April brings two major music festivals to local stages.
A rebranded Phoenix Lights settles into its new home 20 minutes outside Phoenix as PHXLIGHTS: Altered Orbit to kick off a month that also features the return of Country Thunder Arizona to Canyon Moon Ranch near Florence.
There are also several big arena shows, from Marco Antonio Solis and Journey to Billie Eilish, whose second night in Glendale was pushed back a day so she could be on hand in the event that she wins any of the seven Grammy Awards for which she’s nominated.
Here’s a look at those and other highlights of the month in metro Phoenix concerts.
There are also several Jazz Appreciation Month events worth checking out throughout the month. You’ll find those concerts in our guide to Jazz Appreciation Month.
Phoenix Lights has been rebranded as it moves into its new home — Phoenix Raceway in Avondale. GRiZ, RL Grime, Liquid Stranger, Zomboy, Rusko, Flosstradamus, Champagne Drip, Jantsen, Smoakland, Leotrix, Proper and SAAS will perform. The festival also marks the return of the superstructure stage, first introduced during Relentless Beats’ 2021 summer concert series.
Details: 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 1-2. Phoenix Raceway, 7602 Jimmie Johnson Drive, Avondale. GA $65 and up; GA+ 99 and up; VIP $159 and up. phxlightsfest.com.
This is the opening night of the five-time Latin Grammy winner’s Que Ganas De Verte World Tour. Since launching his solo career in 1993 after nearly 20 years with Los Bukis, Solis has landed more than 50 songs on Billboard’s Latin charts, including several trips to No. 1. He’s also earned two Lo Nuestro Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and an induction to the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame.
Details: 8 p.m. Friday, April 1. Footprint Center, 201 E. Jefferson St., Phoenix. $34.50 and up. 602-379-7800, TicketSmarter.com.
The Vort-i-Fest Music Festival returns to the Sedona Airport’s Mesa Area One with live performances by Southwest artists decker., XIXA, the Stakes, Red Light Cameras, Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold, Sci-Fi Country, and Rivers Run Wild. The day-long outdoor event features more than 35 local artisans, independent businesses, and a variety of foods from local eateries set against the backdrop of the iconic red rocks.
Details: Noon, Saturday, April 2. Sedona Airport’s Mesa Area One, 135 Shrine Road. GA: $44. VIP: $100. vortifest.ticketleap.com/vortifest2022.
Eilish’s two arena shows in Glendale bookend a very big night at the Grammys for the 20-year-old superstar. She’s up for seven Grammys — including Record, Song, and Album of the Year. The tour is in support of “Happier Than Ever,” the chart-topping follow-up to her quadruple-platinum full-length breakthrough “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”
Details: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 2, and Monday, April 4. Gila River Arena, 9400 W. Maryland Ave., Glendale. $95.50 and up. 623-772-3800, TicketSmarter.com.
They made year-end lists from Paste to Pitchfork with their second album, “Cardinal,” having somehow arrived at a seemingly effortless blend of alternative country and emo. Six years later, they’re touring the States in support of “11:11,” an album mixed by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie that finds singer Evan Stephens Hall applying his emotive vocals to current events, from climate change to anti-maskers and the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments.
Details: 7 p.m. Monday, April 4. The Nile, 105 W. Main St., Mesa. $23.50. 480-559-5859, TicketSmarter.com.
After earning more than 40 million YouTube views for “Pretty Girl,” she hooked up with Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend for a full-length debut that inspired NME to declare her “a master at penning lyrics that make you feel like you’re listening to hushed secrets from a friend.” She’s on a tour with Arlo Parks in support of “Sling,” a second effort that Consequence hailed as “a luminous, devastatingly intimate portrait of domesticity.”
Details: 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 5. Marquee Theatre, 730 N. Mill Ave., Tempe. $158 and up. 480-829-0607, TicketSmarter.com.
Initially scheduled for a 2020 run, this tour pairs Brazilian metal legends Sepultura with local thrash greats Sacred Reich, Crowbar, and Art Of Shock. Sepultura are touring on 2020’s “Quadra.” The Wire praised that album’s “tightly coiled songs whose ferocity is comparable to Exhorder’s 2019 comeback ‘Mourn The Southern Skies’ – albeit with a great deal more ambition and (effective) experimentation.” As for Sacred Reich, they’re working on a follow-up to their first album in 23 years, 2019’s excellent “Awakening.”
Details: 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 5. The Nile, 105 W. Main St., Mesa. $25. 480-559-5859, TicketSmarter.com.
Slant praised Porches’ “All Day Gentle Hold” for having captured “a balmy, suburban languor with its dreamy synths and plainspoken, often despairing lyrics.” And you can definitely hear what that writer was thinking, from an opening track that references Tony Soprano while pouting “If you want to run away from me, I wouldn’t blame you” to the desperate pleas of “I promise it’s safe” on album-closing “Comedown Song (Gunk).”
Details: 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 6. Valley Bar, 130 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. $18. TicketSmarter.com.
Morgan Wallen, Blake Shelton, Florida Georgia Line and Riley Green are headlining the four-day festival’s return to a ranch near Florence. They’re joined by Hardy, Gabby Barrett, Randy Houser, Chase Rice, Lindsay Ell, Michael Ray, Tracy Lawrence, Jameson Rogers, Blanco Brown, Sawyer Brown, James Barker Band, MacKenzie Porter, and more.
Plan ahead: 10 acts you don’t want to miss at Country Thunder Arizona
Details: Thursday through Sunday, April 7-10. Canyon Moon Ranch, 20585 E. Price Station, Florence. $185 weekend pass. TicketSmarter.com.
Caleb Shomo of Attack Attack! launched Beartooth in 2012 as a project to do on the side. A decade later, he’s out with Silverstein, The Devil Wears Prada and Erra in support of Beartooth’s fourth release. Classic Rock magazine praised the album as “a fearsome riff storm of therapeutic venting” while Kerrang! wrote, “It’s a record influenced by Sabbath and Sleep, Power Trip and Pantera – and it shows through proudly.”
Details: 7 p.m. Thursday, April 7. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $37-$40. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
This is the opening night of a 17-date U.S. tour in support of “7220,” which hit the streets in March and gave the hip-hop star his second chart-topping appearance on the Billboard album chart, following “The Voice of the Heroes,” a collaboration with Lil Baby. The album’s most successful single, “Broadway Girls,” which features an assist from Morgan Wallen, was his first release to top the Billboard rap and hip-hop/R&B charts.
Details: 8 p.m. Friday, April 8. Arizona Federal Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix. $39.50 and up. 800-745-300, TicketSmarter.com.
This Vegas rapper was still in his teens when he started building a buzz on the strength of a sleeper hit called “Orange Soda.” He hit the charts at No. 5 last year with “The Melodic Blue,” a studio debut that features guest appearances by Travis Scott, Don Toliver and the young rapper’s big cousin Kendrick Lamar. The Guardian responded to the album with a perfect score, concluding “Baby Keem is marked for greatness.”
Details: 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 8. Marquee Theatre, 730 N. Mill Ave., Tempe. 480-829-0607, TicketSmarter.com.
The Freedom Tour is named for Journey’s first new studio release since 2011’s “Eclipse,” due to arrive sometime this year. The last time Journey played the Valley was a co-headlining Talking Stick Resort Arena concert with Def Leppard in 2018, although founding member Neal Schon subsequently headlined the Van Buren in 2019. In a press release, Schon said “The band is running on all 12 cylinders.”
Details: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Gila River Arena, 9400 W. Maryland Ave., Glendale. Resale ticket prices vary. 623-772-3800, TicketSmarter.com.
Based in San Jose, these norteño sensations have been hailed as Latin music’s “greatest statesmen” by the New York Times, selling millions of records, regularly topping Billboard’s Latin music charts and packing stadiums. All Music Guide goes further, saying they “should be compared to Bob Dylan, U2, or the Clash.” They’ve earned five Latin Grammys and done “MTV Unplugged,” where they were joined by Calle 13, Zack de la Rocha, Juanes and Paulina Rubio. This is a reunion tour.
Details: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Arizona Federal Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix. $82.50 and up. 800-745-300, TicketSmarter.com.
Last year, this Beninese singer was named to a list of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, which previously hailed her as “Africa’s premier diva.” Her latest effort, “Mother Nature,” was hailed in the Guardian as “an exuberant album couched in contemporary R&B and hip-hop, but laced with traditional flavours.” But she’s here to revisit her awe-inspiring reinvention of Talking Heads’ “Remain in Light,” a masterpiece inspired by African music. Kidjo brings those inspirations home while making the music unmistakably her own.
Details: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 E. Second St. $36-$60. 480-499-8587, TicketSmarter.com.
This Chicago rapper was the featured guest on “Angels,” the first single out of the box from Chance the Rapper’s Grammy-winning masterpiece, “Coloring Book.” Six years later, he’s touring in support of “Few Good Things,” a soulful throwback to the golden age of conscious rap. As NME noted, “Rappers like Saba often stay on the wayside, delivering absolute perfection without many accolades. That would be a shame, as this is an album at a divine level.”
Details: 8 p.m. Monday, April 11. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $27-$30. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
The industrial metal pioneers are touring in support of “Moral Hygiene,” a sequel of sorts to 2018’s politically charged “AmeriKKKant” with songs about disinformation, the COVID-19 death toll and the broken system that helps us choose a leader. An announcement on Ministry’s website promised a “societal manifesto and plea for civilization to get back to a set of standards that lives up to and embraces our humanity.” And that’s exactly what we got.
Details: 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 12. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $39.50-$42.50. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
Their latest album, “Hygiene,” puts a fresh spin on the speaker-shredding whisper-to-a-scream dynamics the Pixies bequeathed to Nirvana, a blueprint that defined a huge swath of alternative rock in the ’90s. They’re a hardcore band at heart, though, and that definitely comes through loud and clear. The AV Club says, “Hygiene is a record wholly unconcerned about how derivative it sounds, or with how it fits into the wider rock landscape — happy instead to carve out its own niche, straddling genres with aplomb.”
Details: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 12. Rebel Lounge, 2303 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix. $18. 602-296-7013, TicketSmarter.com.
The acclaimed singer-songwriter had an eventful 2021 — four Grammy nominations, multiple late-night TV performances, a sold-out tour, festival appearances, collabs with Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney. More recently, she received Billboard’s Women in Music Trailblazer Award. Variety praised the first leg of Bridgers’ Reunion Tour, writing, “If you’re somebody who hungers for acoustically based music but finds most of it too milquetoast, Bridgers is the cure for that. Like Aimee Mann before her, she can do finger-picking songs barbed enough to draw blood.”
Details: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 13. Arizona Federal Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix. $39.50 and up. 800-745-300, TicketSmarter.com.
The YouTube sensation arrives in continued support of “Flux,” a contagious collection of frequently explosive rock songs incorporating elements of heavy metal, screamo, industrial, punk-rock and ’90s alternative. “So Mean” is a total sugar rush that sounds like it was written after binging on Nirvana’s “Nevermind” while watching Josie and the Pussycats. And that can only be a good thing. She’s the first female artist in history to earn a Best Metal Performance nomination from the Grammys.
Details: 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 13. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $27 and up. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
Lili Trifilio and her bandmates spent their debut album, “Honeymoon,” filtering vulnerability through sugar-coated pop hooks with the urgency of punk to cathartic effect. Paste raved, “All nine songs are catchy as hell, featuring triumphant choruses and impressive J. Mascis-esque guitar solos.” Now they’re touring the States in support of a four-song follow-through called “Blame Game,” living up to the promise of “Honeymoon” on such obvious highlights as “Good Girls (Don’t Get Used).”
Details: 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 13. The Nile, 105 W. Main St., Mesa. $25. 480-559-5859, theniletheater.com.
These Australian punks titled their first album “High Risk Behaviour.” And that’s a bar they had no trouble clearing while gleefully making their way through such ill-mannered highlights as “Drunk n Disorderly,” “The Clap,” “The Kids Need Guns” and “Dine N Dash.” It’s brilliant, really. As PopMatters noted, “You can smell the beer and sweat and feel their frustration with living paycheck to paycheck in Queensland.”
Details: 8 p.m. Thursday, April 14. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $22.50-$32.50 602-716-2222, TicketSmarter.com.
She picked up a Grammy in 2020 as a member of the bluegrass trio I’m With Her, whose “Call My Name” won Best American Roots Song. This show is in support of “Age of Apathy,” her first release since 2016. As always, O’Donovan’s breathtaking voice is what immediately draws you into the recording, underscored here by the richly textured production of the great Joe Henry.
Details: 8 p.m. Friday, April 15. Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 E. Second St. $28-$45. 480-499-8587, TicketSmarter.com.
A British jazz supergroup founded by Shabaka Hutchings, Sons of Kemet is playing the MIM in support of the excellent “Black to the Future,” which made our year-end album list for 2021. Theon Cross’ funky tuba lines do much to shape the character of the proceedings as they play off polyrhythmic dual percussionists Tom Skinner and Edward Wakili-Hick while traveling a musical landscape that draws on an eclectic mix of styles, from Latin jazz to Afrobeat and free-jazz skronk.
Details: 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 15. MIM Music Theater, Musical Instrument Museum, 4725 E. Mayo Blvd., Phoenix. $30.50-$44.50. 480-478-6000, mim.org.
Parsons began his career as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road working on projects as iconic as the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” and “Let It Be,” going on to produce Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon.” The Alan Parsons Project released 10 concept albums between 1976-1987, selling more than 50 million albums worldwide while scoring pop hits with “Eye in the Sky,” “Time” and “Don’t Answer Me.”
Details: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 16. Celebrity Theatre, 440 N. 32nd St., Phoenix. $35-$125. 602-267-1600, TicketSmarter.com.
These Canadian punks are touring on the followup to “Morbid Stuff,” “The Unraveling of PUPTheBand.” And judging from the first four songs released from “The Unraveling,” they’ve yet to shake the existential demons that make their music so cathartic. Consider the singalong chorus of “Totally Fine.” “Lately I’ve started to feel like I’m slowly dying / And if I’m bеing real, I don’t even mind.” That they accompany those lyrics with a chorus as contagious as Nirvana’s greatest hits just makes it that much more exhilarating.
Details: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 16. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $25-28. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
Teen Vogue once labeled this YouTube phenom “the Pop Prince of Sad Internet Teens.” And Gray himself embraced that reputation in the story, saying, “It’s extremely accurate, I definitely am sad boy pop.” But he’s also a master of making sure his sadness resonates, which may explain how he managed to earn nearly 4 billion streams in three years and hit the charts at No. 5 with his first full-length album, “Kid Krow.”
Details: 8 p.m. Monday, April 18. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $35-149. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
In the course of exploring the more experimental fringes of their chosen field, “Forever” earned these Pittsburgh metalcore sensations a Grammy nomination and breakthrough honors at the Metal Hammer Golden God Awards and the Kerrang! Awards. They’re touring in support of “Underneath,” for which they earned a second Grammy nomination and made Best of 2020 lists at NPR and Metal Hammer.
Details: 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 18. The Nile, 105 W. Main St., Mesa. $20. 480-559-5859, theniletheater.com.
Jason Pierce brings his bandmates to town in support of the aptly titled “Everything Was Beautiful,” a psychedelic headphone record whose highlights have a way of drifting towards an oversaturated moment of transcendence, from ballads as hazy as “Always Together With You” and “Let It Bleed (For Iggy)” to the cacophonous free-jazz majesty of “The A Song (Laid In Your Arms).” It’s a masterpiece built on the same batch of demos as “And Nothing Hurt.” Combine the titles of those albums and you’ve got a line from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five.”
Details: 8 p.m. Monday, April 18. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $37-$50. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.
These Japanese post-rock outliers are known for the intensity of their performances and filtering the grandeur of their most dramatic instrumental compositions through showers of noise more suggestive of My Bloody Valentine than Sigur Rós. But there are times on last year’s “Pilgrimage of the Soul” where the music strays closer than ever to the breathtaking beauty of a Sigur Rós. It’s just usually offset by waves of distortion as producer Steve Albini pushes the dynamic possibilities into the red.
Details: 8:30 p.m. Monday, April 18. Rebel Lounge, 2303 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix. $17. 602-296-7013, TicketSmarter.com.
Staring out from the cover of your first release in a Lone Ranger mask with long fringes while rocking a burgundy Stetson is bound to get a fella noticed. It’s what this country crooner does with your attention once he’s grabbed it that made “Pony” more than just a gimmick, channeling the mystery of Chris Isaak’s most Roy Orbison-indebted moments against the reverb-saturated twang of country-surf guitars. And by the time he gets to Phoenix, he’ll have dropped a much-anticipated follow-up called “Bronco.”
Details: 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 19. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $35-38. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
He made our Best of 2020 album list with “Alfredo,” a Grammy-nominated collaboration with The Alchemist, whose production is soulful and sparse, at times hypnotic, with plenty of room at the front of the mix for Gibbs to let loose with the free-flowing rhymes. The subject matter rarely strays from cocaine rap, and yet it never feels like Gibbs is going through the motions, as he raps with conviction, introspection, and a darkly comic sense of humor. There’s a reason critics love his records.
Details: 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 20. Celebrity Theatre, 440 N. 32nd St., Phoenix. $25 and up. 602-267-1600, TicketSmarter.com.
Pittsburgh DJ Greg Gillis is a master of the modern mashup, often cramming a dozen or more unauthorized samples into a single track. Released in 2006, Gillis’ “Night Ripper” album landed him on year-end lists at Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and Spin. The music he’s released since then has pretty much just doubled down on all the things that made that album what it was — an instant party classic. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s a wildly entertaining live performer.
Details: 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 20. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $27-$30. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
Having made a career of effectively blurring the lines between experimental metal, instrumental prog, and modern jazz, they’re touring the States in support of the just-released “Parrhesia.” Each stop on the tour will feature two sets, one of which will be a live performance of the new release in full. “Parrhesia” is the instrumental trio’s first release since 2016’s “The Madness of Many.”
Details: 8 p.m. Thursday, April 21. Marquee Theatre, 730 N. Mill Ave., Tempe. $25 and up. 480-829-0607, TicketSmarter.com.
These Stockholm-based post-punk revivalists set the tone for one of last year’s most electrifying rock releases, “Welfare Jazz,” with a song whose chorus finds Sebastian Murphy warning “I ain’t nice” with the feral intensity of a young Iggy Pop if he’d been fronting Suicide. And every track that follows somehow lives up to the mile-high expectations set by that opening salvo, a menacing swagger through the darkest corners of the post-punk era with an extra helping of the attitude it takes to really make this kind of music sing.
Details: 8 p.m. Thursday, April 21. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. Sold out. 602-716-2222, TicketSmarter.com.
The L.A.-based rap-rock duo arrives in support of “Skin,” a vicious beatdown of a second album. NME praised them for “opening up the definition of rap-rock,” writing that they “prove that you can hold yourself to the same intricate lyrical standards of rap, while sounding closer to the rockstars they grew up falling in love with.” The intensity of these songs being brought to life inside that little basement room at Valley Bar is kind of terrifying, which definitely works to their advantage.
Details: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 21. Valley Bar, 130 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. $18. valleybarphx.com.
This EDM festival is topped by Zeds Dead, as always, with NGHTMRE, Dimension, Dion Timmer, Rossy and 2Soon. This is the local stop on a global tour called Deadbeats Tour: The Revival, whose name refers in part to the Canadian headliners’ label and in part to the fact that they haven’t been able to do it for a while because of COVID-19.
Details: 7 p.m. Friday, April 22. Phoenix Raceway, 7602 Jimmie Johnson Drive, Avondale. TicketSmarter.com.
Marie Ulven picked up a Best New Alternative Artist nomination at this year’s iHeartRadio Music Awards on the strength of a full-length debut titled “If I Could Make It Go Quiet,” the Norwegian bedroom-pop songwriter’s first full-length studio effort. DIY Magazine said the album “has all the qualities of a blockbuster pop record — incessant hooks, A-list producer credits — but hone in on each track and you’ll find intimate vignettes that are fully formed in themselves.”
Details: 8 p.m. Friday, April 22. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $25-$28. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
The Belarusian trio is bringing their first North American tour to Mesa in support of 2020’s “Monument,” a haunting throwback to the golden age of synth-pop that invites you to imagine Joy Division’s Ian Curtis emoting in Russian at the helm of Kraftwerk or Depeche Mode. As Pop Matters notes, though, “Molchat Doma make no secret of their influences, but… they do a good job of revitalizing the sounds that make up their palette.”
Details: 7 p.m. Friday, April 22. The Nile, 105 W. Main St., Mesa. $22-$25. 480-559-5859, theniletheater.com.
It’s been 29 years since Built to Spill rolled out of Boise with an explosive debut they ironically titled “Ultimate Alternative Wavers.” Their next three albums all turned up on Pitchfork’s greatest-albums-of-the-’90s list. It’s been a minute since their latest album of original material, “Untethered Moon” (although their Daniel Johnston tribute album was both well-intentioned and well-done). But if “Untethered Moon” is any indication, they’re still making epic guitar-hero music for people who don’t necessarily care much for epic guitar-hero music.
Details: 8 p.m. Friday, April 22. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $30. 602-716-2222, TicketSmarter.com.
These British rockers are touring the States in support of 2020’s “Glue,” an album that crashes the gate with the explosive “Everything is Ordinary” before barreling full-speed ahead through “1’s & 0’s” with the throat-shredding intensity of Henry Cox leading the charge. But there’s more to the story than reckless abandon, as beautifully displayed on the majestic “Plasticine,” a song that could cause flashbacks to the golden age of Britpop, and “Terrible Love,” an urgent power ballad.
Details: 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 22. Rebel Lounge, 2303 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix. $23. 602-296-7013, TicketSmarter.com.
The multiplatinum alternative rockers are headed to Phoenix with Gojira on a tour that was originally scheduled to swing through the Valley two summers ago. Then COVID-19 put those plans on hold, affording fans an opportunity to spend a little time with “Ohms,” which hit the streets more than a month after this tour was initially scheduled to play here. Sputnikmusic sized up “Ohms” as “abrasive, destructive, and alluringly beautiful” with “a profound purpose and longing behind every punch that they throw.”
Details: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 23. Arizona Federal Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix. resale prices vary. 800-745-300, TicketSmarter.com.
Arizona’s top-rated rock station, 98KUPD, brings its long-running festival to Ak-Chin Pavilion with Rise Against, Coheed & Cambria, Pennywise, Highly Suspect, Atreyu, DED, Plush and Dropout Kings. One dollar from the sale of each regular price ticket will benefit the United Phoenix Firefighters Charities.
Details: 2:35 p.m. Sunday, April 24. Ak-Chin Pavilion, 2121 N. 83rd Ave., Phoenix. $32.50 and up. 602-254-7200, TicketSmarter.com.
These London-based synth-pop revivalists earned a Mercury Prize nomination for 2006’s “The Warning.” Their latest album, 2019’s “A Bath Full of Ecstasy,” was met with near-universal acclaim. The Guardian responded with a five-star rave, writing, “The first five (songs) are floor-ready bangers, while the rest lean more towards yacht pop Daft Punk or Röyksopp, and the best bits feature some sort of house pulse.”
Details: 8 p.m. Sunday, April 24. The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix. $35-$38. 866-468-3399, TicketSmarter.com.
The Australian rocker is touring the States in support of “The Best of Luck Club,” a contagious throwback to the golden age of power pop that grabs the listener by the skinny tie with the chugging guitars and self-effacing existential mopery of “I Don’t Get Invited to Parties Anymore.” Other highlights sound like they could be the soundtrack to some great lost Brat Pack movie starring Molly Ringwald.
Details: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 24. Valley Bar, 130 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. $16. valleybarphx.com.
The sisters arrive in support of the Grammy-nominated “Women In Music Pt. III,” which topped the U.S. Album Sales Chart and the iTunes chart. Pitchfork hailed the “intimate, multidimensional, and wide-ranging” album as “far and away their best,” saying “the songwriting shines with personality and a great curiosity for melody and style.” Rolling Stone called it “an immediate gem,” while Vulture and the Fader both agreed with Pitchfork, calling it the sisters’ best work.
Details: 8 p.m. Monday, April 25. Arizona Federal Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix. $39.50 and up. 800-745-300, TicketSmarter.com.
It’s the writing that set these Philly punks apart on 2012’s “On the Impossible Past,” from the moment they kicked off the opening track with a shouted, “I’ve been having a horrible time pulling myself together.” The best tracks were cathartic, emotional stuff, like Husker Du meets Billy Bragg for kids too young to get those frames of reference. A decade later, they still haven’t fixed what isn’t broken, judging by the songs on “Hello Exile,” which crashes the gate with the brilliantly titled “America (You’re Freaking Me Out).”
Details: 8 p.m. Monday, April 25. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. SOLD OUT. 602-716-2222, TicketSmarter.com.
The Offspring played a starring role in punk-rock’s infiltration of the mainstream in the ’90s, topping the modern-rock radio charts with a single called “Come Out and Play” from their six-time-platinum breakthrough “Smash.” Other radio staples include “Self Esteem,” “Gone Away” and “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy).” They’re touring in support of “Let the Bad Times Roll,” their 10th studio album, produced by Bob Rock.
Details: 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 27. Arizona Federal Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix. $49.50 and up. 800-745-300, TicketSmarter.com.
Mia Berrin set the tone for last year’s masterful “Death of a Cheerleader” with a song that promises “I’m gonna marry the scariest girl on the cheerleading team,” demanding “You should ask your mother what she means/ She said stay away from girls like me.'” It’s a brilliant introduction to an album that reaffirms her standing as one of the best young lyricists in modern rock, whether referencing the Crystals with “It hit me and it felt like a kiss” or capturing the essence of fatal attraction with “We laughed all the way home and I knew that we couldn’t just be friends.” That those lyrics are tied to one great pop hook after another only makes it that much more contagious.
Details: 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 27. The Underground, 105 W. Main St., Mesa. $15. 480-559-5859, TicketSmarter.com.
When Johnson opened for Miranda Lambert at the Coors Light Birds Nest, he told the crowd, “My name is Cody Johnson and I stand for real country music.” Then he put his music where his mouth was, leading his “six guys on stage who actually give a damn” about country music through such highlights as “Y’all People,” “Honky-Tonk,” “Me and My Kind” and his first million-selling single, “On My Way to You.” If you’re the type that often finds yourself complaining that this dang new-fangled country doesn’t sound like actual country music? He’s your boy.
Details: 6 p.m. Thursday, April 28. Mesa Amphitheatre, 263 N. Center St. $45 and up. 480-644-2560, TicketSmarter.com.
They were the toast of the post-punk revival, topping Pitchfork’s year-end album list in 2002 with their first album, “Turn on the Bright Lights,” and following through with the just-as-likely-to-be-showered-in-comparisons-to-Joy-Division mainstream breakthrough, “Antics,” in 2004. A new album, their first since 2018’s “Marauder,” is expected to arrive this year, produced by Flood and Alan Moulder.
Details: 8 p.m. Thursday, April 28. Marquee Theatre, 730 N. Mill Ave., Tempe. $50 and up. 480-829-0607, TicketSmarter.com.
At 18, Lindsey Jordan was hailed as no less than “the future of indie rock” by Pitchfork. And given the strength of the writing and singing on “Lush,” it was easy to hear what made them want to go that heavy on the praise. Four years later, she’s touring in support of one of last year’s most acclaimed releases, “Valentine,” an introspective master class in finding universal truths in the unguarded sharing of deeply felt personal experiences. As the AV Club wrote, “If this ‘Valentine’ were actually a gift given to someone, it would be a still-beating heart with a dagger through it — with a note attached that reads ‘I loved you.'”
Details: 7 p.m. Friday, April 29. The Nile, 105 W. Main St., Mesa. $22. 480-559-5859, theniletheater.com.
Lady Lamb is Aly Spaltro, a singer-songwriter unafraid of sharing lines as unabashedly romantic as “When we left the diner and walked into the night, I saw by the 24-hour neon light, the freckles on your arm/ They were a body of stars in the sky.” What makes her latest album, “Even in the Tremor,” that much more engaging is her tendency to offset those moments of vulnerability with equally disarming bits of humor. In that opening track, for instance, she admits to having little flaws then follows through with “When I missed six pitches in the batting cage, I threw my bat in a fit of rage.”
Details: 7 p.m. Friday, April 29. Valley Bar, 130 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. $16. valleybarphx.com.
By the time he gets to Glendale, we’ll know how he did at the Latin American Music Awards, presented on April 21. Leon is up for Favorite Regional Mexican Artist, Favorite Regional Mexican Song, and Collaboration of the Year for hooking up with Grupo Firme for “El Tóxico.” He recently spent three weeks topping the Billboard Regional Mexican Songs chart with a feature on the Banda MS track “Ojos Cerrados.”
Details: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 30. Gila River Arena, 9400 W. Maryland Ave., Glendale. $59 and up. 623-772-3800, TicketSmarter.com.
Black Tiger Sex Machine brings the Once Upon A Time In Cyberworld Tour to Phoenix Raceway with Lucii, Kai Wachi, Vampa and Hairitage b2b Swarm. The tour takes its name from the latest album set in BTSM’s post-apocalyptic universe, a bleak place where the world is crumbling. In a press release, the group explained: “In some ways, the hardships mirror what we’ve all gone through in the past couple years in real life. With this album, we wanted to write from that perspective of coming in and out of hard times while still having some fight and hope left in us.”
Details: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 30. Phoenix Raceway, 7602 Jimmie Johnson Drive, Avondale. GA $45; VIP $125. relentlessbeats.com.
This Canadian EDM star made a Pitchfork list of the 200 Best Tracks of the Decade So Far (2010-2014) with “Another Girl,” a masterstroke of warped R&B sampling. Greene earned raves in 2019 for the morning-after meditations of “Dawn Chorus,” a reflective gem Q Magazine praised as “quietly, but righteously confident.” Exclaim! concluded its review with “If this isn’t Jacques Greene’s magnum opus, we’ll be very curious to hear what is.”
Details: 9 p.m. Saturday, April 30. Shady Park Tempe, 26 E. University Drive. $22. 480-474-4222, shadyparktempe.com.
Any concerns that Jon Spencer would one day succumb to the musical cancer of growing old gracefully were quickly laid to rest in the opening moments of 2018’s “Spencer Sings the Hits!,” a feedback-laden swagger through a song called “Trash Can.” This year’s model, “Spencer Gets It Lit,” is every bit as trashy, from the organ-rocking Avant-punk cacophony of “Junk Man” to the way he phrases “Yeah, I dig that caveman sound” in the fuzz-driven “Primary Baby.” Janet Weiss is drumming in his band opening the show with Quasi.
Details: 7 p.m. Saturday, April 30. Valley Bar, 130 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. $20. valleybarphx.com.
Alice Cooper and a handful of his famous friends will take the stage at a rock ‘n’ roll fundraising bash at a golf club in Mesa. This year’s guests include Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Ed Roland of Collective Soul, Scott Stapp of Creed, Mike Mills of R.E.M., Danny Seraphine of Chicago, Adrian Young of No Doubt, Larry the Cable Guy, Gary Mule Deer, SIXWIRE and Chuck Garric, who plays in Cooper’s touring band and Beasto Blanco with the Coopers’ daughter Calico.
Details: 6 p.m. Saturday, April 30 Las Sendas Golf Club, 7555 E. Eagle Crest Drive, Mesa. $99-$400. 602-522-9200, alicecoopersolidrock.com.
Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.
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