Wakefire, Pictus, and CrossBow

Michigan’s Renaissance Festival might be nine months away, but there’s plenty of kick-ass Celtic music churning out of metro Detroit to keep us river dancing all year long. Take Baroque-Celtic six-piece Wakefire, whose high-energy bohemian cabaret is the sonic equivalent to throwing back some whiskey out of a drinking horn while aboard a ship headed willingly into a storm. Then there’s bagpipe-wielding Pictus, a trio of Midwestern ancestral-conjuring, war-drumming badasses. Rounding out the bill is metro Detroit outfit CrossBow, who puts a twist on the traditional tunes. The group’s 2018 record, Ascend, finds the seven-piece honoring Celtic roots and, for some reason, Yellowcard’s 2003 hit “Ocean Avenue” because, why knot?