Shen Yun @ Marcus Center, April 14
Thursday, April 9
Neil Diamond @ BMO Harris Bradley Center, 8 p.m.
Although he’s been making music for 50 years, Neil Diamond still retains his smooth pop voice and the energy to dance across stages and charm audiences with his folksy sense of humor. He even insists on updating his own Twitter account, where he sometimes posts photos and asks for fan requests before shows. Though his attitude is humble, his career isn’t; nearly 50 of his singles have charted the Billboard Top 100, including the 1966 clap-along dancehall hit “Cherry, Cherry,” 1969’s summery, horn-glazed “Sweet Caroline” and 1981’s uplifting violin-driven anthem “America.” Diamond’s 2008 Rick Rubin-produced album, Home Before Dark, reaffirmed the singer’s enduring popularity, topping the charts and making him, then 67, the oldest performer at the time ever to claim that honor. Young’s latest album, 2014’s Melody Road, is his first for Capitol Records, and it returns him to some of the grandiose orchestrations that defined his ’70s records.
Friday, April 10
‘Winter Count and Howl: Music in Poetry, Poetry in Music’ @ South Milwaukee PAC, 7:30 p.m.
A composer whose interests are evenly divided between music and poetry, South Milwaukee native Jerome Kitzke returns home for this performance at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center titled Winter Count and Howl: Music in Poetry, Poetry in Music. The “Howl” in that title, of course, refers to the great poem by Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, which will be read by Kitzke along with pieces from poets with Milwaukee ties. Joining Kitzke for the program will be actor Jennifer Kathryn Marshall and The Winter Count String Quartet, featuring several members of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and percussionist Carl Storniolo. That ensemble will join Kitzke for a performance of Winter Count, which he describes as “an anti-war work for actor, bass drum and string quartet with texts ranging from Aeschylus to Harold Pinter.”
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Robbie Fulks w/ P M Buys @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Robbie Fulks, one of many singer-songwriters to emerge from Chicago’s fruitful ’90s alt-country scene, is nothing if not multifaceted. He loves stripped-down, sparse country, but he also likes hard-driving roots rock. He writes silly country toss-offs, but he also writes serious ballads. He has an ambitious concept album to his credit (2001’s Couples in Trouble), but his 2005 album Georgia Hard relied on witty jaunts like the ones Shel Silverstein used to pen for the country greats. Fulks finds a happy balance between all these sides during his live performances, as documented on his 2007 live double album, Revenge! His latest studio effort, Gone Away Backward, returns him to his first label, Bloodshot Records.
Saturday, April 11
Midwest Gaming Classic @ Milwaukee Sheraton Brookfield, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Each year thousands of retro gaming enthusiasts head to Brookfield for the annual Midwest Gaming Classic, which displays hundreds of vintage arcade and video games and pinball machines. This year quite a few new pinball machines will be on display as well, including ones themed around The Walking Dead and The Big Lebowski. There will also be a host of tournaments, dozens of vendors selling classic games and a Gaming Museum filled with memorabilia from the earliest years of electronic gaming. (Also Sunday, April 12, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.)
Reptar w/ Icky Blossoms and Canopies @ Cactus Club, 9:30 p.m.
The Athens, Ga., quartet Reptar earned early comparisons to Animal Collective and the Talking Heads for their lively, synth-drenched art-pop, which they captured on their 2012 debut for Vagrant Records, Body Faucet. Recorded with Washed Out and Animal Collective producer Ben Allen, that album didn’t disguise its intent to capture the era’s chillwave/electro-pop zeitgeist, but the group’s latest effort, Lurid Glow, takes bigger risks. It’s a more surprising, artier record, one that seems less interested in duplicating the hot sounds of the moment and more committed to delivering weird, poppy thrills by whatever means possible.
Twin Shadow w/ Erik Hassle @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Essentially the solo project of Dominican-born songwriter George Lewis Jr., Twin Shadow was lumped in with all the other chillwave bands producing washed-out, lo-fi, synthesizer-driven pop following the release of its 2010 debut, Forget. With 2012’s sophomore effort Confess, the project seems to have outgrown the chillwave moniker. It’s a much more direct and charismatic record, anchored as much by Lewis’ robust voice and grabby songwriting as by pretty synthesizers. It’s also more overt in its ’80s influences, basking in the sounds of The Psychedelic Furs and Human League. It’s not hard to imagine Molly Ringwald prom dancing to some of these songs. Lewis Jr. is readying a new album for release this year, Eclipse, which he’s described as much more approachable than its predecessors.
Yellowcard w/ Finch and One OK Rock @ The Rave, 7:30 p.m.
It didn’t take all that much to stand out during the turn-of-the-century emo/pop-punk boom, and Jacksonville’s Yellowcard had something many of their Warped Tour peers didn’t: a violinist, Sean Mackin, who lent color to the group’s catchy little punk songs. The band’s vaguely Christian leanings have helped them maintain a loyal audience over the last decade, but it also helps that the band has matured better than most of their contemporaries. Featuring assists from members of All Time Low, We Are The In Crowd and Hey Monday, their 2012 album Southern Air was loaded with bittersweet pop-rock tunes that meditate on the passage of time. Last year’s Lift a Sail continued the band’s drift away from punk and toward a more traditional rock sound.
Monday, April 13
Being an Entrepreneur with Kevin Lyman @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 6 p.m.
Now in its 20th year, the Vans Warped Tour has been around longer than many of the fans who attend it. Keeping the festival fresh year after year and appealing to a fanbase whose tastes are constantly changing has been one of the great accomplishments of tour founder Kevin Lyman, who also founded the Rockstar Mayhem Festival and co-owns the punk label Side One Dummy. Lyman will share his insights into the music business as well as some stories from his long career at this free appearance sponsored by Milwaukee’s Yellow Phone Music Conference. The event begins with a cocktail hour at 6 p.m.; Lyman will speak at 7 p.m.
Tuesday, April 14
Shen Yun @ Marcus Center, 7:30 p.m.
Shen Yun translates as “the beauty of heavenly beings dancing.” Based in New York because, press materials say, China’s Communist government opposes its mission of “reviving 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture,” its hundred dancers and musicians create a new international touring show annually. Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, a gentle spiritual discipline emphasizing truthfulness, compassion and forbearance, provides the philosophical underpinning. A live orchestra, stunning costumes and sets, and highly accessible balletic-gymnastic choreography give the work broad all-ages appeal. Shen Yun 2015 will be repeated on Wednesday, April 15. Visit http://shenyun.com for videos and history, and http://marcuscenter.org for ticket information.
Disappears w/ Dogs in Ecstasy and Gallery Night @ Cactus Club, 9 p.m.
Brian Case already claimed ties to two fine Chicago indie-rock bands, the 90 Day Men and The Ponys, before he launched Disappears in 2008. His latest group doesn’t aim to sweep listeners off their feet the way that 90 Day Men’s cascading pianos did, or for that matter, knock them on their asses the way The Ponys’ gut-punch rock does. Rather, it opts for a straight-forward rock ’n’ roll approach, eroding the listener with hazy guitars, druggy Velvet Underground riffs and more than a little of The Fall’s trademark repetition. The band received a boost when Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley joined for a stint, but drumming responsibilities have since been turned over to Noah Leger, who played on the group’s 2013 album Era and this year’s noisy follow-up Irreal.
