{"id":2219402,"date":"2026-01-02T02:20:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2219402"},"modified":"2026-01-02T02:20:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:20:47","slug":"aiken-rocks-into-2026-with-live-music-for-new-years-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/aiken-rocks-into-2026-with-live-music-for-new-years-eve\/","title":{"rendered":"Aiken rocks into 2026 with live music for New Year\u2019s Eve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-breakout=\"1\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<div class=\"col-md-8\">\n<p>AIKEN\u00a0\u2014 A small crowd gathered in The Alley on New Year\u2019s Eve where they were carried into 2026 by live music and a ball drop at midnight.<\/p>\n<p>For Lena Metzler, who had attended musical events in The Alley before but never a New Year\u2019s event, it was nice to see the people of Aiken come out to celebrate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been good. It\u2019s been cold, but I\u2019m hoping that a whole new season just brings a better year\u2026 I think this community is kind of small, so it\u2019s nice to see people kind of warm up and come out and do these things.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Just under an hour before the big moment, community member Cynthia South said that she makes an effort to celebrate the holiday each year by watching the ball drop.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For her, being able to participate <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/northaugusta\/news\/fireworks-local-north-augusta-new-years\/article_1ac3c2d5-0b9e-4e92-9ecf-ef2409b04bff.html\" target=\"_blank\">in the iconic tradition<\/a> in her own community makes it even more special.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s in our hometown and it\u2019s a part of our neighborhood and it\u2019s just a part of being in our community,\u201d South said. \u201cIt\u2019s looking forward to the new year here in Aiken.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Music from The Skeleton Crew, a band led by <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/aikenstandard\/news\/local-government\/aiken-city-council-girardeau-not-seeking-reelection\/article_94f9e2cc-0174-4c54-b1d2-91ba7be7f4c1.html\" target=\"_blank\">former Aiken City Council member Edward Girardeau<\/a><\/span>, filled The Alley with renditions of songs by The Beatles, Cheap Trick and Led Zeppelin.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lawson Greer, 10, was enjoying the live performance when she said that what she\u2019s looking forward to most in 2026 is joining a softball team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As for the event, Greer said she likes \u201chow there\u2019s music, and just the tradition of how we celebrate the new year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sitting <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/aikenstandard\/news\/financial\/woodchuckers-to-bring-ax-throwing-to-downtown-aiken\/article_4f06da74-e8a8-11eb-bc06-4f23bfc6a1a3.html\" target=\"_blank\">outside Woodchuckers Axe Throwing<\/a> were friends Asia Wright, Brianna Collins and Amelia Hamilton.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-breakout=\"2\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<div class=\"col-md-8\">\n<p>According to Wright, she had initially considered staying in for New Year\u2019s until Hamilton convinced her and Collins to go to the event. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a pretty good experience,\u201d Wright said, adding that she was glad she decided to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Minutes before the clock struck midnight, Collins gave a piece of advice to any Aiken Standard readers who are looking forward to what the next year has in store: \u201cDon\u2019t worry about what other people think of you. Just keep looking forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n    fbq('init', '911608796512704');\n    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n    <\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.postandcourier.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AIKEN\u00a0\u2014 A small crowd gathered in The Alley on New Year\u2019s Eve where they were carried into 2026 by live music and a ball drop at midnight. For Lena Metzler, who had attended musical events in The Alley before but never a New Year\u2019s event, it was nice to see the people of Aiken come [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2219403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[429245,22477,350546,428753,429244],"class_list":["post-2219402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-city-of-aiken","tag-live-music","tag-new-years-eve","tag-new-years","tag-the-alley"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Aiken-rocks-into-2026-with-live-music-for-New-Years.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2219402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2219404,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219402\/revisions\/2219404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2219403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2219402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2219402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2219402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}