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Going for the gold
Bright Eyes in and around New England, plus Hilary Duff and more
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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As expected, tickets to Bright Eyes gigs are in short supply, as Conor Oberst embarks on the first of two discrete tours to give each of his new albums, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (both Saddle Creek; see Camille Dodero’s review in Music), its due. On the eve of the discs’ release, Oberst brings a band to Harvard’s Sanders Theatre (617-496-2222) in Cambridge; that gig is sold out, but tickets remain for the show on Sunday at Higher Ground (802-654-8888) in South Burlington, Vermont. The Parisian avant-folk sister act CocoRosie open both dates along with Tilly and the Wall, whose adorably twee, tap-dancing debut, Wild like Children, is available as a free download from Oberst’s Team Love imprint at www.team-love.com. Although they weren’t released anywhere near each other, Hilary Duff’s Metamorphosis and its follow-up, Hilary Duff, managed to occupy, respectively, the #1 and #2 spots on the Billboard charts in 2004, changing the face of teen pop. Go ahead and hate — she’s got a single for people like you (and for Lindsay Lohan, too!) that might be the best Fugazi ripoff since No Doubt’s "Waiting Room." She’s squeezing in a stadium tour between film shoots whose closest stop is next Thursday, January 27, at the Verizon Wireless Arena (603-644-5000) in Manchester, New Hampshire. Having absorbed influences as diverse as Eddie Vinson and Charlie Parker, former Roomful of Blues frontman and sax player Greg Piccolo has spent most of his career in the trenches of the blues circuit. But after decades balancing non-stop touring with dates backing Stevie Ray Vaughan, Hubert Sumlin, Big Joe Turner, and Pat Benatar, to name just a few, Piccolo is now fronting a group of his own making: Heavy Juice. The sound is a winning blend of old-school honk, smooth modernist funk, jazz, and jam rock. On Friday, they’re at Union Blues (508-767-2587) in Worcester, a classy joint set in a beautifully renovated railroad station. While the rest of the world raises money for tsunami victims in Asia, Nashville good guy Brad Paisley has opened the coffers filled by his Top 10 single "Mud on the Tires" to flood victims in the Ohio River Valley. What’s more, we couldn’t name another country boy who also donates hard-earned cash to build skate parks in West Virginia. Paisley plays a sold-out gig at Tsongas Arena (978-848-6900) in Lowell on Saturday with Sara Evans.
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