cribbed their name from a Star Wars reference, according to Joe Woodard’s terrific interview here. Fellow ’90s bands Summercamp and Ridel High are also on the bill. Click here to see if any tickets open up.

Also coming up this week at the Lobero is AHA’s annual Sing It Out! performance, which features Glen Phillips along with the teens this year. Madeline Slogoff has the scoop here.

The Santa Barbara Bowl season is fully underway, with great shows from Disclosure (see Callie Fausey’s review here) and David Byrne (see my review here, spoiler alert: He’s freaking amazing) already in the books, and Charlie Puth coming our way on April 25, followed by James Taylor on May 6, and Flight of the Conchords on May 7. I’m also excited about the new Bowl-adjacent collaboration pop-up between The Shop (a breakfast favorite) and Validation Ale (with excellent beer and grub), which are now open for every Bowl show evening starting at 4 p.m. at 730 N. Milpas Street.

I wish the Bowl was allowed to have more concerts (they are limited due to the residential neighborhood restrictions) but if you’re itching for a fix, Paso Robles’ outdoor amphitheater, Vina Robles, also has some great shows just a short drive north, including Cheap Trick on April 22, and the Avett Brothers and Mike Patton on May 9 (click here for details). And Ojai’s outdoor Libbey Bowl, just south of us, also has some great shows coming up, including the Psychedelic Furs on May 31 and Modest Mouse on August 4.  

ON the Page

Iconic artist Meredith Brooks Abbott, who was born in Carpinteria and was one of the founding members of the OAK Group  — a prestigious group of artists that has painted the landscape for preservation efforts for decades —  has a very special new hardbound monograph devoted to her art. One of Santa Barbara’s best known and most beloved plein air painters, Abbott has shown with many of the city’s most respected and long-lived art galleries and has sold more than 1,500 paintings to a collector base numbering in the hundreds. Now represented by Sullivan Goss Gallery, Abbott will have a solo exhibition there in May of this year, with 50 early copies available for purchase at the opening on 1st Thursday, May 7. Click here for more information.

ON the Walls

If you haven’t yet had the chance, I would definitely recommend checking out Covering 40 Years, an exhibition on view at Santa Barbara Public Library’s Faulkner Gallery featuring 150 Independent covers spanning the four decades of newspapers that hit Santa Barbara’s newsstands every week. It’s quite a walk through Santa Barbara history, and it’s both calming and terrifying to see how many of the same issues — housing, oil, immigration, natural disasters — continue to make headlines year after year. Covering 40 Years is open to the public at the Faulkner Gallery through May 31. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.

Artists of all ages and levels of experience are invited to be part of MCA Santa Barbara’s annual Arte Del Pueblo, which is always one of the most eclectically fun and diverse exhibitions in town. Check out the details in my story here.

ON the Opportunity Front

If you’ve ever wanted to turn fundraising into a performance, Santa Barbara’s Summer Solstice Celebration is launching a brand new Donation Solicitation Performance Troupe and is looking for someone to coordinate their new Pass the Hat Ensemble. This is a paid position for a one-of-a-kind role blending improv, fun-comedy, and audience interaction. They’ve also got some other paid positions. Click here for more information.

Speaking of Solstice, learn more about this year’s talented poster artist Larry Vigon here.

ON the Calendar

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara’s (AFSB) 2026 Kids Draw Architecture (KDA) Sketch Session will be held at the Riviera Park (2020 Alameda Padre Serra) on Sunday, April 19, from 1-3 p.m. A tradition since 1988, kids are invited to sketch alongside artists, designers, and architects in an activity that honors and highlights Santa Barbara’s unique personality and promotes an understanding of the importance of architecture and design expression of the City of Santa Barbara through the simple activity of sketching.

This year’s featured site is Riviera Park, an historic 8.6-acre property located on the Santa Barbara Riviera. Built between 1912 and 1935, it once housed the first Normal School and later became an early iteration of the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara College. The KDA sketch session is free and drawing materials are provided.

The drawings collected from the children will be framed and hung for the Annual KDA Exhibition & Opening Reception at the AFSB Acheson House Gallery. The drawings are also featured in the annual Kids Draw Architecture calendar, which are given to elected officials and sold at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara and local bookstores.

Click here for more information.

For a complete calendar of events this week and beyond, visit independent.com/events/.