This weekend is packed with awesome artists performing in and around Atlanta. Check out who’s playing around town!
Friday ,September 5th
Dustin Lynch @ Electric Cowboy
Broken Bow Records artist Dustin Lynch occupies a unique place in today’s country music. Thanks to his classic sensibilities, he’s been heralded as the heir to George Strait’s throne. Yet with one listen to his newest hit, “Where It’s At,” it’s obvious the young Tennessee native knows how to combine his traditional influences with an edgy intensity that places him at the vanguard of today’s contemporary country scene. It’s that ability to fuse his country roots with a progressive musical vision that makes Lynch one of today’s most successful young artists. His self-titled debut hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart – making him the only new male artist to achieve such a feat that year. The album’s lead single, “Cowboys and Angels,” exceeded platinum sales status while earning Lynch a legion of devoted fans. “Cowboys and Angels” became a modern day country classic, ending the year as one Billboard’s Top 5 Country Songs of 2012.
Show starts at 7 pm.
Freddy Jones Band with Special Guest, The Bitteroots @ Eddie’s Attic
In 2000 The Freddy Jones Band went on hiatus. During the ten previous years of recording and touring, the band had amassed a body of work that included five albums of ambitious, wide-reaching rock and a reputation for expansive and energetic live shows that made the quintet a hot commodity on the tape-trader circuit. And now the Freddy Jones Band is back and reminding the world what was so special in the first place.
Doors open at 6:30. Tickets are $22 in advance, $28 at the door.
You Me & Apollo @ Vinyl
You Me & Apollo’s second full-length release, Sweet Honey, opens on a note of worldliness that might seem precocious coming from a 24-year-old. But band founder and songwriter Brent Cowles’ experience belies his tender age. He started playing in bands when he was 14, got married at 18, divorced at 20, and has filled the intervening years with a non-stop regimen of national touring and recording. So when he sings “I learned my lesson young,” on the characteristically raucous “Open Doors,” it’s safe to say he comes by it honestly.
Show start at 9 pm. Tickets are $12.
YVETTE @ 529
YVETTE make deeply spiritual, wildly aggressive noise music in the tradition of early post-punk and industrial artists like Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and This Heat. A barrage of rolling toms and sub-bass triggers, processed guitar noise, and monk-like incantations means the music is always physical. But the joy of YVETTE is how well they structure the chaos.
Doors open at 9pm. Tickets are $7.
Tiger! Tiger! w Daddy Long Legs @ The EARL
Since 2005 Tiger! Tiger! has become an important figure in Atlanta’s underground music scene, working at the cross roads of garage rock, punk and R&B. The group’s second full-length, The Kind of Goodnight is a catty and cool collection of retro rock and roll rhythms that dive headlong into the dark side of the tensions that bind and repel the sexes.
Doors open at 9 pm. Tickets are $7.
Saturday 9/6
Backyard Bash- Drake White, Love and Theft, & Corey Smith @ Fifth Third Bank Stadium at Kennesaw State
In today’s country music climate, there is an abundance of artists and songwriters champing at the bit to tell you just how “country” they are. But none represents the genuine rural lifestyle quite like Corey Smith. Born and raised in the bucolic town of Jefferson, Ga., just a few miles northwest of the musical hotbed of Athens, Corey has carved out a successful career by writing and singing not about the idealized country imagery of trucks and bonfires, but by depicting truthfully the experience of growing up far from big-city sidewalks. Corey has amassed an unfailingly devout fan base, not only in his native Southeast region, but all around the nation, simply by telling it the way it is. He has released seven studio albums—including 2011’s Top 20 release The Broken Record—all written and produced by Corey himself. And his concerts, documented on last year’s live release, Live in Chattanooga, regularly sell out, with audiences singing along to such fan favorites as the coming-of-age anthem “Twenty-One,” the nostalgic time warp “If I Could Do It Again” and the group hug “I Love Everyone.”
Gates open at 5:30 pm.
Kevin Griffin @ Eddie’s Attic
Kevin Griffin made his professional debut in 1995 as the singer and songwriter for New Orleans-based Better Than Ezra. Their debut record, Deluxe, went double-platinum fueled in part by the success of the #1 Modern Rock track “Good”. The band’s follow up record, Friction Baby, went Gold and contained two Top 10 Modern Rock tracks. 2001 brought another Top 10 Hit with the single “Extra Ordinary”, and in 2005, BTE had a Top 10 Hot AC hit with “Juicy”.
Most recently, Kevin has been writing and producing for a variety of artists in Rock, Pop, and Country. Kevin has two songs on the most recent Sugarland CD including the #1 Country hit, “Stuck Like Glue”. Other cuts include songs written and produced for artists such as James Blunt, David Cook, Augustana, Missy Higgins, Train, The Rouge, Get Scared, Daniel Powter, Tristan Prettyman, Josh Radin, Brendan James, to name a few.
Doors open at 6:30. Tickets are $33 in advance, $40 at the door.
Bret Michaels @ Fredrick Brown Jr. Amphitheater
As a rock star, reality star, spokesperson, businessman, and philanthropist, Bret Michaels does more jobs in a single day than most people do in an entire lifetime. Depending on the hour of the day he’s a cultural icon, a rock god, an entrepreneur, a TV star, a father, the face of the American Diabetes Association, a supercross enthusiast, solo artist, Poison frontman, and a generous donor to a myriad of charitable causes. Michaels first rose to fame as the frontman of Poison. As one of rock’s most iconic and enduring bands, Poison defined the fast, gritty, and glamorous rock ‘n’ roll scene. Since the band’s beginning, Poison has achieved massive success- releasing eight studio albums, four live albums, and selling over 30 million records worldwide and 16.5 million records in the U.S. alone.
Gates open at 7 pm.
Keith Harkin @ Hard Rock Cafe’s Velvet Underground
As a lead singer and a songwriter for the vocal group phenomenon Celtic Thunder, Harkin has already scaled heights that few performers ever see: the Irish powerhouse has sold millions of albums and DVDs, performed at the White House, and was named Top World MusicArtist by Billboard. But Harkin—a native of County Derry in Northern Ireland who began his performing career at the age of four—started out as a guitar-playing singer-songwriter, and with his self-titled debut solo album, he reveals an emotional range and eclectic sensibility that will surprise even the group’s most die-hard fans.
Show starts at 8 pm.
The Young @ 529
Doors open at 9 pm. Tickets are $7.
POWER TRIP @ Mammal Gallery
Doors open at 9 pm. Tickets are $12.
Michelle Malone @ Eddie’s Attic
Malone was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, by her mother and grandmother, both professional singers. She first began performing at age four in a church choir, and later learned to play saxophone, guitar, and drums, which she played in her first band at age twelve. As an teenager, Malone began to write songs. While studying voice at Agnes Scott College, she began performing professionally in and around Atlanta. She left school upon receiving a recording contract from Clive Davis at Arista Records, for whom she recorded the album Relentless with her band Drag the River, produced by Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group. She would later sign with Walter Yetnikoff’s label Velvel Records. In 1999, Malone returned to her independent roots and her own label, SBS Records, originally established in 1987 as Aluminum Jane Records and later renamed in 1992. She continues to write, record and tour furiously and passionately.
Doors open at 6 pm. Tickets are $20 in advance, $26 at the door.
Sunday, 9/7
PARKLIFE: Jake Bugg, The Lone Bellow & More @ Atlantic Station Central Park
Parachute w/ Matt Wertz @ The Loft
For the members of Mercury Records group Parachute, the name of their third album, Overnight, could well be a sly commentary on the hard work and commitment it’s taken for them to experience the success that’s been building over the last four years and first two albums. Their 2009 debut Losing Sleep featured the Top 15 single, “She is Love” (boasting more than 6.5 million views), while 2011’s The Way It Was included the #1 iTunes Rock Song “Kiss Me Slowly” (co-written with Lady Antebellum) and the Top 15 hit “Something to Believe In.”
Doors open at 7 pm. Tickets are $20.
Obnox w/ Wymyns Pyrsyn @ The EARL
Doors open at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $7.
