If your main squeeze is into indie rock, for instance, you could attend gigs by Neko Case, Pedro the Lion, or Gregory Alan Isakov. If they’re country fans, old-school crooners the Oak Ridge Boys and new-school star (and newly minted Grammy winner) Kacey Musgraves will both be in concert this week, too.
Other options include performances by KISS, Chicago, Keller Williams, and The Bad Plus.
Details about all of these gigs can be found below in our list of the best shows happening in the Valley this weekend. And for even more live music happening around the Valley, hit up Phoenix New Times' online concert calendar.
The Bad Plus
Tuesday, February 12
Musical Instrument Museum
Celebrated American jazz trio The Bad Plus know no limits when it comes to taking on a variety of sounds, styles,
Which brings us to It’s Hard, 2016's collection of covers — or as King calls them, “deconstructions” of other people’s music. Before that, he says, “We hadn’t arranged a pop song for the three of us in 10 years.”
The Bad Plus first showed up on the national radar in the early 2000s, thanks to their off-kilter takes on songs by giants like ABBA, Black Sabbath, Nirvana, Blondie,
In the ensuing years, the band laid low by playing more traditional songs and original compositions. But with It’s Hard, says King, “We were like, ‘Let’s weigh in again now that it’s far less controversial than when we first did it.’” Ben Salmon
Gregory Alan Isakov
Tuesday, February 12
The Van Buren
On first listen, with the banjo fills and fiddle and rare, low-mixed gasps of drums, it would be easy to dismiss Gregory Alan Isakov's music as folk songs played through a Valencia Instagram filter. But Isakov's is the sort of mournful, pensive music suited for rainy days and worthy of repeated listening. Born in South Africa, Isakov moved to Pennsylvania and ended up in Colorado, where he established himself as a first-rate singer-songwriter. Part of his success comes from his tremendous stage presence. Quiet, often hunched slightly, Isakov approaches the microphone with his guitar and begins singing in his smoky baritone, somehow commanding the undivided attention of every person in the audience. Few singer-songwriters can own a crowd
Chicago
Tuesday, February 12
Celebrity Theatre
"We've come too far to leave it all behind," crooned Chicago's former bassist Peter Cetera. Those lyrics, from the 1977 hit "If You Leave Me Now," are still relevant for a band that's sold more than 100 million albums in a career spanning more than 50 years.
Chicago is one of the first bands to incorporate brass as an essential element of
Despite the fact that it's been five years since their last album of all-new material, the predictably dubbed Chicago XXXVI, the band's trajectory has continued practically unimpeded. The loss of co-founder and guitarist Terry Kath to a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1978 and the departure of Cetera in 1985 created momentary crises. But with four original members still in the fold and several newer recruits, Chicago remains as vibrant and invigorated as ever. Lee Zimmerman
Pedro the Lion
Wednesday, February 13
Crescent Ballroom
Did you know that Pedro the Lion lead singer David Bazan is a Phoenix native? The indie rocker lived in the Valley for the first 13 years of his life, and as he elucidates in a recent interview with Phoenix New Times, he's got a lot of conflicted feelings about the place. He's put some of that into the latest Pedro record, Phoenix, the first in a series of five albums that marks the end of a lengthy hiatus for the project. Pedro will stage a homecoming show at Crescent Ballroom in February, bringing Tomberlin along for the ride. Douglas Markowitz
KISS
Wednesday, February 13
Gila River Arena in Glendale
Legendary rock band KISS
Famed for their extreme staging, pyrotechnics, heavy metal costuming, and the distinctive black and white face paint
The current lineup of KISS features Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer replacing Frehley and Criss, who left the band years ago. Douglas Markowitz
Oak Ridge Boys
Wednesday, February 13
Higley Center for the Performing Arts in Gilbert
The Oak Ridge Boys took their name from a Tennessee town best known for the Manhattan Project. What started as a gospel quartet evolved into a Grammy-winning sensation that rode the pop culture wave of southern accents that briefly dominated the terrestrial radio waves in the 1970s. But no matter how many goofy cracks can be made about The Oak Ridge Boys, ultimately they're a band that recorded with Johnny
Kacey Musgraves
Wednesday, February 13
The Van Buren
Kacey Musgraves’ reputation for delivering a classic country sound rife with progressive lyrics
Neko Case
Thursday, February 14
The Van Buren
Neko Case knows how to twist and turn a phrase to make her lyrics sparkle and crackle, conjuring tender, fading memories and gossamer dreams in listeners’ minds. A sonic storyteller for more than 20 years as a member of Canadian indie rockers The New Pornographers, Case’s work with the Pornographers, with her band (Her Boyfriends) and as a solo artist has firmly established her as indie rock royalty. Released in June, Case’s self-produced Hell-On is her eighth studio album and seventh solo LP. In 2016, she teamed up with k.d. lang and Laura Veirs for case/lang/
Keller Williams
Thursday, February 14
Crescent Ballroom
According to Harry Nilsson, one is the loneliest number. But for singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Keller Williams, one is more than enough. Unlike one-man bands of old, Williams doesn't have cymbals on his knees, horns under his arms, taps on his toes, or a drum on his back. Rather, Williams has propelled the art of the solo performer into the modern age with the help of electronic effects. Williams' weapon of mass construction is the sequencer. Mastering what he calls "live phrase sampling," looping and delay effects allow Williams to harness a snippet of sound and, with the touch of a button, put that sound into a looped rotation. He then works around that sample, layering on more guitar, bass lines, keyboards, and drums, slowly building each song's foundation, all the while singing over the top. The result is a cacophony of sound that is far beyond what one man should normally be capable of creating – to the point that one naturally assumes there's a whole band backing him. Glenn BurnSilver
Joshua Bell
Thursday, February 14
Mesa Arts Center
Never play Six Degrees with Joshua Bell. He's got us all beat. Not only has he performed with just about every contemporary classical artist there is out there