Weekend Agenda Oct. 10-11
Three big shows to fill your days off this weekend
Miley Cyrus
Because we’re obsessed with anything Billy Ray Cyrus-related, The A.V. Club is mildly intrigued by the Miley Cyrus concert coming tonight to The Bradley Center. Apparently Billy Ray’s kid has her own television show called Hannah Montana and it’s popular with these “’tween” youngsters we keep reading about in Newsweek. Actually, we saw Cyrus perform her latest single “Party In The U.S.A.” on this year’s Teen Choice Awards, which is totally not a creepy thing to watch if you happen to be in your early 30s. Anyway, we appear to have reached the age where the shortness of a teenage girl’s hot pants gets to us, because that young lady was showing entirely too much of her body. And here we thought we were huge sluts in high school. These kids today make Tara Reid look like Piper Laurie in Carrie.
Like any band that sticks around for a long time, Matchbox Twenty has earned a measure of respect, mostly because Rob Thomas is a solidly professional pop songwriter. This generation’s Journey, his band has churned out reliably populist rockers since the grunge era; on his own, Thomas is essentially this generation’s Steve Perry, turning out hits that sound exactly like his band's without the burden of having to share all the credit. This year’s Cradlesong is a typical piece of perfectly calculated mainstream pop, built on big, easy hooks designed to fit in a variety of corporate-designated radio formats. Thomas performs tonight at Riverside Theater.
If you’re a regular reader of The A.V. Club, you might be a little sick of Bon Iver, the Eau Claire-based indie-folk sensation headed up by the foxily bearded Justin Vernon. We pretty much cover Vernon’s every move, including Volcano Choir, his recent collaboration with Milwaukee’s Collections Of Colonies Of Bees. If you’re not Bon Iver’d out yet, be sure to check out his show Sunday at Riverside Theater.
