SPIN

Summer means one thing here at SPIN: It's time for some live music! So before you make your concert plans, check out our picks for the season's 30 must-see shows, including dates, prices, reviews, and more. Read on, Rock on! — Written by William Goodman

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Dates: Now through July 30
Price: $30-$294.50
Opening Acts: The Fray, Lenny Kravitz, Florence and the Machine, Interpol, Carney, Arcade Fire

Why You Should Go: Now that Bono has recovered from emergency back surgery (which forced the Irish rockers to postpone the U.S. leg of their tour last year), the Biggest Band in the World is back to business as usual -- which means inspiring live shows and new material. At their recent tour launch at the 80,000-person Invesco Stadium in Denver, U2 offered a "powerful, meticulously paced set," wrote SPIN. Bono "gyrated and pranced about the stage like a teenager," and even commented on his surgery: "Now I'm Bono 2.0!"

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Dates: Now through July 24
Price: $28.95-$315.28
Opening Acts: J. Cole

Why You Should Go: She's dominated the charts over the past year with three No. 1 singles, two of her own ("Only Girl (In the World)" and "What's My Name?"), and one as a guest on Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie." At her tour kickoff last summer, RiRi "could do no wrong," wrote SPIN. Her stage was decorated with crash test dummies and a salvaged '57 Cadillac, and the Barbadian star played drums and a gleaming black Flying V guitar. She even "celebrated the climax of 'Hard' by hopping onto the giant gun of a life-size, cotton-candy army tank, and then gyrating until the inevitable explosion." Still not hot enough? Cee Lo and B.o.B. will split dates as featured acts!

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Dates: Now through August 5
Price: $35-$43.99
Opening Acts: Big Sean, Chevy Woods

Why You Should Go: Because anything called the Rolling Papers Tour is sure to be a high time, right? Rap's new Weed King, who hit No. 1 in late 2010 with the Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl anthem "Black and Yellow" from his debut Rolling Papers, surely brings the party -- but he's "much more than some stoned and silly dude relying on weed puns to elevate pedantic hooks," SPIN wrote of his tour launch this spring. "He's a naturally easygoing performer, a main stage rapper… he seemed like a star ready for even bigger stages."

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Dates: Now through August 5
Price: $20-$30.60
Opening Acts: Cerebal Ballzy

Why You Should Go: Indie rock's baddest bad boys are back with their most polished album yet, the Mark Ronson-produced Arabia Mountain. "Without the extra layers of dirt, the band's songwriting skills are plain as day," we wrote in our seven-out-10 album review. But that doesn't mean the Atlanta natives sold out their wild ways: "[On Arabia Mountain they're howling about molested superheroes and E. coli-ridden steak," and at their appearance on the Bruise Cruise in the Caribbean, Jared Swilley even chucked his bass overboard.

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Dates: Now through June 18
Price: $40-$47.50

Why You Should Go: These four London lads -- on the cover of SPIN's June issue -- are leading the new Americana movement and soared to No. 2 with their million-selling debut LP, Sigh No More. Their bluegrass sounds and straight-to-the-heart lyrics are born arena-ready; their Coachella set -- "the biggest gig we've ever had," frontman Marcus Mumford said from the stageo -- "could be taken as a confirmation of their ascension to superstar status," SPIN wrote. "[But] the quartet were as humble and earnest as ever -- they frequently reminded the crowd how much they appreciated their support and refrained from any rock star hot-dogging." Instead, "they stormed with passion and precision through up-tempo acoustic guitar and banjo bashers."

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Dates: Now through July 3
Price: $12-$19.60
Opening Acts: JEFF The Brotherhood

Why You Should Go: This Toronto hardcore six-piece's new LP, David Comes to Life, is already a fierce competitor for 2011's 'Best Of the Year' lists. SPIN awarded the LP, their sixth, a rare nine-out-of-10 rating: "[It's] an 80-minute odyssey of flailing and howling that could be the ?most epic punk album ever," we wrote. Their chaotic live shows are equally urgent: Bare-chested frontman Damian Abraham (does he even own a shirt?) usually goes shirtless and bashes his head until it squirts blood, then rolls in the mud. Just like at SPIN's SXSW Party!

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Dates: July 13 through September 11
Price: $32-$116.55
Opening Acts: Rick Ross, Keri Hilson, Far East Movement

Why You Should Go: Weezy loves the smell of freedom so much he extended his first post-prison tour through summer. Now off drugs and bulging with prison muscles, the man born Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr., is in the best shape of his career -- and his performances are better for it. At the kickoff in March, Wayne "made it clear that he's no longer inmate #02616544L," we wrote. "He acted out skits with his backup dancers. He told jokes. And, yes, he rapped, very, very well. But one thing he didn't do was dwell on the eight months he just spent on Rikers Island."

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Dates: Now through August 26
Price: $35-$56.80
Opening Acts: The Lonely Forest, the Head and the Heart, Frightened Rabbit

Why You Should Go: Indie rock's mopiest vets are all grown up -- three of the four are now married, some with kids -- and are embracing the sound of settling on their expansive seventh full-length album, Codes and Keys. Frontman Ben Gibbard, having left Seattle for Los Angeles and his new bride, Zooey Deschanel, "finally escaped 'a maze ?of a thousand rainy days,' as he puts it, [and] mostly dispenses with his trademark jitters, leaning into Death Cab's tuneful guitar-band thrum with confidence." Their career-spanning headlining set at Washington State's Sasquatch Fest their "sound was so clear and tastefully mixed that it became the measuring stick for the weekend," we wrote.

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Dates: Now through August 11
Price: $28-$47.20
Opening Act: The Vaccines

Why You Should Go: With their fourth album, Suck It and See, Britpop's Next Big Thing have "hit a remarkable mid-career groove that most bands their age will never see," we wrote in our eight-out-of-10 review. The songwriting is sharper than past efforts — "the title track may be the loveliest thing they've ever recorded." At their raucous tour kickoff in Washington, DC, this May, frontman Alex Turner and Co. proved that while they "may not be the kind of guys who look good on the dance floor, their jolting, heady music can rock-and-roll one handsomely," we wrote.

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Dates: Now through September 10
Price: $41.75-$90
Opening Acts: Weezer, Primus, Yeasayer

Why You Should Go: The Oklahoma psych-rockers are the ultimate live band -- seeing them in action is an experience, man, even without chemical assistance. To wit: Wayne Coyne rolling like a gerbil in a giant bubble; dancers in Teletubby costumes; confetti canons; mind-bending graphics with video cameras projecting close ups of the band. And this summer the quartet are playing their benchmark 1999 album, The Soft Bulletin, a tasteful layer cake of classic rock instrumentation, symphonic orchestrations, and electronic beats and synths.

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Dates: August 11 through September 19
Price: $34-$426
Opening Acts: Disco Biscuits, Booka Shade, Holy Ghost!, Pretty Lights, Chuckie, White Shadow

Why You Should Go: A festival featuring the biggest names in electronic dance music is usually a destination event, like Ultra Fest or Coachella. But this summer the party's coming to you: A cornucopia of acts, including Kaskade, Steve Aoki, Rusko, Crystal Method, DJ Shadow, Pretty Lights, Modeselektor, and Disco Biscuits are hitting 20 cities this summer with every niche of electronic music, from electro house to trance-fusion. Remember: Drink lots of water and don't take the brown acid.

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Pictured: Steve Aoki (left) & DJ Shadow

Dates: Now through August 27
Price: $50-$500
Opening Acts: Diplo, Skrillex, Paul Van Dyk, Afrojack, Axwell, Chuckie

Why You Should Go: For the first time in its decade-plus history, the massive dance blowout is coming to five different locations: Orlando, Denver, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Puerto Rico. The Sin City installation, a special three-day event, will clock in as the biggest dance festival outside of Europe. And the performing DJs and producers are the usual cream of the crop: Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Skrillex, Afrojack, and Benny Benassi, to name a few. Plus, who doesn't like carnival rides, strobe lights, fire-throwers, and psychedelic drugs? And, seriously, who doesn't want to hang out with these guys?

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Pictured: Diplo

Dates: Now through August 9
Price: $32.50-$111.75
Opening Acts: Red Bacteria Vacuum

Why You Should Go: After a six-year break, the alt-rock supergroup, featuring Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan and former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, are back and rocking hard. At Ohio's Rock on the Range Fest in May A Perfect Circle proved their mettle (metal?) with a unique show that blended brute force with poetic lyrics, a mix largely absent in today's hard rock scene. "[They] were fantastic, building startling atmosphere out of blurry guitars," wrote SPIN. "It was unlike anything else on tap this weekend."

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Dates: Now through June 29
Price: $24-$32.75
Opening Acts: Foxy Shazam, Funeral Party

Why You Should Go: Because the Las Vegas-bred eye-liner aficionados are dedicated to their theatrical craft. After the recent exit of guitarist Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker, who then formed the Young Veins to continue the Beatles-esque sounds of Panic!'s 2008 LP Pretty. Odd, Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith dropped Vices & Virtues, a return to the hook-y emo-pop that earned 'em double-platinum sales for their debut, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. Panic!'s live sets also rekindle the drama: Their Boston tour opener "was dedicated to what they do best: taking innocent teenage emotions and turning them into baroque epics worthy of a blockbuster movie's climax," we wrote. And in a recent interview with SPIN, Urie teased a grand production: "I really miss wearing costumes and makeup," he said. "I've recently been reading about Tesla coils and I'm trying to figure out how I can get one that sits on the stage and shoots sparks without hurting anybody."

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Dates: June 14 through July 31
Price: $2 -$35
Opening Acts: Colour Revolt, New Regime, We Are The In Crowd

Why You Should Go: If you're a fan of hardcore emo-punk, it doesn’t get much better than this: Two of the genre's most influential bands teaming up for a 33-date trek. New Jersey's Thursday are flaunting an evolved sound on their sixth studio LP, No Devolución, produced by the Flaming Lips' main studio collaborator Dave Fridmann, who helped the band unleash "their post-hardcore template, which now churns even more fiercely with an expanded palette," SPIN wrote in our eight-out-of-10 review. Meanwhile, Long Island, NY's Taking Back Sunday will be debuting material from their self-titled fifth studio album, out June 28 via Warner Bros.See Complete Schedule

Dates: June 15 through July 15
Price: $75
Opening Act: Glen Hansard

Why You Should Go: It's a rare opportunity to catch one of rock's most talented and enigmatic frontmen, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, perform with nothing more than a ukulele, an instrument he discovered during surfing trips to Hawaii. Expect songs from his just-released new solo album, Ukulele Songs, including a gorgeous debut with Cat Power, plus PJ covers and tracks from his Grammy-nominated solo record, 2007's Into The Wild. If you're dying to see PJ in the flesh, though, get tickets to their 20th anniversary festival this September, also featuring the Strokes and Queens of the Stone Age, among others.

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Dates: May 31 through August 21
Price: $34-$58
Opening Act: Neko Case

Why You Should Go: The Louisville, KY, quintet are one of the best live acts playing today. Period. Their marathon sets are modern rock legend; at Bonnaroo the quintet are known for extra-long performances full of unexpected covers of Velvet Underground, Curtis Mayfield, and even Motley Crue. Their New Year's Eve gig at Madison Square Garden rang in 2009 in style; the band donned black suits and ties and shredded for more than four hours.

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Dates: June 16 through August 14
Price: $29.50-$373
Opening Acts: Jesse and the Toy Boys, Nervo

Why You Should Go: Because not even a very public meltdown (she looked good with a shaved head, no?) can topple the Britney Spears. Femme Fatale, her first new album in three years, debuted this spring at No. 1 and produced two hit singles, "Hold It Against Me" and "Till the World Ends," both of which show the 29-year-old pop star experimenting with an anthemic electro-dance sound. Her last outing, The Circus Starring Britney Spears Tour, featured acrobats, dancers doing military drills, magicians, and more.... For her part, Nicki Minaj is just plain sassy. Several million new fans, including duet-mate Kanye West, aren't wrong about this fesity rapper.

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Dates: July 20 through August 6
Price: $29.50-$57.45
Opening Acts: Exodus

Why You Should Go: This 12-date metal monsters trek is called the "Hell On Earth Tour." How fitting. "[Expect] total sonic annihilation and a visual bludgeoning," says Slayer guitarist Kerry King. "Bring your own body bag." Adds Zombie, "Seriously, how much more Hell could you ask for?" Playing together for the first time since 1999's OzzFest, the deathly duo are known for their crushing live shows; Zombie, who has been directing horror flicks lately, including the House of 1000 Corpses series, incorporates blood and gore into his set, while Slayer bludgeon with sound. Slayer's set at a recent Big Four show "was downright terrifying," wrote SPIN, "boasting an Armageddon-ready tension... Just before the moshpit turned into a gaping maw, someone literally said, 'We're getting the hell out of here!'"

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Dates: June 24 through August 14
Price: $36-$47.47
Acts: Against Me!, Gym Class Heroes, Yelawolf, Paramore

Why You Should Go: Because the Vans Warped Tour is one of modern rock's family traditions. And for good reason: Where else can you see over 100 bands — now also including hip-hop, electro, and other genres — and watch skaters rip a half-pipe? The lineup for this summer's 17th-anniversary tour is one of the best yet: Heavy hitters like Paramore and Against Me! will headline, with vets like Lucero, Less Than Jake, Gym Class Heroes, and rap newcomer Yelawolf also on the bill.

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Pictured: Paramore's Hayley Williams (left) & Against Me!'s Tom Gabel

Dates: July 2 through July 30
Price: $47-$85
Opening Acts: Coheed and Cambria, The Mars Volta, Queens of the Stone Age

Why You Should Go: "Spoonman"? "Black Hole Sun"? "Fell On Black Days"!?!? These alt-rock classics helped define the grunge era, as much as "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" did the '67 Summer of Love. And now, after a 13-year hiatus, the Seattle vets are as tight, powerful, and heavy as ever. At last year's Lollapalooza, singer Chris Cornell and Co. proved that "Soundgarden have always been good at big -- even their ballads are apocalyptic epics," wrote SPIN. What's more, they are expected to debut new material from their upcoming reunion album -- their first studio release in 15 years.

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Dates: July 9 through August 14
Price: $32-$111
Opening Acts: Machine Head, In Flames, Trivium, All Shall Perish, Kingdom of Sorrow, Unearth

Why You Should Go: The name "Mayhem Festival" sums it: It's 15 of the wildest bands in metal and hard rock, led by headliners Godsmack, Disturbed, and Megadeth, slanging riffs across the nation. Up-and-comers like In Flames, All Shall Perish, Kingdom of Sorrow, and Unearth are joining the party, which, in 2009 at the kickoff in Sacramento, was"a sweaty mass of devil horns, flying fists, and bleary-eyed drunkards lumbering recklessly toward the bathroom," we wrote. In the mosh pit "fists flew, elbows swung, and a stretcher rolled passed carrying the body of a young man, blood spilling from the side of his face. He was smiling on his way to the medical aid station… Mayhem lived up to its name."

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Pictured: Megadeth's Dave Mustaine

Dates: July 22 through August 10
Price: $27.50-$55.55
Opening Act: The Rosebuds

Why You Should Go: Bon Iver's bearded bard Justin Vernon learned a thing or two from playing sideman on Kanye West's 2010 Album of the Year, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and it's shining on his self-titled second album. After writing and recording his debut LP alone in the woods, this time the Wisconsin singer-songwriter added horn players, a string arranger, and a pedal-steel session whiz to the mix. The result is a sonically expansive and "stunning sophomore set whose landscape-painting cover art underscores the idea that his songs inhabit their own psychological space," we wrote in the record's eight-out-of-10 review. "Once again, he cultivates an enchanted atmosphere, with gorgeous melodies, unique textures, and beautiful singing that may well score Vernon a fresh freelance gig with whatever rapper rules 2012."

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Dates: June 2 through August 20
Price: $10-$15
Opening Act: Rex

Why You Should Go: Because 28-year-old Kyle "Stalley" Myricks is one of the hottest new hip-hop artists of 2011. When an injury sidelined his career playing basketball for the University of Michigan, the Ohio native focused on his working class rhymes. Soon he caught the attention of Mos Def, who heard his demo in a NYC clothing boutique, and then Damon Dash, who invited Stalley to his Manhattan rap clubhouse and art space, DD172. Now Stalley is collaborating with Mos' supergroup Center Edge Territory, also featuring Jay Electronica and Curren$y, and is working on his follow-up to Lincoln Way Nights: Intelligent Trunk Music, which dropped in February and landed him on BET's 106 & Park and MTV's Sucker Free Countdown.

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Dates: June 7 through August 7
Price: $8-$15
Opening Acts: Maps and Atlases, Guards, Writer

Why You Should Go: The '60s girl-group sound is certainly en vogue with indie rockers these days, but this duo is making its mark by reinventing the time-honored genre. Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin -- who interned for movie producer Scott Rudin (The Social Network, True Grit) and studied cinema theory at the New School, respectively -- began playing and recording their spooky take on the genre, which attracted Britpopper Lily Allen, who signed them to her In the Name Of label. At Cults' SXSW set in March, fans "sparked a mini dance party when they closed with 'Oh My God' -- already an early contender for best jam of Summer 2011," wrote SPIN.

Dates: June 17 through July 15
Price: $15-$26

Why You Should Go: Skrillex's transformation from the singer in post-hardcore band From First to Last to electronic dance music royalty was quick and unexpected, but well deserved. The 23-year-old Los Angeleno born Sonny Moore is rocking festivals across the globe with his unique and thrillingly abrasive dubstep sound. Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas have hired him for remixes, and he's even breathing new life into Korn's upcoming album. In April, he lit up Coachella: "The crowd was lost in Skrillex's aggressively physical electro-spazz collage," we wrote. "The most intense set of the day."

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Dates: July 26 through October 15
Price: $33-$87.65
Opening Act: Band of Horses

Why You Should Go: The Nashville band are bonafide road dogs, touring relentlessly since the early aughts, and their set is something to behold, new material or not. It's a communal beers-in-the-air, hold-your-loved-one good time that's becoming more and more of an American rock institution with each tour stop. The Followill Bros. (and one cousin) were born to rock arenas. "The Kings' entire original point was to take the sound of a creative but commercially stunted scene (in this case, the early 2000s new wave of garage rock) and blow it up to an undeniable scale with their own (southern rock) veneer," SPIN music editor Charles Aaron wrote of their Bonnaroo set in 2010. "This is the Kings' castle."

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Dates: August 5 through October 15
Price: $20
Opening Acts: Manchester Orchestra, Rancid, Matt & Kim

Why You Should Go: Because… dudes and dudettes, it's Blink-182, which is slang for "ridiculous fun," and their headlining slot on the annual Honda Civic Tour is the first chance to hear material from their first new album in a decade, set to drop later this year. The songs have a "stadium rock sensibility," singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge recently told SPIN. "The new stuff builds a lot more. The songs have intros, crescendos, and things that lend themselves to great lighting and loud volume. It's not orthodox punk at all." The reunited trio also tapped some A-list openers -- My Chemical Romance? Matt & Kim? Why wouldn't you go?

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Dates: July 12 through September 27
Price: $30-$48
Opening Acts: Broken Social Scene

Why You Should Go:After canceling a string of shows due to the death of founding bassist-keyboardist Gerard Smith in March from lung cancer, the Brooklyn psych-rock outfit are returning to the road with an appropriate message: Love. Their latest album, Nine Types of Light, and its heartfelt torch songs, proves that "after leading us from the ruins to the cosmos, rock's deepest explorers just wanna snuggle," SPIN wrote our eight-out-of-10 album review.

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Dates: June 9 through July 6
Price: $34-$65.48

Why You Should Go: Thanks to a daring VMA performance, a contribution to the soundtrack to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, and a debut album (Lungs) and hit single ("Dog Days Are Over") that flaunted her feverish pipes, British songstress Florence Welch's career skyrocketed in 2010: She became a fashion icon, won a BRIT Award, performed at the Grammys, where she was nominated for Best New Artist -- and nabbed SPIN's Artists of the Year honor. When you see her live in concert all the accolades make sense -- the 24-year-old redhead is a force, similar to her predecessors like Aretha Franklin. Even better, she's working on her next LP and is expected to road test new songs!

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