Best of KC 2026: Our favorite niche acts

The Rino in the River North District. // Courtesy of The Rino

Earlier this month, we published The Pitch’s annual Best of Kansas City issue. You can take a peek at the results of the readers’ poll here. The issue also included a list, compiled and written by our editorial staff, of some local people, places, and things that we think make 2026 KC life feel like a winner. We’ll be publishing these online throughout June and July.

Decades ago, The Pitch’s Best of KC issue featured blurbs on individual concerts, highlighting contributors’ favorite shows of the past year, usually headlined with an esoteric distinction. 

For example, a memorably frenetic Bob Log III gig won “Best One-Man Band”; there might not have been much competition in that category, but the point was to recognize that something outstanding happened, and to congratulate both the performer and the venue that booked them. (Pretty sure that Bob Log III’s plaque is still on display at The Brick.)

By similar standards, this year we could anoint Silvee “Best One-Woman Band” for her spellbinding sets at Hillsiders (guitar, backing tracks, strikingly intimate lyrics), or name Land Lion “Best 10-Person Band” for its raucous, horn-section-bolstered takes on prickly early-2000s folk-rock at The Rino, or award “Best Improv Interlude” to Rude Cousin’s “Barista,” which interrupts its jagged riot-grrrl structure for an always-entertaining, ever-evolving exchange between the titular condescending barista (in a band) and the musician who blows off his fumbling, entitled overtures.

Nan Turner’s musical Sequins Before Noon, staged at The Black Box, could be “Best Supernatural ‘90s Figure Skating Narco-Comedy with Courtney Love as a Character”; Pitch readers more simply nominated it for “Best Play.”