Weekly Agenda: Here's to second chances

The last time No Age came to town was a couple of months ago, when the Los Angeles duo opened for Pavement in the cavernous Roy Wilkins Auditorium. Like many people who’ve spent a lot of time in Twin Cities clubs, we’ve been known to poke fun at Roy Wilkins and its airplane hangar-like acoustics. But never have we seen a band taken down by the space the way No Age was that night. Our hopes were high: old and new favorites on the same bill? Fantastic. But as Dean Spunt tapped his drumsticks together to count off the first song, the clicks echoed messily throughout the room. The set that followed was a disaster. No Age is known for building ambient sounds and textures into beautiful noise, but the band does it meticulously. The wall of sound at Roy Wilkins was just a mistake.

But please trust us on this one: In the right room, No Age is an amazing live band. Its Tuesday night show at 7th Street Entry may be just what it needs to rinse the taste of a bad first impression out of a lot of mouths. If you don’t think No Age will tickle your fancy even as it was meant to be heard, consider the opening sets from locals Haunted House and The Blind Shake as insurance that your night will not be wasted.

Also on the docket for this week are some once-local folks who maybe didn’t get the attention they deserved when they were your neighbors. Nick Swardson is a local boy made good, if launching a filthy Comedy Central sketch show filled with jokes about dicks and donkey shows can be considered “making good.” He’s swinging through his hometown as part of the traveling dudefest known as Vince Vaughn’s Comedy Roadshow (Saturday, State Theatre). (Though Swardson is an actual Minneapolis native, it’s the Minnesota-born, Illinois-raised Vaughn who will be receiving a star on the Minnesota walk of fame that day. Go figure.) And defunct St. Paul indie-rock band Hockey Night burned fast and bright in the early ’00s, cranking out songs that, coincidentally, sounded quite a bit like Pavement’s. We still miss Hockey Night sometimes, but it’s comforting to know that a reconfigured version of the band exists as the Philadelphia-based Free Energy (Thursday, 400 Bar). Free Energy’s sound is now more Weezer than Pavement, but what’s the point of second chances if you’re going to do everything the same way you did it the first time?