Thursday, May 31
The
Zac Brown Band sing about getting out of the
city, enjoying down-home cooking, and generally living a lifestyle that
is a million miles away
from everything we know and love (?) in DC. Live vicariously
through the super-popular country stars at
Merriweather.
5:30 PM at Merriweather, $42 to $77.
Simone Felice, of folk rockers the Felice
Brothers, has struck out on his own. His solo stuff is a little more
whistley-and-clappy than
his other band, but it’s plenty catchy and pretty. He’s at the
Hamilton
tonight.
7:30 PM at the Hamilton, $17.
Friday, June 1
The DC Jazz Festival kicks off today. Besides tons of smaller shows throughout the city, Merriweather is throwing a three-day
Capital Jazz Fest extravaganza featuring every living jazz musician ever (barely an exaggeration). I’m going to make this easy for the both
of us: Friday you get
Anita Baker and
Bill Cosby; Saturday you get
George Benson,
Musiq Soulchild, and
Kirk Whalum; and Sunday you get
Fourplay,
India Arie, and
Paul Taylor (plus lots of others playing each day).
Friday: 6:30 PM, $52 to $100.
Saturday and Sunday: 10 AM, $62.50 to $165.
So besides stealing business from yoga studios, art galleries, restaurants, and other small businesses, LivingSocial is now
trying to make 918 F Street into a concert venue by landing
Switchfoot—a band that was popular with moms four years ago—for an extremely inflated price. Something tells me the major games in town
won’t be bothered by this development.
6:30 PM at 918 F Street, $55.
Dutch deejay (why are they always Dutch?)
Afrojack has a Grammy and a legion of fans ready to party. Join them tonight at the Fillmore; go ready to dance, and leave some Advil
and a jug of water next to your bed.
8 PM at the Fillmore, $47.50.
Saturday, June 2
You should probably stop holding out hope that what’s left of Led Zeppelin will get back together and embrace
Zoso, a tribute band who take being a tribute band very seriously. The
LA Times has called the band “head and shoulders above all other Zeppelin tributes,” and there’re tons of them, so that’s high praise.
They’re at the Fillmore tonight.
8 PM at the Fillmore, $19.
Joe Pug used to live in Greenbelt, but his
music (and carpentry) took him to Chicago, and then Austin. With a voice
and lyrics that
are well beyond his years, Pug is one of the best
singer-songwriters in the game now. If you missed him when he used to
play
the New Deal Cafe to tens of people years ago, and you probably
did, take this chance to see him headline the
9:30.
8 PM at 9:30 Club, $20.
An up-and-comer in another genre,
Curren$y has shown up on records by Lil Wayne,
Wale, Wiz Khalifa, and more. He’s nothing if not busy: After a series
of mix tapes,
he released his first studio album in 2009—now he’s getting
ready to put out his eighth. Catch him at the
Howard.
11 PM at Howard Theatre, $28.50.
Sunday, June 3
Tune-Yards’s
Whokill was one of the best and most interesting albums of last year. If you haven’t checked it out, it’s
Merrill Garbus layering drum loops, ukulele,
and her unique voice to form something that sounds otherworldly. Live,
she arranges everything
on the spot, which you can see for yourself at the 9:30 Club—if
you can score tickets.
7 PM at 9:30 Club, sold out.
If you were going to go to this, you already knew about it and already have tickets, but when one of the biggest bands in
the world comes to your city, you mention it in the concert roundup.
Thom Yorke and
Radiohead are back in Washington for the first
time since 2008, when disastrous weather caused tons of problems at the
Nissan Pavilion.
7:30 PM at Verizon Center, sold out.
As further proof that singing competitions can only launch country stars,
Miranda Lambert came to prominence after finishing third on
Nashville Star in 2003. Since then, she’s become one
of the genre’s best pure country up-and-comers—she doesn’t really have
the crossover
appeal of Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood, but flip on a
country station and you can’t go 20 minutes without hearing one
of her songs.
Chris Young, who put five straight singles at
number one on the country charts, opens
up.
4 PM at Jiffy Lube Live, $34 to $61.
Monday, June 4
Danzig are one of those bands I thought had
been around forever, but it turns out they’re just a couple years older
than me. The
hard rockers are best known for “Woman,” having the least
inventive album titles ever, and for giving you a chance early next
week to wear your skintight jeans and cutoff T-shirt. For this
tour,
Glenn Danzig has decided to play songs by both Danzig and horror-core legends
the Misfits, the band he founded that has tried to go on without him.
8 PM at the Fillmore, $37.50.
Tuesday, June 5
Al Anderson used to make music with Bob Marley and the Wailers—he played lead guitar on songs such as “No Woman, No Cry.” In 2008, he
decided to form
the Original Wailers, who are playing at the
Howard Tuesday. They play a mix of originals and covers from the old
days.
8 PM at the Howard, $18.
Alan Doyle is the frontman of Great Big Sea, a
Canadian band that might as well be from Ireland, because their
folk-punk tunes sound
straight out of a Dublin pub. Solo, Doyle tones it down—playing
folk rock, country, and slower ballads. But you can’t take
the man completely out of his element—he’s promising some sea
shanties from Great Big Sea as
necessary.
7:30 PM at the Birchmere, $33.
Wednesday, June 6
K.D. Lang has such a strong voice that she’s
one of the only people who can pull off “Hallelujah”—she’s got four
Grammys for a reason.
In recent years, Lang has taken up the torch for gay rights,
Tibetan freedom, and animal welfare, which she may or may not
mention at tonight’s Wolf Trap
gig.
8PM at Wolf Trap, $45 to $75.
Despite their name,
Oberhofer do not make German music. The
Brooklyn-based band make dancey rock music you can’t help but move
to—try listening to “Landline”
without getting it stuck in your head. Check them out at the
9:30 Club tonight.
8 PM at Black Cat, $12.
Got a suggestion for a great show around town? E-mail Jason Koebler at jasontpkoebler@gmail.com or tweet him at @jason_koebler.
