Headlining talent includes country music stars Chris Lane and Cassadee Pope and rock legend Collective Soul

CHARLOTTE, NC (August 31, 2021) — Circle K Speed Street, the Queen City’s longest-running street festival, is headed your way this fall, bringing music, food and family-friendly outdoor fun to Romare Bearden Park. And it’s all FREE.

Circle K Speed Street will take place Oct. 7 – 9, and festival organizers have compiled an incredible lineup of musical talent that includes big names with local roots, as well as fan favorites from decades past.

Fans can enjoy live music for FREE all day Thursday through Saturday on the Coca-Cola stage, from a range of genres. (The full schedule is available online here.) Our headlining talent includes:

Friday, Oct. 8: 90s alt-rock favorites Tonic and Better than Ezra will open for the legendary Collective Soul. The fiery band of Georgia-bred rockers recently celebrated their 25th anniversary.

Saturday, Oct. 9: Charlotte native and rising Country artist Christina Taylor will open for Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Cassadee Pope and Kernersville native, multi-platinum artist Chris Lane, whose music has generated more than 1.2 billion on-demand streams.

“We are thrilled to be back this fall and to bring such incredible entertainment to Charlotte,” said Joshua Mills, director of marketing, Circle K – Southeast Division. “Circle K Speed Street has been a fixture in Charlotte for more than two decades, and after the challenges of the past year, we’re looking forward to bringing the community together for a very special race weekend, and a whole lot of fun.”

Circle K Speed Street maintains its longstanding connection to Charlotte Motor Speedway and NASCAR race weeks. While the festival has historically celebrated May’s Coca-Cola 600 at the speedway, the move to October allows the festival to align with the Bank of America ROVAL™ 400, scheduled to take place Sunday, Oct. 10.

The 2021 event will include a complete redesign from what fans have known in years past: While Circle K Speed Street has long included a street festival on Tryon Street in Uptown Charlotte, with the concerts taking place in Romare Bearden Park, event organizers have opted to shift the entire event to the park, creating a space where attendees can enjoy free live music throughout each day. Circle K Speed Street will also feature an outdoor Biergarten, presented by Gilde, Charlotte’s next big brewery slated to open the week of Oct. 11, as well as food from local food trucks, as part of an effort to elevate Charlotte’s beloved local businesses.

“We want to give our community an opportunity to come together and celebrate all the wonderful things we have to offer,” said Jacqueline Gafrarar, managing director of the 600 Festival which organizes the event. “Our reimagined concept, which will bring all festivities to Romare Bearden Park, will provide an experience unlike any we’ve seen before. We’re excited, and we hope our community is, too.”

Circle K Speed Street will host a variety of other activities beginning each day at noon, with free outdoor yoga courtesy of Habitual Roots, a nonprofit committed to connecting communities by spreading the knowledge of emotional intelligence and mindfulness. The 600 Festival will announce more features of the event in the coming weeks, including the music line up for Thursday, Oct. 7.

A note about safety: Festival organizers will continue to monitor all recommendations from healthcare officials, the city of Charlotte and the state of North Carolina. We will update fans and attendees with proposed safety precautions closer to the event.

Circle K Speed Street has been promoted and produced exclusively by CSM Production since 1996. For more information on the 600 Festival Association, visit www.600festival.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram. For interviews, contact Meg Seitz at [email protected] or Mary Johnson at [email protected].

Read below to learn more about our headlining acts:

ABOUT TONIC:

Since 1996, the GRAMMY® Award-nominated multi-platinum trio has consistently delivered anthemic and undeniable rock fashioned from eloquent song craft, lyrical honesty, and unshakable melodies. Along the way, they translated true experiences and real memories into a storied catalog that resounds as loudly today as it did over two decades ago.

The songs continue to endure. To date, the band has landed six Top 10 singles, sold 4 million-plus records, and garnered a pair of GRAMMY® Award nominations. Their full-length debut, Lemon Parade, not only went platinum, but it also yielded the “#1 Most-Played Rock Song of 1997” in the form of the lead single “If You Could Only See.” The band’s follow-up single,“You Wanted More,” served as the lead-off from the platinum Original Soundtrack Album for American Pie and the second full-length, Sugar. After they released Head On Straight in 2002, the single “Take Me As I Am” received a GRAMMY® Award nomination in the category of “Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal” as the album vied for “Best Rock Album”—only to lose to Bruce Springsteen. After a five-year hiatus, the three-piece returned to the charts in 2010, landing in the Top 50 of the Billboard Top Rock Albums Chart and Top 25 of the Billboard Top Independent Albums Chart. Following a successful Pledge Music campaign, they re-recorded the seminal Lemon Parade acoustically for 2016’s Lemon Parade Revisited.

ABOUT BETTER THAN EZRA:

Whether you caught a house party gig after Better Than Ezra formed in 1988 at Louisiana State University, heard “Good” on the radio once it hit #1 during 1995, became a fan following Taylor Swift’s famous cover of “Breathless” in 2010, or saw them headlining sheds in 2018, you most likely never forgot that initial introduction to the New Orleans quartet founded by Kevin Griffin [lead vocals, guitar, piano] and Tom Drummond [bass, backing vocals]. Better than Ezra occupies rarified air, with spots on Billboard’s “100 Greatest Alternative Songs of All Time” and “100 Greatest Alternative Artists of All Time” as of 2018. Additionally, 2018 also marked 25 years since the arrival of the breakthrough album Deluxe. Maintaining a steady pace forward, the new single “GRATEFUL” garnered acclaim from Billboard who praised its “highly commercial, anthemic sheen that certainly pairs nicely with the approach of Deluxe.” A fixture on radio and MTV, “Good” captured #1 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks Chart and went multi-platinum. 1996’s Friction, Baby yielded definitive anthems such as “Desperately Wanting” and “King Of New Orleans.” A string of fan favorite albums followed, including How Does Your Garden Grow? [1998] and Closer [2001]. 2005’s Before The Robots represented another creative high. Its lead single “A Lifetime” peaked in the Top 15 of the Billboard Adult Top 40 chart as “Juicy” went on to famously soundtrack a “Desperate Housewives” campaign. Paper Empire followed in 2009 and then the band released their latest album in 2014, All Together Now. Produced by Tony Hoffer [M83, Beck,] it spawned the hit “Crazy Lucky,” which notched 10 million-plus streams.

ABOUT COLLECTIVE SOUL:

Coming hot off a triumphant, yearlong celebration of their 25th anniversary in 2019, these five fiery Georgia-bred rockers are only just getting started with the next phase of a thriving career that has seen them move millions of records and wow multitudes of fans all across the globe. The band’s acclaimed 2019 album release Blood features a number of key tracks that fit seamlessly into their dynamic live sets. Indeed, the hard-charging positivity of “Right as Rain,” the deeply introspective “Observation of Thoughts,” the full-throttle insistence of “Over Me,” and the acoustified good vibes of “Porch Swing” all stand tall live alongside such indelibly durable hits like “Shine,” “December,” “The World I Know,” “Gel,” “AYTA,” and “Heavy.” Such effortless setlist integration really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering how smoothly Collective Soul leapt into the national consciousness with the unbridled achievements of their multi-platinum 1993 debut Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid, a career-making debut album that contains such mega-smash hits like the aforementioned “Shine” and “Breathe.” In one fell swoop, Hints Allegations cemented Collective Soul’s status as the jukebox heroes of a new generation.

ABOUT CHRISTINA TAYLOR:
Christina Taylor — the singer-songwriter behind the hits “Settin’ Myself on Fire,” “That Girl,” “Loser” and many more — returns in 2021 with all new music for her fans around the world. Her latest single is “I Got That From You,” penned with hit songwriters Kelley Lovelace, (BradPaisley, Carrie Underwood) and Lynn Hutton, (Jason Aldean, Eric Church).

Named an “artist to watch” by AXS, The Country Source, CMT and the UK’sYour Life In ASong, Christina’s passionate live performances and deep repertoire quickly earned industry notice. In 2019, she and two-time Juno-winner Brett Kissel scored a global hit with “As Good As You Look,” a song she co-wrote with Lovelace and Brent Anderson. While her intimate shows at The Listening Room, The Bluebird Cafe and The Analog are a staple on the Nashville scene, she plays huge venues as well, opening for artists such as Pitbull and Tim McGraw at Twin Cities Summer Jam. She has also been part of bills starring Keith Urban,Rascal Flatts, LoCash, Scottie McCreery and other headliners.

ABOUT CASSADEE POPE:
Cassadee Pope is a Grammy-nominated, Platinum-certified singer-songwriter who has recently released her highly-anticipated second solo album STAGES, featuring hit singles “Take You Home,” “One More Red Light,” and “If My Heart Had A Heart.” From fronting rock band Hey Monday to winning season 3 of The Voice and releasing her #1 debut album Frame By Frame, Cassadee has effortlessly re-arranged the lines of country and pop. She has experienced tremendous success throughout her career, with her Platinum-selling single “Wasting All These Tears” being named “Breakthrough Video of the Year” at the 2014 CMT Music Awards and her #1 hit “Think of You” with Chris Young receiving a 2017 Grammy nomination for “Best Country Duo/Group.” Cassadee has toured extensively, joining legendary artists Tim McGraw and Dierks Bentley, playing London’s iconic O2 Arena during C2C: Country to Country Festival, and earning the distinction of the only country artist to perform at 2018’s Warped Tour. Cassadee recently performed “If My Heart Had A Heart” on the TODAY show, and is now on tour with Maren Morris on her GIRL: THE WORLD TOUR. Cassadee will continue touring throughout the spring as the headliner of the “CMT Next Women of Country Tour,” bringing the franchise outside of the U.S. for the first time ever. For more information about Cassadee, visit CassadeePope.com.

ABOUT CHRIS LANE:

Chris Lane’s star continues to rise with over 1.2 billion on-demand streams and three #1 hits – platinum “Big, Big Plans,” 2X platinum “I Don’t Know About You,” and platinum “Fix.” Stacking his milestones with a pair of all-star collaborations, Lane teamed up with LA-based artist/producer Gryffin on the infectious track “Hold You Tonight” after his smash 2X platinum single “Take Back Home Girl” with Tori Kelly. Lane has been spotlighted in PEOPLE’s 2019 Sexiest Man Alive issue, scored nominations at the iHeartRadio Music Awards, ACM Awards and Radio Disney Music Awards, plus appeared on TODAY, The Bachelor, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers and CONAN. Lane has shared the bill with A-list acts including Florida Georgia Line, Kane Brown, Brad Paisley, and Dan + Shay, and will headline his FILL THEM BOOTS TOUR this fall. Currently climbing the Country charts with brand-new single, “Fill Them Boots,” Lane has also dropped “Summer Job Money,” “That’s What Mamas Are For,” and is featured on Dustin Lynch’s “Tequila On A Boat.” The Kernersville, NC-native married Lauren Bushnell in 2019, after popping the question with “Big, Big Plans.” The pair recently welcomed their son – Dutton Walker Lane – and the first-time dad opened up about the anticipation of parenthood in his new track “Ain’t Even Met You Yet,” out now.