Union Pool, the North Williamsburg bar and music venue once described as “the premiere boyfriend store of post-hipster Brooklyn,” has announced the lineup for its 12th annual “Summer Thunder” series of free daytime concerts.
The series kicks off on Sunday, June 2 at 2 p.m. with a performance by Guerilla Toss, the frenetic art rock band who are signed to Sub Pop and touring with Primus and Coheed and Cambria throughout the summer.
Other highlights in the free series include Latin Soul legend Joe Bataan, alt rocker Mary Timony, a DJ set from WKCR and The Lot Radio host Ayanna Heaven, and Gun Club alumnus Kid Congo Powers. New York City hip-hop duo Armand Hammer is slated for June 23.
Union Pool marketing manager Anna Paz Lopez said the duo had been booked to perform in 2022 but the show was canceled after a fire shut down the venue for several weeks that year.
“We have some new artists that have never played Summer Thunder — Los Esplifs, for example, they’re pretty new to the city,” she said, referring to the Mexican-Dominican band that plays a hybrid of psych rock with a Latin dance inflection.
The headline act for the closing show on Aug. 25 has yet to be publicly announced, but Lopez said longtime fans of the series will likely be able to guess who it is, as they’re a returning favorite who has played Summer Thunder many times before.
The former pool supply store-turned-music venue and indoor/outdoor bar has been a mainstay in Williamsburg since opening in 2000. The taco truck in its backyard space has become a draw, and the bar’s notoriety in the early- and mid-2000s social scene in the neighborhood became the stuff of legend when it appeared regularly in headlines, often as the setting for niche drama. For a time, it seemed, everyone had a Union Pool story.
The bar’s Summer Thunder series began in 2010 and took a two-year hiatus during the pandemic.
All shows are on Sundays at 2 p.m., from June 2 until Aug. 25. Admission is first-come, first-served, rain or shine. RSVPs are not required. For more information, visit here.
