Spring 2010: A Feast of Live Music

By Jaylan Boyle, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO – Music fans of all ages and persuasions will have the chance to see some of the world’s biggest acts over the next few months Here’s a selection of just some of the artists that will be visiting Rio in the Near future.

Miike Snow is a band you may not recognize, but will almost certainly know their work. This electro-pop collaboration comprises American songwriter Andrew Wyatt and Swedish producers Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg. Based in Stockholm, the Swedish contingent in their previous guise as Bloodshy and Avant earned a Grammy award for Britney Spear’s ‘Toxic’. They’ll be at Circo Voador, Rua dos Arcos, Lapa.

Experimental electronica fans will be looking forward to Canadian duo Crystal Castles performance also at Lapa’s Circo Voador, on September 24. Started in 2003 by producer and Toronto native Ethan Kath, he was joined by vocalist Alice Glass who Kath discovered foundering in a noise punk band. Their debut album made NME’s ‘Top 50 Albums of the Decade’ at a respectable 39th place, and doors open at 10PM. Tickets are $R50, or bring an e-ticket or one kilogram of food to get a discount.

At the other end of the musical spectrum, those hard-rock legends Bon Jovi will be playing Centro’s Apoteose on October 8th, as part of The Circle tour, promoting the newly released album of the same name. They may be a bit older than in their ‘Slippery When Wet’ heyday, the 1986 album that propelled John Francis Bongiovi, Jr (as his birth certificate reads) et al into true rock legends, but you can still expect an extravaganza that belies the band’s collective age. Doors open at 9:30PM and premium tickets are R$600, regular price R$250.

French legends of chill Air play a much-anticipated show at Circo Voador on October 14th. The duo have a sound that owes a great deal to the synthesizer work of the 1970’s artists Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis, and in fact many have cited fellow Frenchman Serge Gainsbourg as an uncanny prototype. Their debut LP Moon Safari must go down as one of the most innovative albums of the 1990s. Doors open at 10PM, tickets are R$80.

Will.I.Am and the ever-popular Black Eyed Peas crew play Apoteose on October 24th, as part of their latest global excursion, the E.N.D tour. While 2003’s Elephunk is commonly referred to as their ‘breakout’ album, hip-hop purists might disagree, and ‘Bridging The Gap’ was a seminal album that rose above the ‘bling and babes’ aesthetic that plagued the genre in the 1990’s and now infiltrates their biggest hits. A ‘Gold’ seat costs a staggering R$900, and regular seats are R$450. Doors open at 8PM.

Hard rockers Queens of the Stone Age will be at Circo Voador, on Friday, November 19th at 10PM. Although often referred to as ‘stoner rock’, they are so much more, and mastermind and front man Josh Homme describes his unique guitar sound as ‘robot rock’. Ticket prices are still to be confirmed.

Finally, one of the three guitar gods of the 1970’s (along with Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton), Jeff Beck plays Vivo Rio on Wednesday, November 24th. All three of the aforementioned axe-wielding heavyweights played at one time or another in that seminal rock group The Yardbirds and Beck has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, suggesting he’s probably worth seeing.