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✔️ = Critic's Pick
✔️ Escape the Fate w/Slaves/Famous Last Words/Pictureesque/Set to Stun Tampa resident Evan Foley has been out on an extensive national tour with his post-hardcore outfit Famous Last Words, and although the group has been playing opener for Escape the Fate on the run, this gig on Foley's streets will feel like a homecoming headlining show. It's been two years since the band's last studio release, but the summer brought word that Famous Last Words is back in the studio with From First to Last lead singer Matt Good at the controls, so cross your fingers for any previews of that at the gig. (Orpheum, Ybor City) INFO
✔️ Nate Najar Album Release There’s a movement at the very beginning of “Nuages” on Nate Najar’s brand new album, Under Paris Skies, where lonesome bell mallets dance, step-for-step, with the Tampa Bay nylon-string guitarist’s stripped-back plucking. It’s a joy, and the Django Reinhardt tune is the moment when an album about the City of Lights becomes the best thing to happen to you that day. What follows is 40 more minutes where Najar — along with Tommy Cecil on bass and Matt Home on drums — takes you on a spirited, spry exploration of fine, French musical fare that sits to have a coffee with Serge Gainsbourg, France Gall, the aforementioned Reinhardt and more. At 11 tracks long, the effort feels like an easy conversation, and we’d love to have that talk with Najar over and over again. (Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg) INFO
4 WILLEM
Review: Caleborate finds a band, bares his soul at St. Pete’s Iberian Rooster (w/photos)
✔️ Caleborate In the six months since his Tampa Bay debut, Caleborate (a rising west coast rapper from the other Bay area) has seen support for his latest album (Real Person, released a year ago) grow exponentially while he’s watched a wholly authentic, slow-cooked brand of thoughtful hip-hop land him on some big festival stages (hello Outside Lands) and foreign runways (he spent part of the summer on tour in Europe). It’ll be hard to top seeing the 25-year-old backed by live band like he was during a four-song set in St. Pete in March, but a full slot at The Attic above Rock Brothers should give him more time to play a fully realized gig complimented by the talent that’s made him one of modern rap music’s criminally unsung heroes. (The Attic at Rock Brothers, Ybor City) INFO
The Toasters w/Maid of Ace/The Reality One of America’s original second-wave ska bands, The Toasters, brings its never-ending party to Crowbar where at least two generations of fans will skank along to songs from T-Time, Ska Killers or any one of the albums the group has released in its more than 30 years in action. U.K.-based sibling band Maid of Ace (featuring the Elliott sisters: Alison, Anna, Abby and Amy) opens the show. (Crowbar, Ybor City) INFO
✔️ Rock the Park w/Sun Signs/DEMO/Jack Sprouse Band of Sorrows frontman Jack Sprouse recently took home a Best of the Bay award for his songwriter’s meet-up at Ella’s, but on Thursday he takes up the opening slot on a Rock the Park bill that sees a visitor from Gainesville (DEMO, for fans of Joy Division, The Wipers or Sonic Youth) and one of Tampa’s own (Sun Signs, playing in support of a brand new release, Hopeless Dope Fiend) handle the heavy lifting at the end of the show. Free to attend, early, plus kid and pet-friendly, too. Bring your own picnic and pick up and extra piece of trash when you pack up. (Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, Tampa) INFO
Paper Ceilings w/Run-On Sunshine/Deb Ruby Run-On Sunshine queues up its special brand of lo-fi twee pop in preparation for a visit from St. Louis, Missouri rock band Paper Ceilings and Montreal-originating songwriter Deb Ruby, who is currently nestled up in the Sunshine City. Show starts (7 p.m.) and ends (9 p.m.) early, so plan accordingly. (Black Crow Coffee, St. Petersburg) INFO
ALSO PLAYING
Lil Gnar w/Germ (Transitions Art Gallery at Skatepark of Tampa, Tampa) CANCELED
USF Symphonic Band: Old Made New (School of Music Concert Hall at University of South Florida, Tampa) INFO
This article appears in Oct 4-11, 2018.