Just Announced The Ex, Liz Phair, Miranda Cosgrove, and more coming to Chicago in 2011

The concert calendar’s thinning out for the rest of the year, save the total deluge around New Year’s, but it’s just starting to pick up for 2011—especially in March, when bands are making their way toward Austin for SXSW. The A.V. Club scanned some of this week’s “just announceds” and found some choice listings.

• Veteran Dutch punk rockers The Ex come stateside and perform at Lincoln Hall March 8. Catch the constantly evolving band as they tour for Catch My Shoe, their first album with new lead singer Arnold de Boer.

• Miranda Cosgrove has long since shed the identity of the not-so-musically talented student in Jack Black’s School of Rock class. The 17-year-old star of television’s iCarly also has a solo album under her belt and will put her finest pop tunes on display at the Rosemont Theatre Jan. 28. 

• On Jan. 25, The Get Up Kids will release There Are Rules, their first full-length since reuniting a year ago. Hear the new stuff and some old favorites at Lincoln Hall March 12.

• Ted Leo is giving The Pharmacists a rest and touring solo. See him promote The Brutalist Bricks Feb. 1 at Schubas. 

• Folk singer-songwriter and Robert Pattinson crony Bobby Long plays Schubas Feb. 18. No word on whether or not Pattinson will be there, though a ton of weird, drunk Twimoms probably will be. 

• Liz Phair gets intimate at the Metro Jan. 22. Hopefully her set won’t include too much of Funstyle.