THURSDAY, NOV. 10
GOV'T MULE Allman Brothers alum Warren Haynes has kept this rootsy, rocking power trio going through 10 years, 10 albums and countless road shows and festival appearances, despite the tragic death of fellow Allman player and Mule co-founder Allen Woody in 2000. The group has become a jam-scene favorite in recent years, but still provides enough muscle to satisfy old-school Southern rock die-hards. (Tampa Theatre, Tampa)
KAYO DOT/SHED FOR YOU/ASTHMA ATTAQ/FLYING SNAKES! Boston octet Kayo Dot ups the ante on avant-punk skronk/grind by (a) employing contemporary post-jazz/classical compositional techniques; (b) having six more members than your average all-ages freakout act; and (c) enjoying John Zorn's blessing via a berth on his Tzadik label. Safety Harbor's blitzkrieg Shed for You; the arty, metallicious Aestheticized favorites Asthma Attaq; and the sludgy, screamy Flying Snakes! open up. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
FRIDAY, NOV. 11
ROBERTA FLACK Flack's sophisticated, understated vocal style has graced all manner of R&B tunes since the late '60s (including a 1991 duet with Maxi Priest called "Set The Night to Music"), but it's her string of '70s hits — including "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," "Killing Me Softly with His Song," and "Feel Like Makin' Love" — for which she's best known. (Lakeland Center, Lakeland)
THRICE w/UNDEROATH/THE BLED/VEDA You should like California posthardcore unit Thrice. You should like them because they give a portion of the profits from every album to charity. The band's new record, Vheissu, benefits the San Francisco-based nonprofit educational program 826 Valencia. You should like them because they're not afraid to evolve; Vheissu is an amazing, ambitious piece of work. But mostly, you should like them because they're more adept, inventive and compelling than almost any other act garnering FM airplay under the emo banner. Central Florida favorite Underoath provides able support, as do Tucson's visceral The Bled and Kansas City's mellower, female-fronted Veda. (Ford Ampitheatre, Tampa)
RIBFEST '05 Everybody's favorite annual three-day cavalcade of smoked meats is back. And yeah, we rip on RibFest's music lineups from time to time, but come on — you can't expect us to endorse one-fourth of the original Grand Funk Railroad and Beatlemania and be able to sleep at night. This year's got some goods, however (an encore performance by Night fucking Ranger!), as well as more local talent than ever on the South Stage, so we'll just list the schedule, and suggest you show up hungry. For more information, visit www.ribfest.org.
Feast your ears on this:
Fri., Nov. 11: David Lee Roth/The New Tropics/The Dennis Lee Show (Front Stage); Nonpoint/Burn Season/Black Maria/Urban Gypsies (South Stage)
Sat., Nov. 12: Dickey Betts & Great Southern/Gator Country (feat. members of Molly Hatchet)/Night Ranger/Little Feat (Front Stage); Socialburn/Soulfound/Cuban Sandwich Crisis/Trick Shot (South Stage)
Sun., Nov. 13: Foreigner/Santana's Gregg Rolie/Honey Tribe Feat. Devon Allman (Front Stage); Lennon/Blue Wail/Heatseeker (South Stage)
SATURDAY, NOV. 12
MATCHBOOK ROMANCE/ARMOR FOR SLEEP/LOVEDRUG All right kids, listen up: if you show up at the usual time this Saturday, YOU ARE GOING TO MISS THE GIG, and end up scratching your heads while listening to metal (see below). THIS MATINEE BEGINS AT 5 P.M. This bill showcases three up-and-coming purveyors of various nü-punk styles. Expect the poppy-but-weighty Armor For Sleep, a band that's sold a jaw-dropping 100,000-plus copies of its latest Equal Vision release What to Do When You Are Dead, to steal the show. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
OPETH/NEVERMORE/INTO ETERNITY And here's the second half of the State's Saturday-night Double Header: symphonic, atmospheric Swedish dark-metal unit Opeth; Seattle power-metal revivalists Nevermore; and long-running prog-thrash outfit Into Eternity. This fearsome schedule was originally booked into the Seminole rock club Boomerz Boiler Room, but management shakeups over there have apparently left some national tour dates in limbo. Show starts at 9 p.m. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
THE HONORARY TITLE/WAKING ASHLAND/I AM THE AVALANCHE/KOUFAX You can call it the kindler, gentler side of emo, but what these groups are really doing boils down to returning to traditional elements of pop and power-pop, and making them their own. The Honorary Title improves on Dashboard Confessional's original quiet, youth-centric style by adding some Jeff Buckley-esque poetic sophistication. Waking Ashland scores a John Hughes movie for adults. I Am The Avalanche works snotty, roughed-up OK GO-esque fuzz-tones. And Koufax used to do some fine Joe Jackson- and Elvis Costello-influenced piano-driven pop, but its latest album, Hard Times Are in Fashion, takes itself far too seriously to be any fun. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
JUST SURRENDER/DAYS LIKE THESE/PAINT BY NUMBERS Poughkeepsie's Just Surrender just got off the road with The Juliana Theory, and its taut, utterly formulaic angst-pop/emo sound is more than ready for its seven-and-a-half minutes of fame. (There are so many bands like this, we're only giving them half of the usual 15.) Go crazy, my little Hot Topic shoppers. New Jersey's Days Like These is a little more inventive and cinematic, and while Portland, Oregon's Paint by Numbers occasionally gets up to some interesting guitar work, the band is far too accurately named for its own good. (688 Skatepark, Clearwater)
SUNDAY, NOV. 13
HATEBREED/MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD/FULL BLOWN CHAOS/IF HOPE DIES/MANNTIS Ready to get your "bro" on? Hatebreed brought metalcore to the masses almost single-handedly, and continues to be one of the most consistently satisfying no-frills groove-and-shout outfits around. Expect similarly jagged, brutal riffage from the rest of this full bill, but know in advance that Most Precious Blood features former members of Indecision and updates the New York Hardcore sound fairly adeptly, and also that Full Blown Chaos sounds like a Pantera tribute band. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
MURDER BY DEATH/THE LIFE AND TIMES/WILLIAM ELLIOTT WHITMORE Now this is what we like to see — an extremely stylistically diverse bill, full of original acts that also happen to be really fucking good. Hailing from Indiana, the misleadingly monikered Murder by Death isn't some kill-you-girlfriend screamo band, but rather an interesting, evocative ensemble that employs eccentric instrumentation and electronic embellishment alike to wonderfully baroque effect. The Life and Times is former Shiner principal Allen Epley's current project, and it sounds a whole lot, but not too much, like Burning Airlines. As for William Elliott Whitmore, well, he's a roots/Americana/olde-tyme-prarie-music singer-songwriter who pretty much rules — check out the Music Feature on page 53 for more on that dude. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
CLOTHING OPTIONAL HURRICANE BENEFIT West Central Florida's four biggest nudist resorts (hell, for all I know, they could be the only ones) band together to raise some money for victims of Hurricane Katrina and Rita. Lake Como, Paradise Lakes, Caliente Resort and Gulf Coast are all in it together, though the shindig — which begins at noon and in no way requires you to be naked (but you can if you want) — is going down at Lake Como, 20500 Cot Road, Lutz. Music is provided by Carlo; Stone's Throw; Miles Jones; Mike Vreeland; Jerry and Fran Brown; Nunes at Night; Fred and Belkis; and Deb Bowen. For more information, check out www.lakecomoresort.com. (Lake Como Resort, Lutz)
TUESDAY, NOV. 15
JEN CHAPIN The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's new, intimate Club Jaeb series continues with a performance by singer-songwriter Jen Chapin. She's Harry Chapin's spawn, but has refined her own eclectic, blues-meets-lounge-diva vocal style, and a lyrical bent that mixes the personal with the political. (Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa)
THE BILLS W/SMALL POTATOES Canadian roots/folk/R&B outfit The Bills is a critically hailed, Juno Award-nominated festival favorite. The band's first album available in the U.S., Let 'Em Run, was put out by noted Minnesota roots-music label Red House. Small Potatoes are a his-and-hers folk duo hailing from Chicago; they'll also be playing an afternoon (1 p.m.) show at Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa's UU Dome the following day, Wednesday, Nov. 16. (Skipper's Smokehouse, Tampa)
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16
U2 The world's biggest rock band returned from an extended trip to The Faraway Land of Self-Involved Ironic Pretension back in 2000 with All That You Can't Leave Behind, and since then has recaptured the mainstream's heart while simultaneously selling an assload of iPods. 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb continued the quartet's renewed love affair with the rock and the roll — so much so that rumors continue to swirl about several of the album's songs being ghostwritten by newer, hipper craftsmen like Oasis' Neil Gallagher and The Hives', uh, whatever the hell his name is. I would personally love it if everyone in the first 30 rows were to bring and wear dark wraparound shades. (St. Pete Times Forum, Tampa)
HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS/SILVERSTEIN/BAYSIDE/AIDEN We'll save the snarky stuff about Hawthorne Heights sounding just like Taking Back Sunday and Silverstein sounding like everyone else in emo, and get to the important stuff: Last week, while on the road, veteran punk outfit Bayside was involved in a horrific accident that claimed the life of drummer John Holohan and seriously injured bassist Nick Ghanbarian and members of the band's crew. Tonight marks the return of guitarist/vocalist Anthony Raneri and guitarist Jack O'Shea to the tour, which they'll finish out as an acoustic duo in honor of their bandmates. I know a lot of Bay area fans are friends with and have supported Bayside over the last five years — they've come through the State and Jannus a million times — so please come out tonight and help these guys through the hardest time in their lives. (Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg)
RICHIE HAVENS A product of the fertile '60s Greenwich Village folk/protest scene, Havens first came to national attention at Woodstock, where he opened the show with a three-hour set while all the other artists were still trying to get to the damn show. You might not have known that (or that he devised his own open-tuning style of play), but I'll bet you know his version of "Here Comes The Sun." (Largo Cultural Center, Largo)
GROOVIE GHOULIES The Ghoulies have been a theatrical, entertaining punk-club staple for almost 15 years, and can still write an infectious bubblegum-punk song better than just about anybody, except maybe The Ramones or Joe Queer. As for The Helper Monkeys, we don't know anything about 'em. Except the name, and that should be enough to get you to go — they're The Helper Monkeys, for Chrissakes. (Top 5 Records, Tampa)
METRIC/DEATH OF THE PARTY/THE LOVELY FEATHERS Metric is a female-fronted Canadian outfit that does this killer mix of angular post-garage rock and bruised-but-sexy New Wave. The group's latest effort, Live It Out, is a bit gimmicky but rad nonetheless. Death of the Party hails from New York and rocks a weird, wonderful blend of garage-rock, boogie-woogie piano and big country-music melodies, while Canucks The Lovely Feathers do a skewed, hyped-up take on '50s doo-wop and show tunes, sort of. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2005.