September 15, 2025
Thom Carroll/For PhillyVoice
WXPN will host its 1,000th Free at Noon concert at World Cafe Live on Sept. 26. In honor of the milestone, the radio station's music director Dan Reed looked back at 20 years of booking shows for the series.
WXPN music director Dan Reed has been booking Free at Noon concerts for more than 20 years. Reflecting on the live music series ahead of its 1,000th show, Reed said the best acts have been when a rising young artist came to play at World Cafe Live in University City.
In January 2009, the radio station hosted an up-and-coming British songwriter named Adele who was promoting her debut album "19." Less than a month after that show, the 20-year-old took home a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
"My favorite ones are the bands that are on their way up that we get right at the right time," Reed said. "Like Adele ... people like that who we were able to snag as they ascend. That's really cool when that happens."
WXPN said the series has welcomed over 295,000 people to its shows over the years and broadcast them to 5.2 million listeners on the radio station. The performers have ranged from legendary artists like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys to smaller, local acts on the up-and-up.
The series was the brainchild of Reed, who had worked on a similar program at a radio station in Louisville before he came to Philadelphia. He'd already been a booker before coming to WXPN and knew Donavon Frankenreiter, the artist he asked to play the first Free at Noon concert on Feb. 11, 2005.
"It was easier to book here because it's on the East Coast," Reed said. "It's a bigger market and it's a little trickier in the middle of Louisville, Kentucky, than it is in Philadelphia."
In the first year, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Ben Folds and Buddy Guy took part in the concert series. Since then, Free at Noon has hosted Brandi Carlile, Amos Lee, Michael Kiwanuka, Willie Nelson, Carly Simon, Joe Jackson, Norah Jones and the Pretenders.
According to Reed, there's always a crowd for the shows — although it ranges from 150 to 600 people depending on the act. Tickets are free, so performers aren't paid, but many artists still reach out to the station to ask for a slot because of its popularity. Many even come back for a second time, including Adele who performed again in 2011. In fact, Reed said they often turn down more requests than they accept since it's only one show per week.
"It feels to me like it's become a part of the Philadelphia music scene," Reed said. "It's just something that's been going on for so long that it's become kind of an important part."
Reed said he books musicians in a number of genres — earlier this month, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon and his band played the show — but ideally it's someone with at least a little bit of popularity to draw in a crowd.
On Friday, Sept. 26, Philly rock band the Hooters will play the 1,000th Free at Noon concert. The show is sold out, but it will be broadcast on WXPN and be available for streaming on the radio station's website. While this is the first Free at Noon show for the Hooters, the band said the milestone concert is particularly meaningful because they were at the first one in 2005.
"For some of us, we’ve been listening to and a part of the WXPN radio community for much longer than that," the Hooters said in a statement. "We are musical ‘lifers’ along with the listeners of this cherished radio station, with such strong ties and connections to the city of Philadelphia and to our friends and fans in West Philly in particular.”
In February, WXPN launched a yearlong celebration for the anniversary with shows by the Lumineers and Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, which were both live-streamed. For Reed, the shows have been a chance for the station to connect with listeners and build community every week, and he thinks it's an institution that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"Everybody here's got a role, from promotion to production, and everybody helps," Reed said. "So, as long as we keep believing in it and people keep coming, I don't see any reason why we just don't do 2,000 (shows)."
