It's a fatty stacked day of concerts on this Sat., Feb. 20. Take a look at the breakdown below...
Heartless Bastards with SUSTO, Gritt With fifth and latest full-length, Restless Ones, Cincinnati’s Heartless Bastards settle more firmly into the quartet lineup, ramping up the roots twang and dusty psychedelia without entirely abandoning their bread-and-butter blues-garage style. “Gates of Dawn” is a slow-burning rocker marked by a mix of acoustic and electric guitar tones, unexpected tempo shifts, and higher-toned backing choruses bringing bright balance to the low, stout vocal register of frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom. South Carolina country-Americana outfit SUSTO howls dark-themed odes about drinking, women, religion and … vampires? You betcha. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
Voivod with Vektor, Eight Bells With a name and lyrical themes based around a fictitious post-apocalyptic hero named “The Voivod,” the Canadian thrash-prog metal outfit shouts triumphant war chants as they sail into town on the verge of releasing a fresh EP, Post Society. Their otherworldly, psychedelic tendencies are grounded with plenty of crunch and grime, vocalist Denis “Snake” Belanger’s versatile groans acting as the glue tying all of the band’s disorienting elements together into a single galactic zephyr. (Orpheum, Ybor City) –Justin Croteau
Blackfire, Cities in Flight, Shae Krispinsky Gainesville natives Blackfire craft folk songs “guaranteed to make you dance in the street,” evoking a time of gypsies and saloons in a trio configuration: fiddle (Kassia Arbabi), cello (David Eriksen) and drums (Zach Randall). Their sound is as fun as it is unique. Blackfire is joined by a couple of locals – Cities in Flight, which blend elements of hardcore punk with prog rock, and melancholic garage-roots crooner Shae Krispinsky. This is a free show. (The Hub, downtown Tampa) –Leanne Castro
DNCE with Nathan Sykes DNCE is the recently-formed pop-rock project of Joe Jonas (yes, that Jonas); sticky-sweet disco-funking debut single “Cake by the Ocean” has already sold 500k copies, which just goes to show you that pop stardom goes a long way when you have a new band, even if you’re the often-overlooked middle brother. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)
Clearwater Sea-Blues Festival with Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings (Saturday), Beth Hart (Sunday) & many more It’s a bummer when next-gen soul bands like St. Paul & The Broken Bones and Sharon Jones (plus her Dap-Kings) pass over the Sunshine State. That won’t be happening this year when both land in Clearwater to play the Clearwater Sea-Blues Festival on Saturday. Jones and the Daps headline in support of 2014 insta-classic Give The People What They Want. The Bones (led by charismatic, banker-looking frontman Paul Janeway) warm the stage before them, currently hard at work on a follow-up to their own 2014 Billboard 200-charting LP, Half The City. Sunday has some heavy hitters in powerhouse vocalist Nikki Hill and LA blues-jazz songwriter Beth Hart, the latter fresh from releasing a single collab with Jeff Beck, "Tell Her You Belong To Me.” Rounding out the schedule is Davy Knowles, Patrick Sweany, KG & The Girls and Franc Robert on Saturday, and Flow Tribe, Grady Champion, Nate Currin and TC Carr & Bolts of Blue on Sunday. Admission is free. (Coachman Park, Clearwater) –Leilani Polk & Ray Roa
Ringside's Six Ring Circus Part Deux: A WMNF Benefit It’s a night jam-packed with heady, funk-heavy sounds when five high-quality local acts of diverse grooving persuasions – Displace, Flat Land, The Happy Campers, Future Vintage Band and Gator Wine – come together to perform in support of nonprofit community radio station WMNF, with the evening culminating in a “Teen Girl SquadSuper Jam” featuring members from each group. Doors open at 5 p.m., admission is a $10 donation, and Ringside will be contributing 15 percent of bar sales to the fundraising pot. (Ringside Café, St. Petersburg)
Bomb the Industry An evening of underground hip hop presented by Indigenous Ways and featuring performances by a fine selection of local emcees – ?nowledge, Matiks, Logic ForBeatz, Zace and Ol'Madness. (Pegasus Lounge, St. Petersburg)
The Pangaea Project No.63: Mark Hosler He’s one of the founders of San Francisco sound art collective Negativland, a musician and tape manipulator whose avant sound collages and plunderphonics (a technique of altering one or more existing audio recordings to create a new composition) are colorful and weird, kinda what might you might hear scoring a cartoon created by Aleister Crowley and executed by Robert Crumb. A fitting Venture headliner, indeed. (The Venture Compound, St. Petersburg)
MuteMath with Nothing But Thieves I loved MuteMath once. Odd Soul was one of my favorite albums of 2011 and since it was their third, I got real excited about its follow up. I can’t say I enjoyed their set at Gasparilla Music Fest last year – in fact, I was sorely disappointed – but perhaps by now, the alt rock band from New Orleans has a better grasp on how to assimilate their elder vintage psych and blues-garage material with the more synth-y dance-y pop they’ve adopted and laid to tape in 2015 full-length, Vitals. Keeping my fingers crossed. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
Shemekia Copeland with James Hunter Six She didn’t take home the Grammy win for Outskirts of Love, but I bet losing to Buddy Guy still felt pretty good for soulful blues vocalist Shemekia Copeland, who still enjoyed a mini-triumph in finally getting noticed and appreciated eight albums and 20 years deep into her career. Copeland – whose voice MOJO magazine once described as “part Koko Taylor, part Mavis Staples and capable of incredible expression” – comes to town in support of the Alligator Records LP. Rounding out the night's sounds is UK rhythm and blues sensations, The James Hunter Six. (Capitol Theatre, Clearwater)
Five Eight with Fistful Five Eight is an Athens, Ga.-area band that enjoyed some mild success in the ‘90s after touring with R.E.M. and churning out emotive, melody-drenched rock songs. They remain sporadically active – they don’t have a new LP out but did record and release a rather fine Hurricane Katrina-inspired Southern rock ode, “The Flood,” with Drive By Trucker Patterson Hood last year – and have a small but relentlessly loyal local following single-handedly spear-headed by New Granada, which hosts the quartet on this night behind. (New World Brewery, Ybor City)
ALSO TONIGHT
An Evening with Chris Mann (Jaeb Theater at Straz Center for Performing Arts, Tampa)
Pasco Music Festival w/Joey Dee & The Starliters /Lola & The Saints/Karen Kallin/Bill Castner (Pasco Rotary Pavilion at The Concourse, Shady Hills)
Runaway Gin - PHISH Tribute (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)
Markus Schultz (Amphitheater, Ybor City)
Coo Coo Ca Choo (Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg)
Lions After Dark/Kerry Courtney/Wd Han (Fubar, St. Petersburg)
The New Rulers/Badda Skat/I-Vibes (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin)
Sinister Circle/Busline 13/Bad Blood/Demented Truth/Robert Christenson (Brass Mug, Tampa)
The Cheaters (Hard Rock Café, Tampa)
Dropin Pickup w/Trigger City Trio (Ale and the Witch, St. Petersburg)
Sara Rose Band (Treasure Island Tap House, Treasure Island)
