✔️ = Critic's Pick
Garden Club/Flipturn/Grand Lotus Jazz, indie rock and dream-pop come together under the roof at Green Bench when two Bay area bands — Grand Lotus and Garden Club — host Nassau Country quintet Flipturn, which is touring in support of its month-old, seven-track EP Citrona. Per usual, this Green Bench show is free. Per usual, it costs money to put gas in the tank, so show Flipturn some love at the merch table. (Green Bench Brewing Co., St. Petersburg) INFO
✔️ 97X Barbecue Music & Arts Festival w/Dirty Heads/Awolnation/Judah and the Lion/AJR/Robert DeLong/Sir Sly/Lovelytheband/more Vinoy Park was full of dreadheads for March’s Reggae Rise Up festival, and a little bit of an irie vibe will fill the air once again this weekend when Bay area alt-rock station 97X stages its Memorial Day Weekend party by the sea. It’s less reggae and more rock when the lineup is taken as a whole, however, and this iteration of the festival boasts some big names, including frequent Bay area visitors Judah and the Lion, electro-rock group Awolnation, New York City pop trio AJR, livetronic wunderkind Robert DeLong, and Los Angeles indie-rock bands Sir Sly and Lovelytheband. Longtime followers of the event may be shocked to see that it isn’t free anymore, but station officials have said that the ticket charge lets them really get after more big-name bands. (Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg) INFO
CLOUDS, COVERED
Here are the rain plans for Tampa Bay's 97X Barbecue, Sunset Music Festival, and Margarita Fest
SAHE Album Release w/Beerwolf/Rising Down/Bangarang It’s been about half a dozen years since brothers Pat and Nick Ehas released the Pathological Repair EP, and on Saturday the boys’ metal band SAHE finally releases a full-length (Savage) with some help from BOTB-winning outfit Bangarang, proggy quintet Rising Down and Beerwolf, which just tapped Ripple Music to globally release its own 2018 album, Planetfall. (Crowbar, Ybor City) INFO
Funky D Birthday Weekend Night No. 1 w/Unlimited Devotion Funky Darryl Queensbury is celebrating another trip around the sun, and the St. Pete keyboardist and songwriter wants his friends along for the ride. He says that the 20-year-old version of himself would’ve punched you had you told him that he’d be in a Grateful Dead cover band, but this tribute is more “lightning bolt” than it is “dancing bear” according to Queensbury, to whom CL speaks with here. (Ringside Café, St. Petersburg) INFO
Vanilla Ice w/DJ Skribble/Positive K/more It’s Memorial Day Weekend, and your television is coming to life on Clearwater Beach. Vanilla Ice (HGTV’s The Vanilla Ice Project) and DJ Skribble (MTV’s The Grind, Total Request Live, Spring Break) will be there at Shepard’s Beach Resort, and they’ll obviously be playing some music, too. (Shephard’s Beach Resort, Clearwater Beach) INFO
Old Bones w/Hand Out/Oxford Noland New Orleans “power emo” quartet Hand Out gets an assist from two local bands — alt-rock outfit Old Bones and St. Pete family band Oxford Noland — when it comes to Seminole Heights with a new EP, Blood & Water, in tow. Just $7 gets you in the door, and the good karma fairy will take a sparkly good luck shit on the hood of your car when you throw a little more cash at Hand Out during a visit to the T-shirt table. (Microgroove, Tampa) INFO
MARG MANAGEMENT
Here's when to see The Wallflowers, Fastball and more at Tampa Bay Margarita Festival
Tampa Bay Margarita Festival w/The Wallflowers/Plain White T’s/Everclear/Fastball/American Supermodel/Joshua Cruz/The Dives/Logan/Southern Train/Little Kintner Boys/DJ Fresh/moreWe’ve all done questionable things when jacked up on tequila. For many of us (don’t judge), that includes singing “One Headlight,” “Father of Mine,” “The Way,” and “Hey There Delilah” at the top of our lungs. Expect some of that, and dozens of different kinds of margalicious offerings, when the Tampa Bay Margarita Festival welcomes '90s and 2000s nostalgia acts (The Wallflowers and Plain White T’s on Saturday; Everclear and Fastball on Sunday) to the park where some great locals will play support, too. See details via cltampa.com/music or tampamargaritafest.com. (Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, Tampa) INFO
✔️ Jordan Esker & The Hundred Percent Album Release Show w/Blake Daniels/His Hem A harpist (His Hem) and promising St. Pete songwriter (Blake Daniel play support on this bill celebrating the release of Jordan Esker’s new, pristine collection of indie-pop. Read more about it to your right. (Paper Crane, St. Petersburg) C Vacancy w/Black Hole Kids/Twin Strike A bi-regional hard-rock Nor’easter is swirling through the ‘Burg on Saturday when Brooklyn posthardcore band Twin Strike (featuring drummer and former Bay area scene staple Troi Benjamin) blows in with Birmingham, Alabama’s crusty Black Hole Kids in tow. It’ll get plenty loud at the tattoo shop between these two bands, but a Tampa Bay a band of noise rock agitators, Vacancy, will be on hand to make sure everyone’s ears are ringing after this one. (Paper Crane, St. Petersburg) INFO
HAIL THAT FAIL
Tampa's Jordan Esker & The Hundred Percent embrace mistakes on new LP
✔️ Sunset Music Festival w/Marshmello/Rezz/Excision/Illenium/Nghtmre/Borgore/Destructo/Joyryde/A-Trak b2b Yehme2/Herobust/more Sunset Music Festival may have flubbed on its initial lineup announcement in March (the Chainsmokers were on the bill and then off of it), but don’t expect organizers to miss a beat on anything else when the two-day EDM festival takes over the north lot at Raymond James Stadium. The April addition of fan favorites Rezz and Illenium was a good choice, and the 2017 edition of Sunset was its safest yet (the 2016 event — headlined by the Chainsmokers, Jack U, and Hardwell — saw two attendees die after being rushed from the festival to the hospital). Don’t be surprised if some of the names on the SMF bill end up on after-parties at The Ritz in Ybor City, too. (Raymond James Stadium, Tampa) INFO
Alzate More than 325,000 Instagram followers can’t be wrong, and this Town & Country gig from Colombian music superstar Alzate (“Traicion,” “Ya Me Canse”) almost slipped under our noses. If you need more Colombian culture in your life, then save July 8 for a Colombiano festival. (Cuban Civic Club, Tampa) INFO
ALSO PLAYING
DJ
So What’cha Want? w/DJ Fader (Orbit 19, Holiday) INFO
Techyes x HK: Secret Stash w/Riva Starr/TBA (The Attic at Rock Brothers Brewing, Ybor City)
Tribute/Cover
Uncle John’s Band (The Ale & the Witch, St. Petersburg) INFO
Soul Circus Cowboys (Buckets Grill & Tap, Tampa) INFO
Autmn June (early) & Stonegrey (late) (3 Daughters Brewing, St. Petersburg) INFO
Eccentric (Two Buks, Clearwater) INFO
Singer-songwriter
Callaghan (The Attic at Rock Brothers Brewing, Ybor City) INFO
Shannon Labrie Trio (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin) INFO
Chris Harman (c. 1949 Florida Beer Garden, Tampa) INFO
Danielle Mohr (Living Room on Main, Dunedin) INFO
Rock
Oceanstone w/Katie Talbert & Oscar (Ruby’s Elixir, St. Petersburg) INFO
Shoeless Soul w/Noah Broe Band (Hideaway Café, St. Petersburg) INFO
WARLAB and Burn Me Alive's Video Kegger (Brass Mug, Tampa) INFO
Beachwolf (Cage Brewing, St. Petersburg) INFO
Jim Chambers Music Box Presents SPF 2018 w/Infinity On High/The Raine/Favorite Habit/Sick Hot (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa) INFO
Frenzied Passions w/The Bad Katz/Vomit Sawdust/Black Clash (Fubar, St. Petersburg) INFO
Jazz
Charlie Morris Band (Firehouse Cultural Center, Ruskin) INFO
Classical/Chorale
Florida Orchestra Pops: Patriotic Salute (Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg) INFO
EDM
Sunset Music Festival After Party w/Borgore (The Ritz, Ybor City) INFO
Funk
Beat Down Band w/DJ Sandman (Jazz House, Tampa) INFO
This article appears in May 24-31, 2018.

