Rock Show

At last, something to look forward to at Fenway Park. Bruce Springsteen announced on his website Friday that he and the E Street Band have a return engagement at the ballpark Aug. 14. (The site says the show is "pending final approval by the City of Boston," but something tells us that won't be an issue.) The Boss, you'll recall, played the first-ever rock show at Fenway back in September 2003. Springsteen, who's touring in support of his new CD, "Wrecking Ball," is also playing at Gillette Stadium Aug. 18. Tickets for the Fenway show will be available at Live Nation.com or by calling...

At last, something to look forward to at Fenway Park. Bruce Springsteen announced on his website Friday that he and the E Street Band have a return engagement at the ballpark Aug. 14. (The site says the show is "pending final approval by the City of Boston," but something tells us that won't be an issue.) The Boss, you'll recall, played the first-ever rock show at Fenway back in September 2003. Springsteen, who's touring in support of his new CD, "Wrecking Ball," is also playing at Gillette Stadium Aug. 18. Tickets for the Fenway show will be available at Live Nation.com or by calling...

Coldplay closed out the North American leg of its tour with an exclamation point Monday night. Befitting their status as radio kings, thanks to the success of their fourth album "Viva La Vida," the quartet gave a big performance on a big stage with a big audience singing along to the big choruses. (Speed-dial friends U2 would've beamed with older brotherly pride). Whether it was the presence of frontman Chris Martin's famous wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, and mother-in-law, Blythe Danner, with special guests Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld at the TD Banknorth Garden or the hero's...

Though he hasn't been playing much in this country over the past five years, Lenny Kravitz looked and sounded fairly unchanged from his heyday when he returned with a tour launch Friday from the Citi Wang Theatre. The times themselves are the biggest difference. Kravitz's older songs live on in classic-rock radio, but his new material barely blips on the pop-culture radar. There has been as much chatter about Kravitz's appearance in the forthcoming "Hunger Games" film as about his latest album, "Black and White America.

In the summer of 1995, a group of students from the Rhode Island School of Design moved into an old factory building in the Olneyville section of Providence and called it Fort Thunder -- a place to make noise. Many more young bohemians followed, and an underground scene was born: a wildly creative, rambunctiously countercultural ferment that would, by the early 2000s, attract national attention. Out of it came such groups as the noise band Lightning Bolt and the art and music collective Forcefield, whose psychedelic multimedia installation was a hit in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

The traditional path to getting on the permanent guest list at a rock club takes a lot of work - what with the long hours of required schmoozing, the late nights, and probably more cans of cheap beer than are advisable. A new promotion from the indie-rock clubs Great Scott and T.T. the Bear's Place called the Bridge Badge aims to streamline that process for avid showgoers and would-be scenesters. The badges, which went on sale last week (at $149, available through www.cqpresents.com)

MUSIC Framingham: "Rust Never Sleeps," a live rock show that celebrates the music and musical career of Neil Young, presents selections from his days with Buffalo Springfield in the 1960s, as well as his early-'70s folk-rock gems, Saturday, 8 p.m., at the Amazing Things Arts Center, 160 Hollis St. $15-$18. 508-405-2787, www.rustneversleeps.net. Weston: The Coriolanus Quartet - composed of Susanna Ogata, Cynthia Freivogel, Karina Fox, and Guy Fishman playing period string instruments - performs an all-Haydn program Friday, 8 p.m., at Congregational Church of Weston, 130 Newton St. $30,...

The gifted and eclectic Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso has traversed a world of sounds and styles over the course of 40 years. He helped pioneer Brazil's Tropicalismo movement, a revolutionary fusion of loud guitars, jazzy dissonance, and modern poetry, in the '60s, and ever since Veloso's adventurous spirit has led to artful investigations of Beatlesesque pop, American funk, reggae, electronica, folk, and other genres. At the Orpheum Friday, Veloso tightened his focus in the service and sensibility of his most recent album, "cê.

Business continues to be brisk for the Pixies, so perhaps it stands to reason that the band grows more brisk and businesslike as the reunion tour stretches on. Closing down the 21-date, second leg at Agganis Arena Wednesday night, the group -- which formed in Boston in the mid-'80s, broke up in '92, and reformed last year -- expertly spewed 28 tunes in 90 minutes. Even Joey Santiago's drumstick-on-the-guitar trick was abbreviated to nearly nothing. Frontman Frank Black, in white linen and sandals, was a model of cool calculation, suggesting that his mind may...

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists took the stage ready to play a rock show, but there were issues to resolve before a note was played. The kick drum was unstable and needed to be secured. Leo felt compelled to instruct an audience member about the impossibility of loving him considering how little she knew him. Since the momentum was blown, why not retune? It was an earnest false start befitting indie-rock's tireless truth-teller -- no pretense, no apologies, no filler -- and Leo's 75-minute set, when it eventually began, was likewise lean and unadorned.

MUSIC Framingham: "Rust Never Sleeps," a live rock show that celebrates the music and musical career of Neil Young, presents selections from his days with Buffalo Springfield in the 1960s, as well as his early-'70s folk-rock gems, Saturday, 8 p.m., at the Amazing Things Arts Center, 160 Hollis St. $15-$18. 508-405-2787, www.rustneversleeps.net. Weston: The Coriolanus Quartet - composed of Susanna Ogata, Cynthia Freivogel, Karina Fox, and Guy Fishman playing period string instruments - performs an all-Haydn program Friday, 8 p.m., at Congregational Church of Weston, 130 Newton St. $30, $25 seniors.

The traditional path to getting on the permanent guest list at a rock club takes a lot of work - what with the long hours of required schmoozing, the late nights, and probably more cans of cheap beer than are advisable. A new promotion from the indie-rock clubs Great Scott and T.T. the Bear's Place called the Bridge Badge aims to streamline that process for avid showgoers and would-be scenesters. The badges, which went on sale last week (at $149, available through www.cqpresents.com)

With “Congratulations,’’ MGMT made one of this year’s most inspired pop albums, a kaleidoscope of psychedelic rock and labyrinthine melodies that challenged fans who first fell in love with the band’s debut. If Willy Wonka had an alternate soundtrack for that trippy boat ride down the chocolate river, “Congratulations’’ would be it. Why, then, was MGMT’s show at the Pavilion Tuesday night so wildly uneven and, at times, a real drag? The easy answer is that the Brooklyn band hasn’t figured out how to translate “Congratulations’’ to a live...

Tricky is a man constantly changing his mind. He started as a key figure in the development of trip-hop (both on his own and in connection with Massive Attack), but the show he brought to the Roxy on Wednesday was fired up with rock 'n' roll. His sound man didn't have a set order, only a list of songs from which Tricky could choose in whichever order he pleased. He couldn't even decide what to do about his clothing, making it less than a song into the show before deciding, no, that T-shirt's got to come off. It seemed like a desire to have it all, and Tricky came awfully close...

Thanks to the smashing success of one irresistible song and its members' fondness for matching get-ups, post-modern soul duo Gnarls Barkley enjoys a reputation as something of a good-time party band. But the song - "Crazy" - isn't so much about getting wild as getting seriously ill. And the plaid pants and gold blazers that Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton and Cee-Lo Green wore at the Wilbur Theatre Wednesday night - the band was a model of mid-century campus chic in sweater vests and bow ties - hardly disguised the terse, anxious vein that courses through Gnarls Barkley's...

Thanks to the smashing success of one irresistible song and its members' fondness for matching get-ups, post-modern soul duo Gnarls Barkley enjoys a reputation as something of a good-time party band. But the song - "Crazy" - isn't so much about getting wild as getting seriously ill. And the plaid pants and gold blazers that Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton and Cee-Lo Green wore at the Wilbur Theatre last night - the band was a model of mid-century campus chic in sweater vests and bow ties - hardly disguised the terse, anxious vein that courses through...

SOMERVILLE - You've heard of the concept album, but what about the concept concert? Mark Oliver Everett, also known as E, the sole longstanding member of the band Eels, is on the road in an alt-rock version of "This Is Your Life. " Of course, all of Everett's intensely personal music revolves around a theme of "me," but this low-key, multimedia show catapults the artist's self-reflection to a literate and sometimes humorous new level. The evening opened with a screening of "Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives," a BBC documentary about the Everett family, which any Eels devotee knows is a tragically...

Besides her infamous hyper-sexed lyrics and unique gender politics, what else is in the teaches of Peaches? Friday night at Avalon, the woman who implored listeners to "[Expletive] the Pain Away," had another lesson for fans: how to turn a s htick into a spectacle. Peaches began the night perched in the balcony, wearing a sequined hood. She doffed one skimpy outfit after another throughout the night until she was down to a black bra and panties, rocketing through tracks off her latest disc, "Impeach My Bush.

Coldplay closed out the North American leg of its tour with an exclamation point Monday night. Befitting their status as radio kings, thanks to the success of their fourth album "Viva La Vida," the quartet gave a big performance on a big stage with a big audience singing along to the big choruses. (Speed-dial friends U2 would've beamed with older brotherly pride). Whether it was the presence of frontman Chris Martin's famous wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, and mother-in-law, Blythe Danner, with special guests Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld at the TD Banknorth Garden or the hero's...

When you name your band after a David Bowie song and title your album after the Ray Davies-owned studio where you recorded, you'd best be good and ready to assume your self-anointed place in British rock history. There were only glimpses of greatness at the Kooks show Monday night - mainly at the start and the finish of the young quartet's set, when frontman Luke Pritchard lost his guitar and found that his legs, arms, and eyes could be as potent as a killer hook. But even when the visceral thrills were few, sweet, grimy anthems were plentiful.