Kurt VileLast week, I decided to shine a light on some of the amazing shows set to rival the changing leaves for sheer spectacle this fall.
Unfortunately, newspapers have inherent space limitations, so there was no way to give a nod to every venue. As a result, I only managed to get through the highlights at Barking Legs Theater and Track 29, which in the meantime proceeded to announce another pair of high-profile autumn shows: Florida Georgia Line (Nov. 20) and Goo Goo Dolls (Dec. 10).
This week, I'll continue with a broader look at the seasonal standouts at other venues.
• For a long time, I thought Justin Townes Earle's 2008 appearance at JJ's would forever rule my concert roost, but on Oct. 3, Kishi Bashi sent it, if not plummeting from its perch, at least teetering precariously. Nevertheless, venue manager John Shoemaker apparently is trying to top himself yet again with Kurt Vile, who will take the stage Nov. 12 alongside Brooklyn-based artists VBA and Beach Fossils.
A co-founder and former member of Philadelphia-based indie rock band The War On Drugs, Vile has focused on this new group, The Violators, for the past few years. On Aug. 28, the city of Philadelphia celebrated Kurt Vile Day and presented him with the Liberty Bell (not literally, of course). So yeah, he's kind of a big deal.
• If you missed indie-rock darlings Band of Horses when they played Track 29 last October, you can undo some of the damage you did to your musical education by catching lead singer Ben Bridwell's all-acoustic set on Nov. 9 at Rhythm & Brews. Bridwell will be touring under the somewhat odd moniker of Birdsmell, and the R&B date is one of only eight stops on his first solo tour.
Another R&B show worth noting is teen singer Ryan Beatty, who will stop in on Dec. 7. The 17-year-old has become a budding sensation on YouTube, where his videos have attracted 307,000 subscribers and more than 32 million views. His looks and inroad to celebrity run strikingly parallel to those of The Bieb, but try not to hold it against him.
• Songs like "If I Had $1000000," "One Week," "It's All Been Done" and "Another Postcard" pretty much dominated the soundtrack of my grade-school years, so I'm pretty fired up about Barenaked Ladies' Nov. 1 performance at the Tivoli Theatre. The only way my nostalgia gland could be pumping any faster would be if the Gallagher brothers get over themselves and bring an Oasis reunion tour to town.
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.