This Saturday is jam-packed with all manner of live music happenings. Take your pick below...
97X Next Big Thing with Fall Out Boy, alt-J, New Politics, Young The Giant, Big Data, J. Roddy Walston and The Business, Dirty Heads, Bear Hands, Young Rising Sons It’s hard to look at the lineup of 97X’s 14th annual end-of-the-year musical blow-out and not be impressed with how thoroughly the FM station has managed to covered all of its alt rock touchstones while bringing bands with one or more hits on its channel to the Vinoy Park stage. Bombastic arena rocking chart-topping Fall Out Boy leads the fray supported by, among others, idiosyncratic melody-drenched Brit invasion art rock outfit alt-J, post-punk/New Wave-hued experimental rockers Bear Hands, electro groove-vibing twosome Big Data, reggae swaying hip hop-bumping crooners Dirty Heads, and howling and stomping piano-fueled Southern-fried J. Roddy Walston and the Business. (Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg)
Shoebox Christmas Benefit IV with Abortion Twins, Bargain Bin Heroes, Buck-o-Weens, Camel Cult, Counted Out, Dead Cat Lounge, Doll Parts, Mosquito Teeth, Slade and the Wasters & more A 13-plus band lineup of punk-heavy sounds with hardcore, thrash, horror, twang and ska flavors thrown into the mix. Admission is $5, or free with a shoebox full of donated gifts, toys, school supplies or other kid-friendly gear. Look out for Drunken Ahole Santa – I hear he’s giving out sticks of coal. (Octave, St. Petersburg)
Emma’s Revolution The progressive acoustic folk duo made up of Pat Humphries and Sandy O had close ties with Pete Seeger; Humphries was with the family when he passed and was inspired to write a tribute to her hero about how his words, music and activism impacted her forever. Emma’s Revolution will likely deliver the new tune, “Sing People Sing,” on this night. (Craftsmen House, St. Petersburg)
DEATH DTA with Obituary, Massacre, Rivers of Nihil Death was an influential death metal act from Central Florida that came to an end with the tragic demise of lead singer/guitarist Chuck Schuldiner in 2001. In 2012, former members of the band in partnership with his family put together a “Death to All” benefit tour to pay tribute to Schuldiner and raise funds for a charity in his honor. Death DTA has been revived a few times since, including this latest incarnation for “Swamp Leper Stomp ’14, which consists of Death formers Sean Reinert (drums), Steve DiGiorgio (bass) and Bobby Koelble (guitar) joined by guitarist Max Phelps on vocals. The rather ominous-sounding lineup is co-headlined by another seminal death metal act from Florida, Tampa’s own Obituary. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
5th Annual Hip Hop Against Hunger Benefit Show The Villanz, Queen of Ex, Mike Mass, Groovefist, Sinister Six DJs, Rahim Samad, Logic ForBeatz, ?nowledge, and Inspired Beyond Group gather for the fifth edition of the hip hop charity concert, which changes venues, shifts to a more family-friendly daytime slot (2-8 p.m.) and benefits local nonprofit Homeless Emergency Project. Read more about Hip Hop Against Hunger and the emcee putting it on here. (Green Gators, Tampa)
Paul Thorn Band with Beth McKee His songwriting has been fueled by his own experiences in past LPs, but in his statement about 2014 full-length Too Blessed to Be Stressed, Paul Thorn claimed, “I’ve written 10 songs that express more universal truths, and I’ve done it with a purpose: to make people feel good.” Thorn’s rust-coated vocals wax on anything from avoiding life’s pitfalls (“Don’t Let Nobody Rob You of Your Joy”), to embracing the optimistic axiom of the title track, to appreciating life’s simple joys (“Everything Is Gonna Be All Right”), all of it dosed with warm, gospel-tinged funkiness, bluesy sway and roots rock twang. Thorn is a favorite of ‘MNF and for his latest Skipperdome stop, he plays twice – a solo acoustic set followed by a full-band performance. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)
SPoT 22-Year Anniversary Party with Arctic, Set and Setting, DEA & Saint The mayhem was magnificent at Ty Segall’s once-in-a-lifetime show at Skatepark of Tampa, and it looks like the beloved warehouse is going for something of an encore when it celebrates its 22nd anniversary. The show — headlined by Arctic, a psych-sludge-metal-band fronted by professional skateboarder Justin Figueroa — is part of SPoT’s infamous Tampa Am weekend, when skaters from around the world converge on the park in the hopes to win one of the world’s most prestigious amateur skateboarding competitions. St. Pete post-rockers Set and Setting plays support, as does hip hop outfit DEA & Saint. (Skatepark of Tampa, Tampa) –Ray Roa
Bourbon & Brew Festival with Craig Campbell, Dean Alexander, Southern Train Band, Heather Lucas, The Logan Grant Band, DJ Lasage Georgia-spawned “Outta My Head” and “Keep Them Kisses Comin’” country singer Craig Campbell heads up the bill of hard-drawling musical talent at the second annual Bourbon & Brew Festival, which serves up multiple brands of bourbon, scotch and whiskey to the boot-scooting ye-hawing local denizen. (The Heights Waterfront, downtown Tampa)
Jobsite Rocks! with Funny Bunny The Straz Center’s resident theater company and multiple Best of the Bay winner Jobsite Theater stages its annual end-of-the-year rock n’ roll wrap party/fundraiser, and brings on another BOTB favorite, Funny Bunny, to headline the festivities with their avant/psych rock-outs and New Wave/post-punk swagger. (New World Brewery, Ybor City)
HIPHOPALOOZA 2 with Synergy In A Cup, Mickey Spixx, Gatsby, Local Muzik, Jinx, Queen Of Ex, Bangarang, Jerrica Cabrera, Perception, Velcro Straps, Lb Legalize, Malcolm Hexx, Kyle Fl Owen, Double A, Chester Watson, Etiennie Rogue, Shawn Boland, The Real Clash, DJ Qeys & Wally Clark Enjoy a broad scope of superlative local hip hop scene talent at HIPHOPALOOZA 2. The party is jam-packed with non-stop performances by acts ranging from rising emcee Gatsby, who just issued a new album with dramatic vintage production, #starshipJERICHO, that CL Contributor Ray Roa has lauded as one of the year’s best, to the more abstract tripped-out spliced-and-glitched production quality backing Chester Watson’s deep thinking streams-of-consciousness, to the full-band onslaught of The Real Clash. The best part? HIPHOPALOOZA 2 starts late enough that you can drop by after doing your charitable duty (and checking out some other solid Bay area acts) at Hip Hop Against Hunger. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
Mediaeval Baebes Christmas Six female vocalists from the UK weave their honeyed pipings together in bright, pure-spun harmonies as The Mediaeval Babes, their repertoire a combination of mediaeval songs and their own original compositions created from period text and accompanied by arrangements incorporating ancient lyres, violas da gamba, cittern, musical saw and other traditional and elder folk instrumentation. This tour backs a Christmas album, Of Kings & Angels, and the setlists are similarly 13th century-seasonal with better known carols such as “We Three Kings” scattered amid lesser-known gems like “The Good King Wenceslas” and “The Holly and the Ivy.” (Ferguson Hall at Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Tampa)
Click HERE to check out more events for today and the next week.
