The warm weather is around the corner. You’ll still need a jacket when you head out to various clubs, theaters, and arenas to take in the busy music scene. But you can leave your heavy coat at home. Even better news, the selection of acts and the variety of music is phenomenal.
(Sites include Berklee Performance Center, House of Blues, MGM Music Hall, The Orpheum, Passim, Regattabar, Roadrunner, Scullers, Shubert Theatre, Symphony Hall, TD Garden, Wang Theatre, and The Wilbur. Our spring small venues and Fenway/Gillette guides are coming soon.)
Stereophonics at House of Blues
There have been comparisons between Stereophonics and Spinal Tap, but they’ve been about the fact that both bands have had trouble keeping their drummers in the lineup. Music-wise Spinal Tap is heavy metal, while Stereophonics is guitar-driven alt-pop. And the current drummer, Jamie Morrison, has been with singer-guitarist Kelly Jones, bassist Richard Jones, and guitarist Adam Zindani for a decade.
The Welsh group has been releasing top-selling albums since their 1997 debut “Word Gets Around,” with 2022’s “Oochva!” their latest. Their upcoming Stadium Anthems Tour has the neat tagline “No Hit Left Behind,” so fans should expect to be hearing the likes of “Local Boy in the Photograph,” “A Thousand Trees,” and “Postmen Do Not Great Movie Heroes Make.” Wednesday, March 26, 8 p.m., House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston. $34.50-$54.50.
Japanese Breakfast at MGM Music Hall
A native of South Korea who grew up in Oregon, singer-guitarist Michelle Zanner ended up in Philadelphia, where she fronted the indie emo-
rock band Little Big League. But after a couple of years, she branched off into a side project, naming the new band Japanese Breakfast, and her sound grew much poppier, even while remaining in lo-fi territory. Zanner is the energetic centerpiece of the live shows, sometimes strapping on an electric guitar, other times just sticking with a microphone, terrifically backed by her band members on bass, drums, and guitar/keyboards. The upcoming tour ties into the March release of the album “For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women).” For those who need to know, in a recent interview, Zanner explained that a traditional Japanese breakfast consists of soup, pickles, rice, and perhaps a fish filet. Wednesday, May 7, 8 p.m., MGM Music Hall, 2 Lansdowne St., Boston. $78-$232.
Best rock concerts:
Trey Anastasio at the Wang Theatre
Best known as the heart and soul of Phish (formed in 1983), singer-songwriter-guitarist Trey Anastasio has also been wending his way through a solo career since his 1996 album “Surrender to the Air.” The music he’s offered to his flocks of admirers has adventurously shifted between complex prog rock to rambling improvised work and even some free jazz. The seemingly restless Anastasio has also led Oysterhead, the Trey Anastasio Band, and Ghosts of the Forest. In his “spare time” a few years back, he stepped into the late Jerry Garcia’s shoes for the final Grateful Dead concerts. In 2022, he released the album “Mercy,” an all-acoustic program featuring just a man, a microphone, and a guitar. A listen to that one will give everyone a good idea of what he’ll be doing on the current tour: “An Acoustic Evening with Trey Anastasio.” Sunday, March 9, 7:30 p.m., Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont St., Boston. Tickets start at $59.
Deftones at TD Garden
Deftones were one of the first bands to be recognized as part of the late-1990s nu-metal movement (or maybe the proper term is alt-metal). By that time, they’d already been together in one form or another for a decade, and had reached platinum status for the albums “Adrenaline” and “Around the Fur.” Progressing as a group, their early heavy metal-induced screaming vocals were joined by – for lack of a better term – quieter sounds. The lineup, too, went through some changes, though guitarist Stephen Carpenter, drummer Abe Cunningham, and frontman vocalist Chino Moreno have been there from the start. Touring has been limited in recent years, but there should be a good supply of new material in the upcoming shows, as they’ve been at work on an album since 2023. Rumor has it that it’ll be out before they hit the road. Tuesday, April 8, 7 p.m., TD Garden, 100 Legends Way., Boston. $157-$593.
Franz Ferdinand at the Orpheum
When Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, visited Sarajevo in the summer of 1914, they were shot and killed by a teenaged member of the terrorist group the Black Hand. The event changed history by leading to the start of WWI. When the Scottish band Franz Ferdinand (originally a trio, now a quintet) released their first single — “Darts of Pleasure,” in 2003 — and their self-titled debut album in 2004, they added to the history of rock music. Over the years since then, growing legions of fans have enjoyed the fact that the band works equally well playing straight-out rock or post-punk sounds or danceable disco or laid-back ballads. Obviously not satisfied with going “only” in all of those musical directions, the new album “The Human Fear” also has a nice taste of glam rock in the mix. Saturday, April 12, 8 p.m., Orpheum, 1 Hamilton Place, Boston. $34.50-$89.50.
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory at Roadrunner
Early on in her musical explorations, after shaping her voice in choirs, then learning to play clarinet, violin, and piano – before settling on guitar – Sharon Van Etten knew she would carve a career in music. Making great use of her ethereal voice, she put out her own recordings and sold them at solo shows, then, after being signed to a couple of indie labels, moved on to add lush atmospheres to her quietly emotional songs. As her musical boundaries expanded, her records and her live shows featured more and more involvement with the sounds of a band, most notably on her 2022 album “We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong.” Her new album, “Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory,” is bigger and brighter and has a much fuller sound than anything she’s done before. Her music is still intense and heartfelt, but this time, she and the band also really rock. Thursday, May 1, 8 p.m., Roadrunner, 89 Guest St., Boston. $36-$61.
Best folk-singer/songwriter concerts:
Mark Erelli at Club Passim
Singer-songwriter-guitarist Mark Erelli started attending concerts at Club Passim in the early ’90s. By the end of the decade, he was performing there and had a self-titled album released on Signature Sounds. But he had some musical history before that. He was a drummer in a few high school rock bands, and began learning acoustic guitar at Bates College. He recalls first having thoughts of a music career when he was mesmerized by early MTV videos, but didn’t take the leap until finishing grad school. After a few of his own albums came out, he joined up with the bluegrass group Barnstar, but later returned to making his own music. Most of the songs were originals, but he also put out the terrific 2018 covers album “Mixtape.” And he’s been a regular, in-demand artist at Passim. His upcoming show will feature original songs from his 2023 release “Lay Your Darkness Down.” But you never know when he might break into something by Richard Thompson or Roy Orbison. Friday, March 14, 8 p.m., Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Cambridge. $35.
Best country concerts:
Chase Rice at MGM Music Hall
It’s no surprise that Chase Rice has turned out to be a country singer with leanings toward pop. He’s often credited Garth Brooks – the country guy with pop tendencies – as an early favorite of his. But it took Rice a while to get completely into the scene. He was a linebacker at the University of North Carolina, and later on worked as part of a pit crew for NASCAR. His free time found him playing guitar, writing songs and performing them at songwriter nights. Yet, more people took notice of him for his 2010 appearance on “Survivor: Nicaragua” than were seeing him on small Nashville stages. Both talented and lucky, his first album for Columbia Nashville, 2014’s “Ignite the Night,” found an audience who, like him, liked that country-pop flavor. In an interesting switch-up, later records, specifically “I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go to Hell” (2023) and “Go Down Singin’” (2024), stepped back from the poppiness, and focused more on ballads. Friday, April 4, 8 p.m., MGM Music Hall, 2 Lansdowne St., Boston. $50-$182.
Blake Shelton at TD Garden
Blake Shelton was already a country star, with a batch of songs that topped the country charts, before he began his multi-year run as one of the celebrity coaches on NBC’s “The Voice.” And that gig made him an even bigger star. The road that brought that success to him started in his hometown of Ada, Oklahoma, then led to Nashville – shortly after graduating high school – where he got his foot in the door by selling songs to publishers. In 2001, his self-titled first album would go on to reach platinum status, and he’s, so far, had 12 consecutive records on the Country Top Ten chart. His most recent single, last year’s straight-up country tune “Texas,” has him pining for an ex-girlfriend. His upcoming “Friends & Heroes” tour should feature some new songs from an album that he’s, as of this writing, still working on. Friday, March 7, 7 p.m., TD Garden, 100 Legends Way., Boston. $35-$355.
Best jazz concerts:
Samara Joy at Berklee Performance Center
When record buyers were first introduced to the vocal stylings of Samara Joy on her self-titled 2021 debut album, they were hearing standards from the jazz repertoire that were some of her own favorites, among them “Stardust,” “Lover Man,” and “Moonglow.” By then, the New York singer was well into honing her craft, having already won Best Vocalist honors at an Essentially Ellington competition as well as the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. She was soon making regular trips to the recording studio, releasing “Linger Awhile” in 2022 – earning her two Grammys – “Linger Awhile Longer” in 2023, and last year, “Portrait.” A graduate of both Fordham High School for the Arts and SUNY, where she earned degrees in jazz composition and arrangement, Joy has continued to mine the world of jazz standards for album sessions and concert set lists. An added bonus is that she sometimes adds her own lyrics to established songs, making them even better. Saturday, May 3, 8 p.m., Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass. Ave., Boston. Tickets are currently not available.
Avishai Cohen at Regattabar
The Israeli jazz trumpeter Avishai Cohen first played for an audience when he was 10, and already a part of two different big bands. By 14, he was with the Young Israeli Philharmonic. But jazz eventually won out over classical. He moved to Boston to study at Berklee, played in others’ bands at Wally’s and Lizard Lounge, then continued on to New York City where he started what he now calls “my band-leading adventure.” Recording on the ECM label for the past decade, Cohen has excelled at modern jazz, post-bop, fusion, and free improvisation, and has been known to break into a little klezmer music. Never totally letting go of certain classical concepts, his most recent release, last year’s “Ashes to Gold,” features a five-part suite with Yonathan Avishai on piano, Barak Mori on bass, Ziv Ravitz on drums, and Cohen playing trumpet, flugelhorn, and flute. Friday, March 28, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Regattabar, 1 Bennett St., Cambridge. $25-$35.
Best classical concerts:
Leonidas Kavakos and Daniil Trifonov at Symphony Hall
Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos and Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov have made numerous solo appearances with major orchestras all over the world. On “the side,” Kavakos is also a renowned conductor, and Trifonov is an award-winning composer. But when they take the stage at Symphony Hall, it’ll just be the two classical masters – with their instruments – presenting a chamber recital of popular and, for some audience members, lesser known works. The program will include Beethoven – “Violin Sonata No. 4 in A minor”; Poulenc – “Sonata for Violin and Piano”; Brahms – “Sonata No. 1 for Violin & Piano in G major” and Bartok – “Rhapsody.” Wednesday, March 5, 8 p.m., Symphony Hall, 301 Mass. Ave., Boston. $49-$150.
