It’s a slow week for live music in Milwaukee, unless you’re a big fan of Michael McDonald, who fills the Riverside Theater with schmaltzy Christmas tunes on Tuesday night. But it’s a big week for the Rave, as the venue holds the tenth anniversary of FM 102.1’s three-day winter festival, Big Snow Show. This year’s line-up boasts a good collection of alternative radio’s heavy hitters, including Weezer, Glass Animals, Of Monsters and Men, Cold War Kids, Panic! At The Disco, Atlas Genius, and Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls.
The seminal ‘90s pop-punk band Weezer, who headlines Thursday night, always seem the verge of a big comeback, but lead singer River Cuomo continually leads the band down head-scratching paths. It’s telling how much 1994’s Blue Album and 1996’s Pinkerton resonated with fans that they’re still willing to give a new Weezer album a fair shake at every turn. Bouncing around to different label over the last few albums might be to blame, but it’s hard to see any label executive giving the okay to any of the band’s bizarre decisions.
Last year’s Everything Will Be Alright in the End scored Weezer its best reviews in a decade, but that’s mainly because expectations had dropped so low that anything resembling a back-to-basics record seemed revelatory. The album even opened with an apology. But all that goodwill instantly faded in October when the band returned with the title track from its new record called “Thank God for Girls” that found them falling back into bad habits. The following single “Do You Wanna Get High?” made things look less dire. This may just be a prolonged joke by Cuomo to leave Weezer listeners never fully satisfied.
Of Monsters and Men are the main event on Friday night. The Icelandic indie-folk five-piece dominated radio airwaves with the Lumineers-esque song, “Little Talks,” highlighted with horns and “heys!” That song from 2011’s My Head Is an Animal put them on the map in their home country and throughout the world, as its success earned them a record contract in the U.S. This year’s follow-up Beneath the Skin shed its twee-folk pleasantries for a harsher edge. “We accepted that it would be uncomfortable, but we were OK with it,” lead singer Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir told Rolling Stone prior to the album’s release. “We were going to go all the way. We were going to dig deep.”
Closing out the three-day event on Saturday are pop punk thespians Panic! At The Disco. The band is slated to release its fifth album, Death of a Bachelor, this January. After drummer Spencer Smith recently departed, the only original member remaining is lead singer Brandon Urie. The album “is in honor of those times I spent alone as a kid,” Urie wrote in a Facebook post announcing the new record. “Allowing music to consume me. Playing everything myself just to get the idea right and out of my head. It’s a beginning to a new era. And an homage to how it all began.”
The Big Snow Show runs Thursday to Saturday at The Rave, 2401 W. Wisconsin Ave. Doors open daily at 6 p.m. Tickets to each day are available for $40-$50.
Stream of the Week
Dads experienced a pretty good 2015. The world was saved from any new episodes of the awful FOX sitcom Dads, which was cancelled in 2014. And this summer the Internet embraced the soft, flabby edges of the “dad bod” with open arms. Put another checkmark in the scoresheet for dads, as Milwaukee rapper Dad releases his Father Figure EP this Friday at Company Brewing. You can pick up a physical copy of the cassette at the show, courtesy of Breadking Records.
This Week in Live Music
Monday, December 7: Heart at The Riverside Theater, 8 p.m. ($50-$85) – (116 W. Wisconsin Ave., PabstTheater.org)
Tuesday, December 8: Michael McDonald at The Riverside Theater, 8 p.m. ($45.50-$65.50) – (116 W. Wisconsin Ave., PabstTheater.org)
Wednesday, December 9: Rhett Miller with Mike Benign at Shank Hall, 8 p.m. ($20) – (1434 N. Farwell Ave., ShankHall.com)
Thursday, December 10: Brusier Queen with Static Eyes and Body Futures at Mad Planet, 8 p.m. ($5) – (533 E. Center St, Mad-Planet.net)
Friday, December 11: Haunter with Apollo Vermouth and Black Thumb at Riverwest Public House, 8 p.m. ($5) – (815 E. Locust St., RiverwestPublicHouse.WordPress.com)
Saturday, December 12: Zappafest featuring Gozortenplat, Dr. Chow’s Love Medicine and Brothers of Pretension at Cactus Club, 9 p.m. ($8) – (2496 S. Wentworth Ave., CactusClubMilwaukee.com)
