It’s definitely going to be a contender, though, considering the sheer number of big concerts happening from now until May 31.
A huge crop of legendary artists and bands have shows scheduled in the Valley over the next four weeks, including Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, “Weird Al” Yankovich, MGMT, Khalid, Justin Timberlake,Franz Ferdinand, James Taylor, Phantogram, Of Montreal, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Melvins.
Whew.
Add in this year’s FORM Arcosanti just north of the Valley, pool party season kicking into high gear, and a variety of even more choice gigs and you get a month that’s packed with activity.
Details about each of these shows can be found in our rundown of the best concerts in the Valley this month. And for even more music events happening around town, check out Phoenix New Times' online concert calendar.
Justin Timberlake
Wednesday, May 2
Talking Stick Resort Arena
Whether he’s bringing sexy back or has his dick in a box — two unrelated events — Justin Timberlake is easy to love. The pop icon built his current success on the foundation of his early career, during which he acted on shows like The All-New Mickey Mouse Club and served as one-fifth of the ’90s boy-band phenomenon NSYNC.
Timberlake’s new tour is in support of his new release, Man of the Woods. It’s yet another effort that has proved that his fans love him. It debuted at No. 1, falling into that top spot just like his last three full-lengths did. On this newbie, the cover features a less flashy J.T. The singer sports a beard and dark suit against a stark and snowy background. But don’t worry; he hasn’t gone full emo. There are plenty of jumpy pop-meets-R&B tunes — like the opening track, “Filthy,” and “Wave,” to name a couple.
Timberlake is getting
Los Lobos
Wednesday, May 2
Musical Instrument Museum
Is any band in America more revered or respected than East Los Angeles roots vatos Los Lobos? The core members of this American musical treasure — David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Steve Berlin, Louis Perez and Conrad Lozano — have produced 19 albums and played everywhere from an Angeleno quinceañera to Farm Aid to the White House.
Their sound spans virtually all aspects of American music, from blues, zydeco, soul, and kick-you-in-the-head rock and roll to various Latino styles, including cumbia, norteño, and Tex-Mex. Critics turn handstands whenever they drop an album, and their fans follow them like Deadheads.
It's ironic that one of the most important acts of the late 20th century is best known for its cover of "La Bamba." Their first truly significant album, 1984's T Bone Burnett-produced Will The Wolf Survive
The Lawrence Arms
Thursday, May 3
Crescent Ballroom
The Lawrence Arms started in 1999 when former members of the Broadways, Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan, decided to do a more melodic punk band focused on often startlingly detailed and personal but emotionally vibrant music that didn't wax into the melodramatic mode of
The band's earliest releases came out on respected indie label Asian Man Records, but it was 2002's Apathy and Exhaustion that propelled the group into a higher echelon of the public consciousness. Famously kicked off the Warped Tour in 2004 for making remarks critical of the festival from the stage, the Lawrence Arms continue to make poignant, melodic punk records informed by a sharp sense of humor even to this day. Tom Murphy
Rogue Wave
Friday, May 4
Crescent Ballroom
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California-based Rogue Wave seemed poised to strike it big in the early to mid-aughts. Alongside bands like The Shins, Fruit Bats and Tapes n' Tapes, they made catchy, melodic indie rock that was infectious enough to fill midsize clubs and populate the soundtracks of iPod commercials and dramatic television shows such as The O.C. Alas, like many of the bands from that time, the group never reached the commercial heights gained by some of its contemporaries. However, despite label changes, personnel shuffles and serious health scares, the band has persevered.
With seven albums under the belt, Rogue Wave have never really stopped making music in the decade-plus since their heyday. This spring, they're touring behind the 10th anniversary of its most beloved album, Asleep At Heaven's Gate. On May at Crescent Ballroom, Rogue Wave will perform the album in its entirety and likely include other favorites from the past and present. Come for the nostalgia and catch up on what the band has been up to in the interim, as well. Jeff Strowe
The Longshot
Saturday, May 5
Valley Bar
Billie Joe Armstrong knows how to put the blitzkrieg in “Blitzkrieg Bop.” The Green Day frontman and pop-punk icon debuted his new band, The Longshot, with a sudden burst of releases and a tour announcement.
After dropping a three-track EP last month, Armstrong and company released a surprise full-length record called Love is for Losers on April 20. That same day, the band announced a string of small-club tour dates, including a show at Valley Bar on Saturday, May 5.
Teaming up with guitarist Kevin Preston, drummer David S. Field, and Green Day touring guitarist Jeff Matika on bass, The Longshot is going on tour to promote the debut album. With 11 tracks clocking in at 32 minutes, it's jammed with radio-ready rock 'n' roll.
Sonically, it’s got more in common with the polished sounds Armstrong and his Green Day bandmates embraced on American Idiot than the group's scrappier early work. Ashley Naftule
Desert Daze Caravan II
Saturday, May 5
The Van Buren
Shimmery psych-pop singer-songwriter Ariel Pink delivered his 12th album last year, named after and dedicated to Bobby Jameson — an L.A. musician thought dead for 35 years until
That includes his upcoming gig headlining Desert Daze Caravan II at The Van Buren on May 5. He won’t be the only must-see act on the lineup, however, as DIIV, Nanami Ozone, Acid Mothers Temple, and Yoo Doo Right are also scheduled to perform. Diamond Victoria
Of Montreal
Sunday, May 6
Crescent Ballroom
Out of all the Elephant 6 bands, who would have thought that Of Montreal would have been the one group to go the distance? Emerging from the same Athens, Georgia,
Since the breakthrough of 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer
For the group’s 15th album, 2018’s White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood, dance music is Barnes’ muse and the engine that powers its six songs. Taking inspiration from the extended dance mixes pop stars dropped in the ’80s, Barnes shows off the
“Weird Al” Yankovic
Tuesday, May 8
Mesa Arts Center
Anyone who has seen “Weird Al” Yankovic (and yes, the quotation marks are part of the official billing) in concert knows what to expect: A string of his insanely catchy parody songs (i.e. “Eat It” “Like a Surgeon” “Smells Like Nirvana,” “Amish Paradise,” “Gump,” “Tacky”), a huge video screen, crazy light show, and costume changes. Lots of costume changes.
But for his current tour, the accordion-wielding pride of Lynwood, California, is trying something completely different: a stripped-down, no-frills production in smaller venues with a show that is made up almost entirely of his original comedy or “in the style of” non-parody songs and deep cuts.
Not surprisingly, those tunes tended to get overlooked, and he’s amassed a quantity of them over his career. Songs like “Velvet Elvis,” “Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White,” “Dare to Be Stupid,” “The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota,” “My Baby’s in Love with Eddie Vedder,” and “Don’t Download This Song.”
“If they’re coming just to see the hits … they should stay home!” Yankovic says. “I’ve made no secret of what this tour is. It’s still a comedy show and it’s still enjoyable. It’s not the regular show. But there will still be that one person who yells out ‘Eat It!’” Bob Ruggiero
The Afghan Whigs
Tuesday, May 8
The Van Buren
Thom Yorke sang about feeling like a creep, but Greg Dulli has made a career out of singing about being a creep. The frontman for alt-rock veterans The Afghan Whigs, Dulli has carved out a place for himself as American rock’s resident scoundrel. He’s the closest thing the U.S. has to a Jarvis Cocker: Both singers pride themselves on being self-aware, louche playboys.
On albums like Gentlemen and Black Love, the Motown-loving Dulli steeped his “rock and corrupted soul” songs in toxic masculinity like bags of tea. He was hoisting toasts to the douchebags long before Kanye got around to it. Dulli’s voice has only gotten stronger and more resonant with age — the cockiness of youth replaced by the salty leer of an old timer who’s seen it all.
While 2014’s Do to the Beast and this year’s In Spades pale in comparison to classic Whigs joints like Gentlemen, they still stand on their own as worthy additions to the Whigs catalog. And besides, it’s a bit of unfair comparison: a lot of bands’ best work can’t measure up to Gentlemen, so who would expect the band that made the record to top it? Ashley Naftule
Taylor Swift
Tuesday, May 8
Assemble your squads, Arizona. Taylor Swift is coming to town. The singer-songwriter will kick
T-Swizz is as popular as ever these days. Her new album, Reputation, sold around 700,000 copies in the U.S. on its day of release last November, putting it on track to be Swift's fifth No. 1 album on Billboard's charts. It's an impressive feat, considering the controversy that's dogged the singer over the last year — from her feud with Kanye West blowing up in her face to the public's mixed reactions to Swift's single “Look What You Made Me Do."
But even with strong album sales, it looks like Taylor Swift still has both feet firmly planted in the pop firmament. And local fans will get a chance to bask in her full Swiftian glory this month. Ashley Naftule
Hot Snakes
Thursday, May 10
Crescent Ballroom
Making things obvious has just never been Hot Snakes' style. "Hi-Lites," from 2004's Audit in Progress, provides a great example of this MO in action. The song begins with a shivering, impetuous guitar line that sounds like it's desperate to break out of a confined space and go skyward. When those nimble, uneasy notes finally escape, they tear off wildly, and the rest of Hot Snakes' instruments jump in and follow this path.
Don't, however, expect Rick Froberg to try to translate the special quality of this frenetic yet weirdly subtle song into words. "I wouldn't bother," he says, “I wouldn't know how to describe it. I mean, that's the thing about playing music: You're not much with words — [otherwise] you'd be an author or something."
He sells himself short with that perspective. "Hi-Lites" reads like an abbreviated William Carlos Williams poem dedicated to city-based shut-ins who are sick of the overwhelming, garish vibes of metropolitan life. "High treble! Hi-lites!" Froberg shrieks, sounding, in a very good way, like he's a few thousand tools short of a hardware store. Reyan Ali
Khalid
Friday, May 11
Rawhide Event Center
At 20 years old, not a lot of folks are thriving in their careers. But R&B singer-songwriter Khalid certainly is. In fact, the Texas native started his at age 17 and has collaborated with Logic and Calvin Harris, among others.
That's something to be proud of. His singles, "Location" and "Young Dumb & Broke,” both off of his 2017 album American Teen, have gotten a combined 649 million views on YouTube and earned him the spots on the Billboard Hot 100. That sure beats trying to figure out the whole paying for college thing. Diamond Victoria
[image-31] Franz Ferdinand
Friday, May 11
The Van Buren
While the veteran Glaswegian post-pop rock act Franz Ferdinand did their bit to reaffirm the glories of British guitar music, their output in recent times has shown an inclination to move beyond all that – and then to come back to it.
Their brand of post-punk
Since then, Franz Ferdinand has put out three studio albums, spent a year or so performing with Sparks as a supergroup called FFS, and
TV Girl
Friday, May 11
Valley Bar
If The Jetsons were
TV Girl’s music sounds so playful and disorienting because of their deft sampling skills. Disembodied voices from yesteryear bob in and out of the mix, creating an anything-goes atmosphere that recalls classic sample-heavy albums like Paul’s Boutique and 3 Feet High and Rising.
On the band’s latest album, Who Really Cares, TV Girl
FORM Arcosanti 2018
Friday, May 11, to Sunday, May 13
Arcosanti in Mayer
Curated by Los Angeles band Hundred Waters, FORM Arcosanti is renowned (and sometimes poked fun at) for its experience-centered, immersive approach. Attendance is so limited they call it a "micro-festival." Participants camp — or
This year's no exception. The 2018 lineup features Chance the Rapper, Courtney Barnett, Amen Dunes, Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra, and Blood Orange.
Arts and cultural programming will include talks, workshops, outdoor activities, and art installations. Participating organizations at this year's festival will include the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Phoenix Art Museum, Palabra, and The Whole Story. More programming details will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tickets to this year's festival range from $350 for a single non-camping pass to $2,499 for a two-person patron bundle that's all-inclusive. Complete details are available via Eventbrite. Becky Bartkowski
Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness
Saturday, May 12
The Van Buren
Though he calls his current project "Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness," Andrew McMahon is a man who knows exactly where he is, where he's been, and where he's going. Born in 1982 to what he describes as a "piano-playing mom and a dad who was a product of the '60s protest movement," music was an ever-present part of life for McMahon and his four older siblings.
At the age of 9, he began playing piano and writing songs. It was his EP Ready Break with his band Something Corporate that first found the then-17-year-old a record deal. A couple of years later, when he was fronting the band Jack's Mannequin, calamity struck. He was diagnosed with leukemia. After more than 10 years in remission, McMahon says he still carries psychic scars from fighting cancer.
His most recent record, Zombies on Broadway, has the celebratory vibe of a man who has bested disease. "It has a dance electronic bent that I got from a lot of time playing at festivals. I saw FKA Twigs and M83, and I found myself in these rooms dancing with all these people. I wanted to create that kind of energy."
The place where he recorded the album also had an influence. "The idea of traveling to New York City to make the album was huge. A lot of my records had that California aesthetic. This record was exploring another city and its architecture and people." David Rolland
Apocalyptica
Sunday, May 13
Chandler Center for the Arts
If heavy metal cello group Apocalyptica is any indication, whatever’s in the water in Finland makes for a pretty heavy tonic. The band takes classical music instruments and sets them to epic renditions of metal songs, or melds them into their own booming, bottom-heavy compositions.
While the group (consisting of four cellists and a drummer) initially started as a Metallica cover band, they expanded their repertoire to include classical takes on songs by bands like Pantera and Faith No More. But since 2000, Apocalyptica’s been releasing albums of original material, like Cult (which saw the band using more effects and distortion), and Reflections (which was the band’s first album to feature drums). Niki D'Andrea
Sofi
Monday, May 14
Crescent Ballroom
Sofi Tukker's insidiously catchy single "Best Friend" has become a major hit since it was featured in a commercial for the iPhone X. The track reached number one on Billboard's dance chart last month.
The duo behind the song — Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern — often blurs the lines between
"At first, we tried to do everything," Hawley-Weld says, "trying to trigger every beat and play every part. But we realized that's not really the point.
In other words, they care more about shared experiences than wowing with their motor-function skills. Howard Hardee
The Championship Tour feat. Kendrick Lamar & SZA
Monday, May 14
Ak-Chin Pavilion
Following last summer’s triumphant performance at Gila River Arena in Glendale, Kendrick Lamar will return to the Valley with a show at Ak-Chin Pavilion on May 14. And this time around, he’ll bring the whole team with him.
The aptly named Championship Tour will see the entire Top Dawg Entertainment roster — minus
Although TDE artists have previously opened for one another’s live performances, the Championship Tour will be the first time the label has mounted a collective major tour nationwide. In addition to being headlined by the aforementioned artists and Lamar, the tour will also include newer signees SZA, Lance Skiiiwalker, and SiR. Much like her labelmate Lamar, SZA enjoyed a fruitful 2017, with her debut LP, CTRL, garnering critical acclaim as well as bringing her to Phoenix. Zach Schlein
Mushroomhead
Tuesday, May 15
Club Red in Mesa
Mushroomhead is rarely mentioned in the mainstream music media, and if it is mentioned, it's usually because it's being compared to Slipknot. Not that the comparisons don't make sense: Both bands are similar-sounding seven-piece groups in creepy masks. Except Mushroomhead has been around since 1993 (Slipknot was formed in '95), and its sound is closer to a fusion of Slipknot, Disturbed, and whatever Jeffrey Dahmer probably listened to in his apartment.
Originally a side project for several Cleveland-area musicians, Mushroomhead was playing in front of 2,000 people alongside GWAR by the time it had booked a second show. The band combines industrial metal, hip-hop, goth, and punk. Later this month, they’ll invade Club Red in Mesa on their current tour. Vyces, Gabriel
Soulfly & Nile
Saturday, May 19
Marquee Theatre in Tempe
As the leader of Sepultura for over a decade, Max Cavalera helped put Brazil on the map. From the beginning, the outfit was clearly influenced by punk rock as much as it was by other metal bands, as evidenced by its socially conscious lyrics, its grassroots efforts to get its music out into the world, and its disregard for strict genre conventions.
Shortly after the release of Sepultura's 1996 album Roots, Cavalera suffered a personal tragedy when it was discovered that his stepson had been murdered. Cavalera, a longtime resident of the Valley, returned to music two years later with the eponymous Soulfly record – a piece of work that reflected his own search for spiritual meaning in times of great personal darkness.
Since its debut, Soulfly has been a different kind of metal band, not just in terms of lyrical content, but also for its unique use of guitar sounds and nontraditional instrumentation, an approach that Cavalera had begun on his last two Sepultura albums.
In mid-May, Cavalera and Soulfly will stage a hometown show at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe with support from legendary death metal act Nile. Tom Murphy
MGMT
Sunday, May 20
Marquee Theatre in Tempe
MGMT shot out of the gates with its syrupy, throwback psych rock in the late ’00s, but has since struggled to break fresh ground. The duo tried maximalism (on Congratulations and MGMT), explored popper frontiers (Oracular Spectacular) and attempted yet another reinvention with this year’s Little Dark Age. By stripping their sound to a skeleton, the two sound like they’re having fun for the first time in nearly a decade.
The structures are simpler, there are more hooks and the lyrics are the sturdiest the duo has ever put to paper. But the new MGMT isn’t just about taking elements away. In Little Dark Age, the band embraces more electronic components than ever before. It seems more grown up, too — it’s more cynical, more fatalistic and, in a sort of charming way, more burned out. This pie-eyed weariness is refreshing when set against the group’s once-blinding optimism. It also adds a little edge to a band that somewhere along the way forgot how — or refused — to stay relevant. If there was ever a time to give these dudes a second chance, it’s now. Jonathan Patrick
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Monday, May 21
The Van Buren
Before the existence of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the post-rock genre included only a small number of touchstones, including Public Image Ltd’s krautrock/dub masterpiece Metal Box, Talk Talk’s 1991 landmark Laughing Stock and Bark Psychosis’s Hex. Godspeed came together in 1994, the year that Hex was released. Combining a classical-music aesthetic with drone and ambient leanings, Godspeed has influenced all post-rock that has come along since.
Perhaps what sets Godspeed apart from other artists in that vein is that the band’s compositions are an orchestrated panoply of sounds that take the listener on a journey. There is nothing vague, tentative, or impressionistic about Godspeed’s music. In contrast to other acts’ more static sound, Godspeed pulls the listener into psychological spaces both harrowing and tranquil. Tom Murphy
Bleachers
Tuesday, May 22
The Van Buren
What happens after your band releases a string of infectious and inescapable singles?
The world was introduced to Bleachers through "I Wanna Get Better," the absurdly catchy first single off of their 2014 debut album, Strange Desire. With their '80s New Wave-life sound, Bleachers has given us breezy songs that keep us smiling while being constantly stuck in our heads. Brittany Spanos
Phantogram
Wednesday, May 23
The Van Buren
A duo from upstate New York, Phantogram will scratch that same after-hours electro-pop itch as School of Seven Bells' enchanting 2012 LP Ghostory. For most of their careers, Josh Carter and Sarah Bechtel have slid dusty hip-hop beats around the kind of
Peter Bradley Adams
Friday, May 25
Valley Bar
If you watched any TV during the early 2000s, you've probably heard the soulful, folksy crooning of Peter Bradley Adams. You may not recognize Adams as a solo artist, but his folk-pop project
You probably heard the group's single "You Dance" a few times on the radio in 2003, and both
One More Time
Friday, May 25
The Van Buren
One More Time does a spot-on imitation of Daft Punk in concert and does it well. Phenomenally well, even, from the identical version of the iconic helmets and jumpsuits of the Grammy-winning and quasi-robotic French electronica duo (including neon versions inspired by Tron: Legacy) to the pyramid-like staging that's straight outta the act's landmark Alive 1997 tour. One More Time has Daft Punk down so well that it even mimics their flair for anonymity, asking that New Times keep the duo's real names on the down-low.
Over the last several
One More Time returns home to the Valley in late May for their first-ever performance at The Van Buren. Apache Grosse and NKRIOT will open. Benjamin Leatherman
Subhumans
Sunday, May 27
The Rebel Lounge
While The Clash, Crass,
What set this hardcore protest quartet apart from fellow U.K. punkers like the Exploited in the 1980s was that the group mixed uncompromising politics with Animals-
James Taylor
Tuesday, May 29
Talking Stick Resort Arena
He might be the self-consumed guy who inspired Carly Simon's monster hit, "You're So Vain," but that's something that probably won't ever be confirmed. What is an irrefutable truth is that James Taylor is a world-renowned musician, songwriter, vocalist and pretty much any other category he could be lumped into. Sure, his easy-listening, post-hippy folk balladry may seem like mindlessly pleasant pap, but in his best work there's depth — and pain — in Taylor's songwriting.
He's battled with depression and drug abuse nearly his entire life, and his experiences in psychiatric institutions, as well as the suicide of a close friend, led him to write the defining song of his career, "Fire and Rain." Named for the whiplash sensations of shock therapy and the cold shower that follows, there's nothing light about it. Paige Skinner
Melvins
Thursday, May 31
Crescent Ballroom
Many cool bands that formed in the '80s have lost their relevancy, but the Melvins are not among them. The Washington-bred heavy-stoner-rock trio not only still tour but also fully maintain their cool status. Singer and guitarist Buzz Osborne is an outspoken character who is likely the inspiration for The Simpsons' Sideshow Bob. He also introduced Dave Grohl to the rest of Nirvana, which is appropriate because the Melvins influenced grunge and sludge