You can find all the details about each of these concerts below or check out Phoenix New Times’ live music listings for even more shows this weekend.
Christian McBride’s New Jawn
Friday, May 12Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 East Second StreetJazz fans are probably familiar with the name Christian McBride. The Philadelphia-born bassist, composer, bandleader, and arranger has been quite prolific in his contributions to the genre since his 1989 debut. He’s been a sideman on 300-plus recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, and performed alongside artists ranging from Questlove to Carly Simon. (McBride was also pals with the late James Brown, which he discussed in a 2011 episode of “The Moth Radio Hour.”) These days, when he isn’t hosting NPR’s “Jazz Night in America” or serving as the artistic director of the Newport Jazz Festival, he helms five different bands, including Christian McBride’s New Jawn. The quartet — which also stars saxophonist Marcus Strickland, drummer Nasheet Waits, and trumpeter Josh Evans — performs jazz music that features what one music writer describes as “tight instrumentation, fast-and-loose percussive subtlety, and soul for days.” If that sounds like it’d be music to your ears, McBride is bringing the band to Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts on Friday night. 8 p.m., $10-$70 via scottsdalearts.org. Benjamin Leatherman
Future Islands
Friday, May 12The Van Buren, 401 West Van Buren StreetThe music of Baltimore-based synthpop band Future Islands is meant to be experienced live. The group’s interactive shows are bursting with energy, as frontman Sam Herring has a background in performance art and draws inspiration from the likes of Elvis Presley, Ian Curtis, and James Brown. Herring’s improvisational style — ranging from almost uncomfortable eye contact with audience members to weird interpretive dancing and growling — has gone viral and even landed him in the hospital a few times. Future Islands’ songs pair heartbreaking, earnest lyrics with bouncy beats, so be prepared to move and be moved when they take over The Van Buren on Friday night. Their most recent album, “As Long as You Are,” is propelled by dynamic bass lines, sparkling synths, and pure emotion. The tracks ease listeners into somber stories of lonely mountain drives, breakups, and unshakeable anxieties. With Joon; 8 p.m., $37 via livenation.com. Meagan Mastriani
The Crystal Method
Saturday, May 13 Walter Studios, 747 West Roosevelt StreetMore than 25 years ago, the electronica duo of Ken Johnson and Scott Kirkland (a.k.a. The Crystal Method) broke out big-time in 1997, helping to popularize the late-'90s "big beat" EDM sound. And like many acts from that era (be they in the realm of electronic dance music or otherwise), they’ve undergone some changes. After dropping a slew of albums in the 2000s and 2010s (including such releases as 2009’s Divided By Night and 2018’s The Trip Home), Johnson retired from the music biz in 2016 as Kirkland continued to perform and record as the Crystal Method. Last year, Kirkland released “The Trip Out,” an eight-track banger featuring guest vocals by Naz Tokio and Wenzday. You’re likely to hear cuts from the album when Kirkland brings the Crystal Method to Walter Studios in downtown Phoenix this weekend. With Stanton Warriors, Hyper, DJ Louder, and Sam Groove; 9 p.m., $27/$30 via seetickets.us. Benjamin Leatherman
The Mars Volta
Saturday, May 13 Marquee Theatre, 730 North Mill Avenue, TempeForget "Finnegans Wake." If you can interpret an album’s worth of Mars Volta lyrics, you have truly mastered the art of literary analysis. Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Alfredo Rodriguez-Lopez (half of At The Drive-In and the brain trust behind the Mars Volta) may play music with punkish energy and volume, but they write and record like veteran prog rockers. The Mars Volta is a band that is unafraid to appear pretentious and inscrutable, releasing a string of albums full of long songs, quasi-incomprehensible lyrics, and shifting soundscapes combining snatches of pleasing Santana-esque Latin rock with bursts of noise and enough genre-hopping to make the ghost of Frank Zappa say “chill out, guys, damn.” Aside from Tool, there is no modern band more beloved by homegrowers, guitar store employees, and people with Alex Grey posters on their walls. Their latest, 2023’s “Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon,” finds the group covering themselves, re-recording all the songs off of last year’s self-titled record as acoustic renditions. Hearing the manic duo stripped down and simplified is a fascinating experience, though at times one wishes for that signature Mars Volta weirdness to kick over a few things and make some noise. With Teri Gender Bender; 8 p.m., $70-$90 via seetickets.us. Ashley Naftule
Titties, A$$ & Punk Rock
Saturday, May 13Yucca Tap Room, 29 West Southern Avenue, TempeIf you’re of the belief that punk rock is best served with a chaser of Wendy O. Williams-style sleaze and debauchery, head for Tempe’s Yucca Tap Room on Friday night. Inside the bar’s main room, a boozy punk bacchanal of Mohawk rock and scandalous thrills awaits. Britni Bloodshed, Lexi Locket, Rusty the Clown, and the other artists of the Pain Proof Punks — a burlesque and sideshow troupe with “a taste for the strange, peculiar, and bizarre” — will perform while local punk bands Critical Miss, Birth of Monsters, The Exxes, and Ass Wipe Junkies provide the soundtrack. Patrons are encouraged to bring dollar bills to the 21-and-over show “to tip the performers.” 9 p.m., free. Benjamin Leatherman
Snow Tha Product
Saturday, May 13The Van Buren, 401 West Van Buren StreetSnow Tha Product isn’t a household name yet, but don’t blink too long: She's been steadily climbing up for the underground since she pressed “go” on her career as a wicked MC. The Mexican-American rapper has been packing rooms for the high-energy live experience. Her YouTube videos get views into the millions. She’s outspoken about a variety of issues, including immigration, and was featured in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)" video. Born in California as Claudia Alexandra Feliciano, she’s had music on her mind since childhood. Around age 6, she started performing at school talent shows and also with her family’s mariachi band. Getting into hip-hop and rap came later, in her teens. Blending traditional roots with cultural loves, she was just setting the stage for the swagger-filled, bombastic raps she has been dropping prolifically for more than a decade It’s not just the fearless, don’t-give-a-fuck ’tude that hooks you. It’s the delivery. Snow knows how to create some clever and twisty verbiage, and then shoot it at you fast and furious. It’s like getting pummeled with a blast of pellets, the kind that sting and gets stuck in your skin. 8 p.m., $57 via livenation.com. Amy Young
Red Hot Chili Peppers' current lineup (from left): Chad Smith, Anthony Kiedis, John Frusciante, and Flea.
Clara Balzary
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Sunday, May 14 State Farm Stadium, 1 East Cardinals Way, GlendaleFast fact: Red Hot Chili Peppers’ first-ever Phoenix gig was a two-night stint in June 1985 at now-defunct rock club The Mason Jar (the current home of The Rebel Lounge). Fast forward almost 38 years later and their latest Valley performance will be happening at State Farm Stadium, a venue more than 400 times larger. Credit that to the RHCP’s overwhelming success, their status as an inescapable staple of rock radio, and the dozens of hits they’ve notched over the decades. And then there’s the fact the funk-rockers are touring with their most successful lineup of vocalist Anthony Kiedis, bass guitarist Flea, guitarist John Frusciante, and drummer Chad Smith, a partnership that yielded 1989’s “Mother's Milk” and 1991’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” two of their most beloved and best-known albums and the source of such RHCP favorites as “Under the Bridge” and “Give It Away,” both of which are on the setlist for their current stadium tour. Don’t expect the band to be sporting socks on their man parts, though, as the band retired that particularly problematic gag decades ago. With The Strokes and Thundercat; 6:30 p.m., $26-$475 via seatgeek.com. Benjamin Leatherman
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
Sunday, May 14The Underground, 105 West Main Street, MesaThe year: 1987. The scene: A seedy Chicago bar. Groovie Mann and Buzz McCoy meet and bond over underground horror flicks and degenerate tabloid chronicles of sex, sleaze, and the occult, then plan to create their own "B movie" band. The result: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. With a dozen studio albums under their PVC belts, the band has become a major fixture in the industrial-disco sleaze-rock scene, has been credited as an influence for the Scissor Sisters and Marilyn Manson. TKK's sex- and drugs-spiked cocktail fucks with you, their cut-and-paste style blending distorted vocals, dance rhythms, and sampled movie dialogue. Since their early hit "A Daisy Chain 4 Satan," this band has pushed the envelope with lyrics, videos, and album covers while balancing a continuously shifting sound. Their 1990 album “Confessions of a Knife” was abrasive and electronic, laced with heavy metal riffs, while “Sexplosion!” (released in 1991) was riddled with psychedelic house beats, and 2007's “The Filthiest Show in Town” evoked images of sexual excess and bewitching strippers, dangling over a 1960s-style twang. With Adult and Kanga; 7 p.m., $27.50 via seetickets.us. Lauren Wise
