March 30, 2016
While all warm weather festivals are making headlines with their lineup announcements, the first days of April bring another typically brimming weekend of live music in Philly.
Check out our lineup of the best performances hitting the city this weekend below. (All events are 21+ unless otherwise noted.)
Legendary local DJ Rich Medina holds down the fort at this month’s edition of The Gathering, a UPenn area throwdown billed as one of the longest-running hip-hop events in the city. Medina will no doubt be the main attraction, but a one-on-one house dance battle with a $200 prize will be drawing a crowd all its own.
Show 9 p.m. - 1 a.m., $5-10
London post-punk band Savages released their second album in January, and it seems like an ambitious return to form mixed with something new. "Adore Life" is a twisted, energetic album about love. Familiar fans will know that the group’s live show amplifies their energy as much as it tries to recreate its recordings, and on Thursday they’ll fill the venue with plenty of noise.
Show 8:30 p.m. (Doors 8 p.m.), $15-20 (all ages)
Little Big League guitarist/singer Michelle Zauner’s new album is a stunner. A full-length collaboration with producer Ned Eisenberg released under her familiar Japanese Breakfast name, "Psychopomp" finds Zauner reeling from the recent death of her mother and dealing with everything else in between.
Zauner is celebrating the April 1 release date with a pair of shows in New York City and Philly, the second of which goes down tomorrow night at Ortlieb’s featuring opening sets from Littler and Myrrias.
Show 9 p.m. (Doors 8 p.m.), $8-10
It’s been six years since the Los Angeles alternative trio Autolux released their last album, "Transit Transit." The group’s third album and its shock-value title, "Pussy’s Dead," are releasing on Friday via producer Danger Mouse’s newly formed Columbia Records label 30th Century Records, and it sounds like the band’s most electronic offering to date.
Thankfully, Autolux also just launched a well-timed tour and will play Underground Arts on Saturday with Eureka the Butcher.
Show 8 p.m., $16
Last year, Guardian called the 29-year old Chicago singer Ezra Furman “the most compelling live act you can see right now.” Both Furman’s recorded music and live performances rattle with energy and a short attention span funneled through traditional folk and rock structures. But at his core, Furman is the type of jammer suggested by the title of his last album: "Perpetual Motion People."
Furman brings his bursting live show to Milkboy on Saturday with support from Sleepy Kitty and Ceramic Animal.
Show 8:30 p.m., $10-12
The ticket price might seem a bit steep and the tagline a bit corny, but Saturday’s bill at the Trocadero Theatre packs an impressive roster of hip-hop artists of the age to be celebrating the 25th anniversaries of their classic debuts. The “Back 2 Real Hip Hop” show features Brand Nubian at the helm with Das EFX, Special Ed, Roxanne Shante and more rounding out the bill.
Show 8 p.m. (Doors 7 p.m.), $40
Rihanna’s "Anti" album and appropriately enormous tour finally touches down in Philly at the Wells Fargo Center on Sunday. The long-awaited album delivered fully in unexpected fashion, but the Barbadian singer’s new live set runs through a career worth of hits as much as the new stripped-down material. It’s a recipe for a dually ambitious and familiar experience, which is what so many stadium performers are frequently aiming at to begin with.
Show 7:30 p.m. (Doors 6:30 p.m.), $30.50+
