Saba, who plays Crowbar in Ybor City, Florida on April 21, 2018. Credit: Bryan Allen Lamb/Courtesy of the artist

✔️ = Critic’s Pick

✔️ Record Store Day In its 11th year, Record Store day has become a full-on daylong celebration of independent retail. There are lots of exclusive releases available, but CL has compiled a list of local pickups in our new issue on stands Thursday. Head to here to get details on all the concerts and happenings scheduled to go down at various shops on Saturday. INFO

RECORD STORE DAY 2018
These are the Bay area celebrations you’re looking for

John McEuen & Friends Classic rock figurehead John McCuen is joined by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band-mates Les Thompson and John Cable (plus Matt Cartsonis) in Largo as he revisits the old-school country rock band’s more-than-50-year-old catalog. Expect some stuff from McCuen’s latest solo album Made in Brooklyn — released in 2016 via Chesky Records — as well as a slideshow featuring archival footage from NGDB’s heyday. (Central Park Performing Arts Center, Largo) INFO

Bad Ass Beerfest w/Oak Hay/Greg White Jr. Beer is the star at this one (more than 60 breweries will tap their wares on Sunday), but country rocker Greg White Jr. and Fil Pate’s Clearwater folk-grass trio Oak Hay will be pickin’ and singing for four hours while the Westchase crowd at TBBC’s east Tampa location looks and listens on. (Tampa Bay Brewing Co., Tampa) INFO

WHAT THE FUCK IS ZOOGMA GONNA DO NOW
Review: Zoogma says farewell to Florida with pre-Brainquility set at Crowbar (w/photos)

✔️ Brainquility Music Festival w/Beats Antique/Lettuce/Tauk/Voodoo Visionary/MZG/Side Trakd “Tranquil” is a nearly perfect word to describe the setting at Safety Harbor’s Waterfront Park, so the moniker fits as the new Brainquility Festival brings a heady lineup of jamtronic acts, funk bands and DJs to the sleepy small town. Last week’s Ybor City pre-party featured Gainesville producer Side Trackd, and folks who don’t get to see him (or fellow Brainquility artist MZG) at the festival proper can still catch a set at the official after-party happening exactly one mile away at Crooked Thumb Brewery. (Waterfront Park, Safety Harbor) INFO

✔️ Nightwish Nightwish is what happens when a classically-trained opera vocalist fronts a metal-nerd’s acoustic project. Nightwish eventually adopted full-band instrumentation, which attracted the attention of Spinefarm records in the late ‘90s, and the rest has been history for this long-running, universally loved Finnish goth-metal band. The group is celebrating 20 years of gorgeous symphonic sounds at this one, so expect to hear lot from its 1998 album Oceanborn as well as a healthy selection of cuts from Nightwish’s epic eight-piece discography. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg) INFO

Kenny Chesney w/Old Dominion/Brandon Lay Kenny Chesney’s optimistic new song, “Get Along,” is a simplistic ode to altruism that’ll go over well with fans (watch out for broken beer bottles at the tailgate, No Shoes Nation!). The cut should also go over well at Ray Jay, where the 50-year-old country megastar is kicking off his extensive and expansive summer tour (Pollstar says that it takes a traveling staff of 133 plus hundreds more in local crews to set up the the stage — which weighs 360,000 pounds — and that the production requires 28 trucks, 19 buses, and 60,000 to 80,000 square feet of flooring to protect stadium fields). (Raymond James Stadium, Tampa) INFO

✔️ Postmodern Jukebox Not quite sure what took so long, but Postmodern Jukebox finally put out a live album. The New Classics (released last fall) is the companion piece to a PBS special taped live in Las Vegas, and the Tampa Theatre is the perfect place to watch the group’s vintage takes on contemporary songs (think Bruno Mars backed by a big band) come to life, whether it’s your first, second or 15th time seeing the band. “It’s one thing to be in your living room and making videos, but to interact with both the cast and the audience really makes our music come to life,” bandleader Scott Bradlee said. “This first live album is not only representative of our work, but it’s completely unique in the sense that if you’re new to PMJ, you’ll love it for exposing you to an amazing new universe, and if you’ve been part of our community for years, you’ll relive that night when you first saw us.” (Tampa Theatre, Tampa) INFO

Tampa Skate & Art Festival w/Famous Dex/6ix9ine Dexter Gore Jr.’s mother died in 2014, and that pushed the 24-year-old Chicago rapper into music full-time. The effort hasn’t been in vain. His big single, “Pick It Up” broke the Billboard Hot 100 last year, and on Sunday he’ll be in the Channel District to headline the new-to-us Tampa Skate & Art Festival. What’s kind of head-scratching on this bill is the addition of Brooklyn’s Daniel Hernandez (aka 6ix9ine) whose rise to fame has been plagued by a rap sheet (Hernandez was booked on three felony counts on use of a child in a sexual performance when he was 18 years old), an Instagram fake death hoax and a January 2018 accusation that Hernandez choked out a fan during a shopping mall altercation. (Aja Channelside, Tampa) INFO

Have Gun, Will Travel w/Joshua Reilly/The Florida Mountain Boys The Ale & The Witch almost slipped this knockout bill under our radar, and we’re glad to see a agenda of bluegrass, strong singer-songwriter material and always-rollicking Americana come to life at one of downtown St. Pete’s most laid-back places to catch a free show. (The Ale & The Witch, St. Petersburg) INFO

✔️ Saba w/Joseph Chilliams Saba sits in the footnotes of some of Chance The Rapper’s most important music (listen to “Angels”), and on Sunday the 23-year-old who’s been playing piano since the age of 10 gets to shine in the headlining slot in support of his brand new album, CARE FOR ME, for which Saba (real name Tahj Malik Chandler) has channeled teenage grief and heartache into a work that could be one of 2018’s best hip-hop albums. Another charming Windy City emcee — Joseph Chilliams — opens the show. (Crowbar, Ybor City) INFO

ALSO PLAYING

EDM

Party Thieves (The Ritz, Ybor City) INFO

The Official Brainquility After Party w/MZG/Side Trakd (Crooked Thumb Brewery, Safety Harbor) INFO

Acoustic/Singer-songwriter/Folk

Sean Holcomb (3 Daughters Brewing, St. Petersburg) INFO

St. Pete Artworks Fashion Show w/Payne-Taylors (St. Pete Artworks, St. Petersburg) INFO

Folk Music Showcase (Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, St. Petersburg) INFO

J.T. Brown w/Mountain Holler (The Attic at Rock Brothers Brewing, Ybor City) INFO

Tyler Costanzo (c. 1949 Florida Beer Garden, Tampa) INFO

Classical

The Florida Orchestra: From Rags to Mozart (Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg) INFO

Hip-hop

Domosauraus Rex w/Pharoah/Tommy Burnz/BH Monte/Ike Royal/more (Pegasus Lounge, Tampa) INFO

Rock

All-American Rejects (Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival, Tampa) INFO

Fiendish Birthday Bash (Brass Mug, Tampa) INFO

Longfinger, Oxmoore, and Hexproof (Cage Brewing, St. Petersburg) INFO

Modest Mouse (St. Augustine Amphitheatre, St. Augustine) INFO

Reggae/Funk

Ellis Jay w/Regina Riddim (The Blue Note, Tampa) INFO

Future Vintage (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin) INFO

DJ Kiger (SubCentral At The Iberian Rooster, St. Petersburg) INFO

BYOV w/DJ Dark Fader (Mermaid Tavern, Tampa) INFO

Blues

Tampa Bay Seafood and Music Festival w/Sarasota Steel Pan Band/Reverend Barry and the Funk/RJ Howson/Twinkle and Rock Soul Radio/Kettle of Fish/Greg Billings Band/The Black Honkeys/Act 3 (Curtis Hixon Park, Tampa) INFO

Backwater Blues Band (The Wild Rover Brewery, Tampa) INFO

Walter Trout w/RJ Howson (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa) INFO

Bad Boy Elroy (Ka’Tiki, Treasure Island) INFO

Musical comedy

Stephen Lynch (Capitol Theatre, Clearwater) INFO

World

Gypsy Star (Firehouse Cultural Center, Ruskin) INFO

Chorale/Classical

Amelia Foundation Benefit Concert (Redemption Church, Dade City) INFO

Florida Orchestra Presents Verdi’s Requiem (Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg) INFO

Tribute/Cover

Johnny Charo Dance Band (Buckets Grill & Tap, Tampa) INFO