Your daily breakdown of concert highlights for Wed., May 18.
Shakey Graves with Son Little The self-styled “gentleman from Texas” is more akin to an explosive force of nature and up until last year, Shakey Graves (the troubadour otherwise known as Alejandro Rose-Garcia) was a one-man band who paired nimble-fingered guitar work with gravelly Jameson-soaked vocals. He’s since brought a drummer to flesh out his raw folk-blues sound, but 2015 outing Nobody’s Fool finds him adding extra studio shine and inviting more musicians into the mix, though as far as I can tell, he’s still touring as a two-piece. Fine warm-up in fast-rising groove-soulful artist and frequent RJD2 collaborator Son Little, whose self-titled Anti- debut has been earning all manner of critical buzz. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
The Dear Hunter with O'Brother, Rare Futures The Dear Hunter is the ambitious prog rock project of multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Casey Crescenzo, who first assembled a band to bring life to his conceptual story – which follows the arc of a boy’s life from birth to death – over several albums. The latest one, Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise, is in its second LP pressing and spurs the current run of dates, with brooding, hard-grooving rockers O’Brother adding much value to the bill and arriving with their own 2016 third album in tow: Endless Light. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
ALSO TONIGHT
Uncle John’s Band Wed., May 18, Ale and the Witch, St. Petersburg
BBQ Wednesday Acoustic Series w/The Hummingbirds/Michael Snayd & Friends Wed., May 18, New World Brewery, Ybor City
This article appears in May 12-19, 2016.