Contest Win tickets to Charles Bradley or the Reverend Horton Heat at Metro

Sometimes the mid-February doldrums can hit with unexpected force. To avoid being taken by surprise with nothing to do, enter our ticket giveaways for this month at Metro. The A.V. Club has tickets for Charles Bradley And His Extraordinaires Feb. 13 and Reverend Horton Heat Feb. 20. To win tickets to either show, e-mail ochicago@theonion.com with either “Charles Bradley” or “Reverend Horton Heat” in the subject line.

In one note, Charles Bradley’s voice mirrors painful plucks to the heartstrings, reminding listeners why this genre was simply, yet powerfully, titled “soul.” Like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett before him, Bradley’s raspy delivery draws all the pain out of the human condition and sends it straight into your eardrum. While the group sounds like it could have been plucked straight from the Motown lineup, the music incorporates bits and pieces of funk and more contemporary rock to keep things fresh.

Reverend Horton Heat—stage name of Jim Heath—jumped on the rockabilly revival train in the late ’80s. Fusing the sounds of ’50s-era backwoods country with the overwhelming energy of ’70s punk, the Reverend’s psychobilly gives the “out-on-the-range” sentiment a whole lot of ass-kicking attitude. Now in his 50s, Heath continues to deliver high-energy live shows to his fans.