✔️ = Critic's Pick
✔️ Microwave w/Can’t Swim/Drug Church/Blonde Tongues Microwave is no stranger to Ybor City (the Atlanta band was a down-low highlight of Pre-Fest in 2016), and on Thursday frontman Nathan Hardy and friends get to headline a gig that is the kickoff show for a 17-date tour alongside New Jersey’s Can’t Swim and Albany’s Drug Church. While some of the openers’ material tilts towards the heavier end of the alt-rock spectrum, so much of Microwave’s 2016 album, Much Love, finds Hardy working softer sounds into many of the effort’s big, bold riffs. The Blonde Tongues — a Tampa band which just released a stellar new EP, Anxiety Dream — rounds out the bill. (Crowbar, Ybor City) INFO
PHOTOS
Khalea Lynee', She.Go and more turn Wine & Rhyme into Beyo Day — 02.05.17
Rock the Park w/Tommy Phenom/Talk To Mark/Jeff Brawer Old school meets the new when rising Tampa rock-and-roll frontman Tommy Phenom plays this free outdoor concert alongside Jeff Brawer, who is a totem of Tampa’s punk scene. Talk To Mark — another band led by a long-running Bay area fave, Mark Murphy — fills in the middle of the family and pet-friendly gig, which is also being hosted by CL’s own Ray Roa. (Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, Tampa) INFO
O.A.R. w/Matt Nathanson VH1 comes to life in Clearwater as two college-rock favorites — Maryland’s O.A.R. and the hilariously witty Matt Nathanson — pull into Ruth Eckerd Hall. O.A.R. hasn’t released new material since 2014 (XX, a newish 20-year career retrospective doesn’t count), but Nathanson should be able to share songs from a forthcoming new album, Sings His Sad Heart, which is due in October. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater) INFO
✔️ Many Rooms w/Ascend The Hill (Joel Davis solo)/Katie Callihan In a lot of ways, this record shop show is all about hope. Just ask St. Petersburg songwriter Katie Callihan, who’ll open the gig with a set of songs that are reaction to another round of changes in her life that she’s, once again, not prepared for. “Life changes so quickly,” she told CL. “I process and cope by writing about the hurt and the humor and the irony of it all, but mostly I’ve been trying to write about the hope that life can get better as fast as it falls apart. There’s no avoiding the falling apart, so we embrace it and together we move on.” There’s also the hope that Ascend The Hill frontman Joel Davis plays songs that might appear on a comeback album from the indie-rock band, and then there’s the hope that the show’s touring band — Houston, Texas’ Many Rooms — likes it enough down here that we can guarantee that Brianna Hunt’s haunting style of ethereal pop (she calls it “calm ambient sad girl shit”) is something we’ll get a chance to see in person over and over again. (Microgroove, Tampa) INFO
ALSO PLAYING
Red Light Cafe: Penny Grune-Fae w/Terrapin/DJ Hollow Life (The Bunker, Ybor City) INFO
Jonnie Morgan w/Joshua Reilly/Matt Burke (Motorworks Brewing, Bradenton) INFO
Brad Myers (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin) INFO
Drive! Drive! w/Youth Antics/Grand Lotus (Crowbar, Ybor City) INFO
This article appears in Aug 2-9, 2018.