> CONCERT SAMPLER
Live-music highlights for the week of June 1 to 7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Beatnik author-poet, punk survivor, latter-day prophet, the man in black returns and, with his longtime Bad Seeds band, is about as close to a rockist’s essential listening as it gets — or to a thinking fan of music of any stripe, actually.
Last time in, three years ago, their set list ranged as wide and long as he did, tiptoeing over the seat rests among the Sony Centre crowd for the laying on of the hands during a mesmerizing “Tupelo.”
For this two-night SRO stand that began yesterday, expect similar extraordinary and memorable stuff — pick of the week and then some. (Thursday, Massey Hall, 8 p.m.) Sussan Deyhim This Iranian composer/performance artist has worked in jazz, opera and pop with the likes of Ornette Coleman, Peter Gabriel and Bill Laswell — fans of socially aware vocal gymnasts such as Tanya Tagaq, take note.
This solo performance of Vocodeliks, with Deyhim’s elastic voice commanding the spot, will draw from her soundtrack work including a video series with compatriot filmmaker Shirin Neshat exploring cultural and gender proscriptions in their native land.
Neshat’s work is on display in the museum’s Contemporary Persians exhibit that closes Sunday and a ticket to this show gives you free rein to explore pre-show. (Friday, Aga Khan Museum, 8 p.m.) She-Devils Taking their name and a piece of their arty, cinema-heavy esthetic from a 1968 biker movie, Montreal pair Audrey Ann Boucher and Kyle Jukka have built up a bit of buzz here in Toronto as a support act, via a Wavelength set last year and on their own just this past April, and the word’s been building.
Boucher’s offhand vocals and Juk- ka’s vintage samples make for a smart union with style to burn, and this show may well be their biggest and most well-honed yet here, coming off a just-out self-titled LP and a quick tour of London, Paris and Berlin. (Friday, Baby G, doors 9 p.m.) Broken Social Scene The rambling Toronto collective got back together for recent release Hug of Thunder, their first record in seven years, and it’ll backbone the set list here for sure.
But it was their duet with Johnny Marr in Manchester on their classic “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl,” a day after the horrific bombing of an Ariana Grande concert, that is as much representative of the heal- ing, all-together approach they’ll bring to this fifth renewal of Field Trip. They’ll get the headlining 9:30 p.m. slot to end Saturday’s opening day, but the kid-friendly and well-fooded festival has plenty more, including BSS alum Leslie Feist, a Pharcyde reunion, Phoenix and A Tribe Called Red as just the tip of a deep marquee. (Saturday, Fort York & Garrison Common, gates 1 p.m.) Alan Licht The New York-based guitar-shaper pairs up with veteran Toronto artist Michael Snow on top of the bill for a reunion and a farewell — yes, afraid it’s another closing of the doors in Toronto’s music scene.
The upstairs space at the top of Kensington has hosted avant-leaners including Susan Alcorn, Sir Richard Bishop and on, and even if it won’t get the same column inches and overblown notices afforded some other recent shutterings, surely the place has earned a good party, in keeping with the adventuresome spirit and spirits that have guided it and lived under its roof since opening summer 2014.
No idea what in particular Licht and Snow have planned, but they’ve worked fruitfully together before, and with freak-flying duo Not the Wind, Not the Flag among the others on hand, it’s a safe call to say edges will be explored.
Ratio’s farewell series starts with Friday and Saturday shows this week, and blows out one final time on June 10. (Sunday, Ratio, doors 9 p.m.) Okilly Dokilly The idea of five green-sweatered, mustachioed, bespectacled nebbishes melting faces off while Head Ned screams for his spritzer (“you only live once”) over some beastly riffage could go either way, and at worst, some kind of novelty nightmare along the lines of that Macaulay Culkin pizza party a couple years back. But perhaps the most notable element of Phoenix’s Ned Flanders-themed “world’s only Nedal band” that gained viral notoriety a while back is that they’re quite listenable, and now a live touring thing, they should be bags of fun, chased down by plenty of sparkling chardonnay — alas, Duff beer and a Krusty burger is probably too much to ask. (Wednesday, Hard Luck Bar, doors 7 p.m.)