A very abridged list of upcoming music happenings, to be continued in every issue
It’s great to be outside and breathing in the fresh Spring air, and even better with our longtime friends The Wolff Sisters supplying the soundtrack. With so many shows to hit in order to make up for missing more than a year of club and bar nights, you will likely be spending lots of time around the Fenway area, in which case you will want to throw their new single “Boston Town” in your buds.
And while you’re thrashing westward from Kenmore to Allston live in the flesh for a change, you can check up on the progress of Roadrunner, the latest venue from The Bowery Presents. Located on Guest Street in Allston by the Warrior Ice Arena, the 50,000 square-foot space is currently under construction, and will “have a scalable capacity of up to 3,500” to make it “New England’s largest general admission indoor music venue.”
We know, there’s still some delayed gratification; it’s still May, and we’re busy grabbing tickets for the fall (and even winter in a couple of cases!). Still, it’s important to get plans in place ASAP, and that’s why we’re already looking at Boston Dance Theatre’s ICA performances in late-October (ticket sale date TBA), as well as The Hot Sardines among others in December at the Berklee Performance Center. That eight-piece outfit’s pledge: to “effortlessly channel New York speakeasies, Parisian cabarets, and New Orleans jazz halls to transform songs from past eras into pop music for the current century.” Now that sounds exactly like what we were hoping the post-COVID doctor would prescribe.
We’re still waiting for venue schedules to update now that there are stage lights at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but in the meantime we are eyeing tixx for: Ministry and Helmet at the House of Blues; Local H, Faye Webster, Osees, and so many damn others at the Sinclair; Moon Taxi and Andrew W.K. at Royale in September. Hopefully our ears will have recovered from the latter by mid-November, when City Winery will host Virginia jazz phenom Yasmin Williams in its lounge. Before that, they’re hosting Boston comic legend Lenny Clarke on June 18 and retro-soul singer Nick Waterhouse on Aug. 16.
And whether you love, loathe, or have never heard of them, it wouldn’t be a proper summer show roundup without a mention of Dead & Company, currently comprising Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir, and that John Mayer guy, with help from Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti. They’ll be in Mansfield at the Xfinity Center at the beginning of September, and we wish you the best of luck securing tickets.
Dig Staff means this article was a collaborative effort. Teamwork, as we like to call it.
