THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3
City and Colour w/The Paper Kites It appears that Dallas Green has taken a few big gulps of chamomile tea and decided his lung-shredding days are over. The former frontman for the hardcore band Alexisonfire has, as City and Colour, becomes an introspective singer/songwriter strumming an acoustic guitar and baring his soul with a sweet, vulnerable tenor. The Paper Kites, an Australian six-piece, fall generally in the same vein, but with more emphasis on group vocal harmonies. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)
Rock the Park: Lauris Vidal/Zulu Wave/Coward’s Choir Vidal and his “kitchen sink beat blues” — aggressive stuff, even unhinged at times — will be joined by Zulu Wave, a rising Bay area drone-rock band that employs intriguing guitar textures, and Coward’s Choir, the new moniker for sensitive singer/songwriter Andy Zipf. (Curtis Hixon Park, Tampa)
Saves The Day w/Into It. Over It./Hostage Calm The Princeton, N.J. quartet Saves the Day is closing in on a two-decade anniversary. Let’s call them what they are, an emo band, not the best of legacies these days. But given the quasi-heavy guitars and frontman Chris Conley’s yearning tenor — well, if it walks like a duck … Indie rockers Into It. Over It. would seem to have painted themselves into a corner, should their popularity wane. Connecticut pop-punk act Hostage Calm rounds out the bill. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4
Tim Reynolds and TR3 w/Shaun Hopper Multi-instrumentalist and loop master Reynolds, an adjunct member of the Dave Matthews Band, is a serious practitioner of chops-heavy acoustic guitar. The TR3 signifies he’ll also plug in and perform with his trio, incorporating vocals. Bay area transplant Hopper is a master of fingerstyle acoustic guitar. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)
King Yellowman & the Sagittarius Band Apparently, the artist once known as Yellowman has been officially self-coronated. The 57-year-old singer/toaster and rub-a-dub titan can legitimately stake a claim as reggae royalty. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
Willy Porter Singer/songwriter and satirist Porter plays one of the Bay area’s most intimate and pristine-sounding rooms. He brings 10 albums’ worth of material to the stage. He’s also a formidable fingerstyle acoustic guitarist. (The Hideaway Café, St. Petersburg)
Keith Urban For an Aussie, Urban sings in a pretty good Southern twang (and I’m not talking about Melbourne). He is pretty, has a pretty wife (Nicole Kidman, but you knew that) and delivers the kind of pop-crossover sound that has wooed American country music fans for a decade. He’s also a formidable guitarist. At times, concertgoers might think they wandered into a big ol’ rock jam. (MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa)
Cheap Trick Lead singer Robin Zander could probably bicycle to the gig. Last I heard, he lived in Palm Harbor. Cheap Trick boasts one of greatest power-pop songs ever made: “I Want You To Want Me.” I can’t see myself ever tiring of it. The Rockford, Ill. unit, celebrating its 40th anniversary, enjoyed major stardom in the late ’70s/early ’80s and has maintained a steady career since. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater)
Gary Wright Whoa, Mr. Dream Weaver is 70. I checked two sources to confirm it. His signature hits, “Love is Alive” and “Dream Weaver,” came out in 1976, but before that he appeared on Broadway as a child actor in Fanny, was a member of the trippy hard-rock band Spooky Tooth, and played keyboards on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. (Largo Cultural Center, Largo)
The Hip Abduction w/Tribal Style The Bay area’s genre-obliterating, seven-piece Hip Abduction puts on one of the liveliest shows in these parts. You can hear elements of rock, ska, reggae, a panoply of African styles and more, all packaged in a grinning, neo-hippie attitude. I dig the horns, fellas; don’t ever lose the horns. Tribal Style may be the Tampa Bay’s longest-standing roots reggae band, certainly among the most venerated. (New World Brewery, Ybor City)
Fubar’s 4th Anniversary Show w/Mosquito Teeth/Stegosaurus/Lonly Monster/Hussar/Alarayne Snotty punk-rockers Mosquito Teeth, something of a house band at Fubar, headline the its 4th anniversary bash. (Four years — that’s quite an accomplishment for a rock club round here.) Several other bands, fellow travelers, will make it a loud, heavy, sweaty night. (Fubar, St. Petersburg)
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5
The Isley Brothers Here’s my favorite fact about The Isley Brothers: They scored a hit in six consecutive decades — the 1950s (“Shout,” 1959); ’60s (six of them, topped by “It’s Your Thing”); ’70s (a dozen, led by “Who’s That Lady” and “Fight the Power”); etc., capped by 2001’s “Contagious.” I am damn near certain they’re the only act to accomplish this. The Isleys, who once included Jimi Hendrix as a sideman — who in turn heavily influenced guitarist Ernie Isley — have traversed a wide swath of pop terrain, from doo-wop to bedroom ballads to guitar-fueled rock. Singer Ronald is 72 and Ernie is 61. Surrounded by a crack band of veterans and youngbloods, count on these legends to deliver the goods. (USF Sun Dome, Tampa)
Eilen Jewell w/Jerry Miller/Nook & Cranny Singer/songwriter Eilen Jewell embraced an itinerant lifestyle early on. The native of Boise, Idaho went to college in Santa Fe, N.M, where she busked on the streets; then it was off to L.A. where she put out her tip cup on Venice Beach, then to Massachusetts, then to a life on the road. She has a languid, sexy voice and, though she slings an acoustic guitar, the woman can rock. Guitarist Miller, a member of Jewell’s band, can really rip it in the Chet Atkins vein. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6
Ol’ Dirty Sundays: King Most San Francisco DJ King Most not only excels at getting the dancefloor throbbing, he’s an imaginative masher of tunes, pulling from pop, hip-hop, jazz and R&B. A YouTube video shows that the cat spins vinyl as well as working a laptop. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
Ill Nino w/Sunflower/Dead In-Cyde New Jersey’s Ill Nino falls into a category I like to call ProTools rock, a type of contemporary metal that’s heavily processed in the studio and alternates between screamo sections and atmospheric choruses. Composed mostly of Latinos from New Jersey, the band likes to claim some Latin cred, but I can’t hear it. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
Sarah Brightman An operatic soprano playing arenas. Hey, it happens. Brightman is the foremost female classical crossover star. Expect big gestures, a big orchestra and big production values. (Tampa Bay Times Forum, Tampa)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 7
Sigur Rós I know that most critics revere Sigur Rós, but I find their sound just a tad … I don’t know … icy. The atmospheric art-rock unit from Reykjavik makes Radiohead sound like a roadhouse blues band. I know that a Sigur Rós show is a major get for our market, but I just can’t warm up to the idea. (USF Sun Dome, Tampa)
Crystal Fighters This London quartet has cobbled together an engaging amalgam of hippie flair, dancefloor grooves and roots-folk flavor (mandolin, anyone?), with a dash of world-music sensibility. They formed in the Basque region of Spain, and employ indigenous instruments from the region. Impressive. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
Dying Fetus w/Exhumed/Abiotic Just imagine it: Dying Fetus frontman John Gallagher has been barking Cookie Monster vocals since 19-fucking-91. Straight from the crypt, this Maryland band made a grab for death-metal cred by naming its first demo Bathe In Entrails. Exhumed, out of San Jose, Calif., has been at it since 1990. I can only take death-metal in small doses, but I admire the bands’ diehard attitude. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8
Rusko My sources in the local concert biz inform that this new craze known as EDM (Electronic Dance Music), is really catching on with the kids around here. English dubstep DJ/producer Rusko has released four full-lengths and a slew of singles, EPs, remixes, et al. His given name is Christopher William Mercer, and he graduated from Leeds College of Music with a degree in Music Performance. The geezer in me finds a certain irony in that. (The Ritz Ybor, Ybor City)
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9
Danzig w/Butcher Babies/Texas Hippie Coalition/A Pale Horse Named Death Glenn Danzig, rock legend? He gets the nod, although of the second or third tier. The singer came out of Lodi, N.J., where he formed proto-punks The Misfits. That evolved into Samhain and then into heavy metal territory with Danzig in 1987. The black-clad, muscled-up dude, now 58 and with a bit of a paunch, has long factored a fair bit of melody into his doomy sound, and his singing nods to Jim Morrison. If you like scantily clad women thrashing and shrieking, the Butcher Babies could be just the thing. (Cuban Club, Ybor City)
Lauren Mann & The Fairly Odd Folk From Calgary, Canada, singer/songwriter Lauren Mann fronts a quintet that specializes in quirky, bouncy folk and acoustic pop. Mann’s voice is imbued with whimsy, which is accentuated by her often strumming a ukulele. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
CLICK HERE to see a complete rundown of shows taking place this week and in the coming weeks.