ON STAGE THE WEEK’S BEST
KENNY CHESNEY
Style: Country music for a little ol’ hoedown in a huge-capacity location. Backstory: A source of pride for Knoxville, Tenn., where he was born 50 years ago, Kenny Chesney got his first contract, as a songwriter, around 1992, and his first Top Ten hit, “Fall in Love,” two LPs and three years later. He’s gotten many more Top Tens since then and has crossed over so often that the Musical Border Patrol doesn’t check his passport anymore.
Why you should go: Chesney’s latest LP, 2016’s “Cosmic Hallelujah,” features a duet with P!nk and a cover of Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Beyond that, the guy again provides twang, Jimmy Buffettian tropical and piratical fantasies, domestic beer and good lovin’. His smoothly integrated pop and rock moves will add value to a really big show.
Openers: Fellow neo-Nashville star Thomas Rhett, highly popular countryrock band Old Dominion and “Speakers, Bleachers and Preachers” singer Brandon Lay.
Time and place: 5 p.m. Saturday, Miller Park, One Brewers Way
Price: $79 to $270 at the box office and brewers.com/chesney. — Jon M. Gilbertson, Special to the Journal Sentinel
Style: Modern indie-pop that’s neither too indie nor too modern for its own goodness.
Backstory: Portland, Ore., is notoriously one of the fortresses of hip art, and it’s where Wild Ones formed in 2010. Still, on a 2010 debut EP, “You’re a Winner,” and a 2014 debut full-length album, “Keep It Safe,” a fondness for the unhip grooves of formerly mainstream R&B (En Vogue, for example) was as audible as references to coolgeek material (Cocteau Twins, say).
Why you should go: With 2015’s EP “Heatwave” and 2017’s LP “Mirror Touch,” Wild Ones have developed their synth-smoky atmosphere into a tuneful, romantic blanket. Lead singer Danielle Sullivan delivers first-kiss invitations and final kiss-offs as if they’re lullabies for those who know sleep won’t soon reach them. Live, total audience absorption is likely.
Opener: The Quilz, a local pop duo with influences all over the cultural map.
Time and place: 9 p.m. Saturday, Cactus Club, 2496 S. Wentworth Ave.
Price: $10 at the door and cactusclubmilwaukee.com. — Jon M. Gilbertson
FRANZ FERDINAND
Style: Rock meant for a discotheque of a more openly glamorous and posing era.
Backstory: Perhaps named more for alliteration than for an assassinated archduke, Franz Ferdinand emerged from Glasgow, Scotland, near the turn of the century and charted a global hit with “Take Me Out,” from the band’s self-titled 2004 debut album. Franz Ferdinand has not since reached the same heights of ironic or earnest rock success.
Why you should go: Earlier in 2018, Franz Ferdinand issued its latest album, “Always Ascending,” which holds the band in a pattern of literary-minded material for the postpunk dancefloor and the reformed Goth’s headphones. Well-groomed style continues to take precedence over open passion, but in concert the noisy roll should accompany the abstracted rock.
Opener: Priests, a D.C. punk band wielding that scene’s long-running spikiness.
Time and place: 8 p.m. Monday, the Rave, 2401 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Price: $30 to $40 at the box office, (414) 342-7283 and therave.com. — Jon M. Gilbertson
LAVENDER COUNTRY
Style: C&W unafraid of being gay. Backstory: In the early 1970s, the “outlaw country” subgenre implied a door left ajar for other rebellious folks who loved country-and-Western music even if its gatekeepers offered no love in return. Lavender Country came out (in more ways than one) of Seattle in 1972 and issued an activist-funded homonymous album in 1973. The group disbanded in 1976.
Why you should go: Lavender Country’s main man, Patrick Haggerty, re-formed the group in a fashion in 2014, the same year as a reissue of the 1973 album. He’s told many stories in audio and video form since the group’s early days, but the old songs like “Back in the Closet Again” and “Straight White Patterns” hold onto their honky-tonk heft, and there’s no hiding them now.
Openers: Rapper Shle Berry, “Suicide Western” subgenre coiner Sugar Ransom and electrofeminist entertainers Lauryl Sulfate and her Ladies of Leisure, all from Milwaukee.
Time and place: 8 p.m. Tuesday, Riverwest Public House, 815 E. Locust St.
Price: $7 at the door.
— Jon M. Gilbertson