Weekend spotlight: The hard stuff and the softer touch

Tonight at the Mid-Florida Credit Union Amphitheatre (Tampa): Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan is the common denominator for Sessanta V 2.0: His other bands, Puscifier and a Perfect Circle, are both on the show, along with Primus. The trick: All three hard-rocking bands swap musicians throughout the concert.

“There are people who are going to see it, and it’ll change their idea of what a show is supposed to look like,” Keenan told Richmond’s RVAmag.com. “Hopefully, when you see something cool and you have the ability to execute your version of the idea, you’ll see a bunch of bands in the next couple of years doing things like this.”

Find tickets at this link.

Saturday brings sneering ‘80s Brit rocker Billy “Rebel Yell” Idol to the Mid-Florida Credit Union, sharing the amphitheater bill with Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. Tickets are at this link.

The soft touch

So much more than a tribute concert, “Our House: The Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young” is the latest touring caravan of singers and players with direct lineage to the originals. The first “Our House” tour went around the country last summer and made a well-attended stop at Clearwater’s Capitol Theatre.

The “friends and family” company (revised slightly for 2025) visits the Capitol again Friday. It’s a mostly-acoustic show, with a bright, shiny focus on those oh-so-cool California CSNY vocal harmonies.

The band features Jeff Pevar, the late David Crosby’s right-hand man in the CPR band and other projects later in the musician’s life, and Stephen Postell, who did the same job in the Immediate Family, Crosby’s final outfit.

Singer/songwriter Chris Pierce was Neil Young’s hand-picked opening act for the Coastal tour in 2023.

Along with vocalist/pianist Teresa James, bassist Ted Russell Kamp and drummer Craig MacIntyre, the nostalgic evening will include a presentation from Henry Diltz, perhaps the best-known SouCal photographer from those hazy late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Among Diltz album cover photos you probably have somewhere in your collection: Crosby, Stills & Nash; the Doors’ Morrison Hotel; James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, the first two Eagles releases and others; millions more – artists from Jimi Hendrix to Paul McCartney – are world-famous images. He was, among other things, the official photographer at the Monterey Pop Festival, and Woodstock. So there’s that.

Find tickets for Friday’s 8 p.m. show here.

Other concerts

Mike Epps. Photo: imdb.com.

Tonight: Bay area jazz musicians perform in memory of the late vocalist Synia Carroll, at 7:30 p.m. at the Side Door Cabaret, Palladium Theatre (St. Pete). Find out more at this link.

At Clearwater’s Capitol Theatre tonight: Singer/actor Noah Reid (tickets here); Saturday: Singer/songwriter Matt Kearney (tickets here).

Mike Epps is the host and MC for the We Them One’s Comedy Tour, Saturday at Amalie Arena in Tampa. The lineup also includes Country Wayne, Lil Duval, Tony Roberts and others. Find tickets and details here.

With 1.5 billion global streams, the British electronic dance music artist Elderbrook (birth name Alexander Kotz) is famous for introspective lyrics set against vibrant EDM soundscapes. Elderbook headlines Saturday at the BayCare Sound amphitheater in Clearwater (find tickets here).

Of his latest release, he told LA Weekly: “Another Touch is the first album that I’ve written that follows a story. It’s the story of someone who loses their way and tries to reconnect with themselves by returning home.

“The idea came when I was touring years ago. Alone in a hotel room with the light shining in through the blinds. Having not slept and realizing that I could do better. Although this is definitely not a story about me, I’ve taken from personal experiences for sure.”

Cuban singer Lenier is onstage Sunday night at 8 at Tampa’s Seminole Hard Rock Event Center. Tickets are at this link.

Saxophonist and vocalist Valerie Gillespie is the brains behind Sunday’s Women in Jazz show at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center (it’s a 3 p.m. matinee). The performance will also feature pianist Judi Glover, drummer Patricia Dean and bassist Jenifer Media. Find tickets, and additional information, at this link.

ThinkTank Theatre’s production of the Jason Robert Brown musical “Songs For a New World” opens tonight in Tampa. Photo: Kara Gold-Harris.

On theater stages

The Butterfly’s Evil Spell, an English-language adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poetic 1920 play El maleficio de la mariposa, opens Friday (there’s a preview performance tonight) at Jobsite Theater (Tampa). The six performers “play” insects in a meadow, and deal with life, love, dance, dissatisfaction and death. It’s fully collaborative, with music by Jeremy Douglass, choreography by Alexander Jones and puppetry by Spencer Meyers. Find more info, and tickets, here. Meyers and director David M. Jenkins are Friday’s guests on our Arts Alive! podcast.

The madcap comedy For Closure! by Hannah Benitez is in its final weekend at freeFall Theatre (St. Pete). For tickets and showtimes, visit the website.

Another very funny show, Stageworks’ Morningside, takes its last bows this weekend, too. Showtimes and tickets are available at the long-running Tampa venue’s website, stageworkstheatre.org.

New from ThinkTank Theatre: Songs For a New World, a musical by Jason Robert Brown (The Bridges of Madison County, Parade, The Last Five Years). Directed by Georgia Mallory Guy,  Songs For a New World was Tony winner Brown’s first produced show. It is, he says, “about one moment. It’s about hitting the wall and having to make a choice, or take a stand, or turn around and go back.” ThinkTank’s production opens tonight and runs through May 18 at the JCC on the Cohn Campus, 13009 Community Campus Dr., Tampa. Visit the company website for tickets and showtimes.

The classics

Mark Sforzini conducts the Tampa Bay Symphony Friday night at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center, and Sunday (2:30 p.m.) in Hough Hall, Palladium Theater, St. Pete. On the program: Scheherazade, Symphonic Suite, Op. 35 (Rimsky-Korsakov); The Tale of Shahrazad, A Journey of Love (Inbal Cohen-Rasner, Arr. by Amit Poznansky); Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 57 (1st movement) (Carl Nielsen) – Dylan Addonizio, Clarinet Soloist (Jack Heller Young Artist Competition Winner). All tickets are here.

Copland’s Symphony No. 3 leads the way for this weekend’s concerts from The Florida Orchestra (Friday in Tampa, at the Straz Center’s Morsani Hall, Saturday at 8 p.m. at St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey Theater. All tickets are here. Michael Francis conducts these performances, which will also feature Gershwin’s Piano Symphony (with guest soloist Tzimon Barto) and Joan Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.

Your Weekend Spotlight appears every Thursday in the Catalyst’s CREATE section. 

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