The 10 Best Concerts in Phoenix This Weekend

Heads up Phoenix, it’s going to be a weekend of big names and big concerts. Legends like Shakira, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, and Rod Stewart will invade arenas and other enormous music venues over the next three nights, each likely to provide a memorable experience.

They aren’t the only notable names performing in the Valley this weekend as artists like Yelawolf, Flynt Flossy, and David Lowery (of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven fame) will also be in town.

Meanwhile, the fall music festival season will kick off (more or less) down in Chandler on Saturday night during the latest Bassrush Massive Arizona.

Details about each of these gigs can be found below. And for even more live music happening around the Valley this weekend, hit up Phoenix New Times' online concert calendar.

Rod Stewart and Cyndi Lauper
Friday, August 24
Talking Stick Resort Arena

Rod Stewart and Cyndi Lauper are household names. Collectively, they’ve spent nearly a century in the music industry, touring, writing, and recording a slew of songs that have stuck with fans ever since. But unlike some shows that bring back icons of old to belt their hits as best they can, Lauper and Stewart have hardly lost an ounce of their characteristic styles and grace upon the stage. Even at 73, Stewart performs like he’s forever young, from his voluminous hair to his bedazzled jackets.

Rod the Mod has kept his show fresh by performing a successful Las Vegas act for the last eight years. Performing with a full band and several costume changes, Stewart begins strong before settling into a more tuned-down acoustic set later into the night. Lauper seems like she might be overshadowed by Stewart’s sheer production value, but she still hits all the songs you know by heart with relatively few tracks off her most recent country album, Detour. Nicholas Bostick


Flynt Flossy and Turquoise Jeep
Friday, August 24
Valley Bar

Fast fashion YouTube video rap crew Turquoise Jeep exist in the same universe as Pee Wee's Playhouse, Paper Rad, and Yo Gabba Gabba!; like the aforementioned productions, they're colorful, control freaked, and hands-on. Lead MC Flynt Flossy has a refreshingly lighthearted persona along the lines of Shock G, Sir Mix A Lot, and DJ Lance Rock, lyrically rife with double entendres and goosey figures of speech. Compared to the great big world of hip-hop and its endless procession of yachts, slabs, and brand-name everything, a turquoise jeep provides an apt description of their hands-on, arts-and-crafts-forever aesthetic. Tex Kerschen


Los Tigres del Norte
Friday, August 24
Celebrity Theatre

In the vast galaxy that is Latin music, regional Mexican music is a solar system unto itself. Of the many styles further grouped into this umbrella, one of the biggest is norteño – a high-energy, highly dramatic, Spanish-language polka, perhaps. It's driven by vocal harmonies and a relentless oompah-oompah beat that can sound carnivalesque to the unfamiliar but that often masks more serious lyrical content. Norteño is the musical home of songs known as corridos, which are like the gangster rap of Mexican music – tales of drug-running across the border and the ensuing violence. It's also the home of heartbreaking, cross-border tales of love lost and families separated by politics and economics.

Among the biggest of these acts is Los Tigres del Norte, or "the tigers of the north." The group is like The Beatles of Mexican music – if The Beatles had kept it together for more than 40 years. Los Tigres have been going continuously since 1968, when Jorge Hernandez formed the group in Sinaloa, Mexico, with his brothers and some cousins. These days, the group is based in San Jose, California. Hernandez is still in the game as musical director, lead vocalist, and accordion player, with various descendants now rounding out the five-man lineup.

To date, Los Tigres have scored five Latin Grammys, sold more than 32 million records worldwide, and released a staggering 45 albums – that's not even counting various singles, EPs, and compilations. English speakers with little familiarity of Spanish-language music may have no idea who this group is, but Los Tigres' album were a special MTV Unplugged session in 2011, and the group has even been sent abroad to entertain U.S. troops in Japan and South Korea. Arielle Castillo

Lingerieve 12
Friday, August 24
Club Red

When it comes to rave scene fashion, the name of the game has always been about being as colorful and over-the-top as possible. Hence the reason why you’ll typically witness ravers and kandi kids dressed in day-glo everything or sporting kooky costumes, furry accessories, and other colorfully eye-catching gear at pretty much every underground dance party. So the idea of a lingerie-themed EDM event like Lingerieve doesn’t seem like that strange of a concept. As a matter of fact, local promoter 1 Vibe Events has been putting on the annual dance party almost every single year since 2006, and will be putting on its 11th edition this weekend at Club Red in Mesa. Hard dance artist Lady Faith and dubstep duo Dodge & Fuski will headline the event, which will also feature sets by local DJs like Blakeland, Butters, Dark Mark, Glowver, and Mangled. Start time is 8 p.m. Admission is $20 to $50. Benjamin Leatherman

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
Saturday, August 25
Crescent Ballroom

David Lowery will work double duty as frontman of both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven on Saturday. It’s nothing new, considering the Texas-born rock musician has toured the world with both of his bands for decades. Camper was a college rock staple in the 1980s, and Cracker had mainstream success in the ’90s thanks to singles such as "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)" and "Low." Think of this show as killing two birds with one stone. Some people prefer one band over the other — and there are plenty of others who like both — so this should make longtime fans quite happy while attending this show at Crescent on Saturday night. Eric Grubbs

Animal House 40th Anniversary Toga Party
Saturday, August 25
Marquee Theatre in Tempe

One of the most quotable comedy films of all-time is Animal House, and one of the most memorable parts of the movie, at least for me, is when the great Peter Riegert’s character, Boone, goes into the Dexter Lake Club and yells, “Otis, my man!” only to be given the perfect confused stare from Otis Day (portrayed by character actor DeWayne Jessie) after having just proclaimed, “Wait till Otis sees us. He loves us!”

Forty years or so later, the fictional band from the film, Otis Day and the Knights, are still part of our culture even though the star of the classic film, John Belushi, is not. Jessie has, for the most part, become Otis Day since the film came out and continues to lead the Knights as, at least according to their website, “the number one-party band in America.” For all intents and purposes, what band could really be a more appropriate for just about any party? Well, maybe not some of those weirdo Nazi fuckers out there, but the power of Otis Day and The Knights would vanquish those bastards pretty quickly, too. I bet that scumbag David Duke would dance to Otis Day. Tom Reardon

Bassrush Massive Arizona
Saturday, August 25
Rawhide Event Center in Chandler

Bass music has a funny effect on certain people. Not only does it have a tendency to get hearts pounding, fists pumping, and (of course) eardrums rattling, electronic dance tracks that are heavy on booming bass and subharmonic sounds have a way of making bodies move harder, faster, and stronger. Heck, a scientific study from a few years back even determined that bass-heavy music makes listeners feel more powerful. (No joke. Look it up.)

And then there are those who just dig it, period, and will hit up EDM gigs where the speakers and subwoofers are rattling with dubstep, drum ’n’ bass, or genres of that ilk — for instance, the annual Bassrush Massive Arizona on Saturday, August 25, at Rawhide Event Center in Chandler. As its name implies, the festival focuses on bass-oriented sounds like d’n’b, trap, future bass, the multiple flavors of dubstep, and similar genres.

Naturally, all the artists and DJs schduled to perform at the event — including Zeds Dead, NGHTMRE, G Jones, Space Jesus, Midnight Tyrannosaurus, and Hekler — are big into the wub wub in some form or fashion. For more info on this year’s event, check out our Bassrush Massive Arizona guide. Benjamin Leatherman

Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson
Sunday, August 26
Ak-Chin Pavilion

Get ready to burn extra crispy this month, hard rock fans. Two of the devil’s favorite rockers have teamed up for a summertime tour, which has been dubbed “The Twins Of Evil: The Second Coming.” May god help us all.

This isn’t the first time that Dragula and the Antichrist Superstar have joined forces for a tour. Back in 2012, they embarked on the original Twins of Evil Tour in support of Zombie’s Hellbilly Delux 2 and Manson’s Born Villain. Notorious for in-fighting and backstage drama between the rockers, the experience culminated in some major league shade-throwing at a stop in Detroit, where Manson told the crowd, “I’m sorry if you came to see Rob Zombie, and he can’t come on, because I’m going to beat his ass … twice … three fucking times.”

Zombie responded to Manson’s impersonation of the Count from Sesame Street by covering Alice Cooper’s “School's Out” during his set. He dedicated the performance to “the only real shock rocker there ever was, Alice Cooper, not some punk-ass bitch.” However, the two buried the hatchet by the end of that tour. We'll see if they can keep things friendly during this particular tour. Ashley Naftule

Shakira
Sunday, August 26
Talking Stick Resort Arena

Whether you fell in love with her when she burst onto the music scene with "Whenever, Wherever," or you discovered her for her coaching skills on the music competition show The Voice, Shakira is a great talent. There isn't a song she has that hasn't been a hit in the clubs, and after 12 years in the business, she continues to play big arenas. This weekend, she’ll do just that as Shakira visits Talking Stick Resort Arena in downtown Phoenix on Sunday night on her El Dorado world tour. The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $45. Paige Skinner

Yelawolf
Sunday, August 26
The Van Buren

To many rap fans, Yelawolf is the classic underdog story. Signed to a major label and then dropped, Yelawolf released a couple of mixtapes before catching the ear of Eminem, which paved the way for his breakthrough.

The heavily tattooed, Alabama-bred artist continues to climb into the conscience of fans, helped by the inclusion of his single “Till It’s Gone” on Sons of Anarchy, while blending hardcore rap, bluegrass, and country to create a sound that goes far beyond conventional Southern rap.

He released his most recent mixtape Hotel last October, and his current tour will undoubtedly showcase new material from his most recent album, 2017’s Trial by Fire. For now, the rapper continues to build a larger audience on the road while keeping an eye on his burgeoning offstage business ventures in his adopted home of Nashville. Daniel Kohn