In an Abundance of Caution for Watertown Students, Performance of Banned Song will Move from the Minocqua Brewing …
- Fri, May 22 2026 at 10:39 AM
In an Abundance of Caution for Watertown Students, Performance of Banned Song will Move from the Minocqua Brewing Company to the Barrymore Theater in Madison
Performance will now take place on Thursday, May 28th, at 8 pm
To keep the kids safe from large crowds and potential anti-lgbtq+ protesters, we decided to move the performance indoors to a proper concert venue down the street from Minocqua Taproom in Madison—the Barrymore Theater.
Hi folks,
Kirk Bangstad here, owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company. I have an important update about the performance of “A Mother of A Revolution” by members of the Watertown Wind Symphony and guest artists—originally slated to be held at our Madison Taproom tomorrow, May 23rd, at 5 pm.
In an abundance of caution, we’ve decided to move the performance from our parking lot to the Barrymore Theater less than a mile away, and the performance date and time will now be next Thursday, May 28th, at 8 pm (doors open at 6:45pm).
Here’s the story on why we made the switch.
Here is our original invitation to the Watertown Wind Symphony that we posted on Facebook two weeks ago.
We announced last Sunday that the Watertown Wind Symphony accepted our invitation to play their concert in our beer garden after their school board banned one of their pieces from being played—because it honored Marsha Johnson, a black transgender lGBTQ+ rights activist and Stonewall veteran.
We sold tickets to the show and also took donations for the band to buy instruments because the school board refused to let school-owned instruments be used in “unsanctioned performances” like the one happening at our place.
Within minutes of our announcement, we immediately sold out of tickets, and within 24 hours, we raised $48K in donations from across the country.
Demand for tickets was so intense that we decided to move the show from our beer garden to our parking lot.
While we were getting a permit from the city to move to the parking lot, another performance of “A Mother of a Revolution” was scheduled at the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Watertown, Wisconsin.
We loved the idea of two performances, because it meant the song that this School Board didn’t want anyone to hear, or any of their students to play, would now be performed by the students twice throughout Wisconsin in one week.
Demand for tickets to our concert has been overwhelming, and the crowds and protests outside the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Watertown at their performance on Wednesday suggested it might be unsafe for the kids to hold the concert outsideLast Wednesday, thousands of people showed up from all over Wisconsin to support the kids, but also a few anti-lgbtq+ protesters.
As a result, a group called “Social Justice Watertown” expressed concerns about us holding an outdoor concert in our parking lot—due to potentially huge crowds, a lack of security, and potential anti-gay protests that would drown out the performance.
We agreed with their concerns because we had only recruited about 10 volunteers to help our staff manage the crowd, and pictures from the crowd in Watertown suggested that thousands might show up to watch the performance.
Although we had sold only 80 tickets, there was no way to stop hordes of people from coming to watch the band outside of the fenced-in area we designated for ticket holders in the parking lot.
So we got busy yesterday and hunted around for an alternative venue to hold this performance, and late last night we were given permission to use the Barrymore Theater, a 900 seat concert venue less than a mile away from our taproom.
Not only does this venue switch protect the students and alleviate all of the concerns that “Social Justice Watertown” had about outdoor safety, it allows us to sell a LOT more tickets to the show and make even more money for the band.
We’ve updated our refund policy if the ticket holders can no longer attend due to the date change.
We have amended our refund policy to allow all those who purchased tickets who can no longer attend to get a full refund, and we’ve also expanded the number of tickets available to purchase. Please go here to buy tickets. If you don’t want to buy a ticket but simply donate to the band, you can do that buy clicking the “buy ticket” button and navigating to the donation area.
Last but not least, now that there’s another 6 days until the performance we think there might be just enough time to support the band further by buying one some of these cools t-shirts and sweatshirts we made in their honor
Buy “Censorship Blows” merch here and “Everybody Cut Fluteloose” merch here
Thats all I have for now.
Thanks again or all of your support, and for helping fuel this immense “Streisand Effect” in Wisconsin that has amplified this musical piece globally more as a result of this school board’s attempt to censor it.
I hope to see many of you at the show next Thursday at 8 pm.
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Candidate for Governor, Wisconsin.
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