Fling has flung for the year, and everyone who attended the concert, opted out, or spent the night attending and subsequently being thrown around the pit for Dance Gavin Dance instead, is back to the Penn grind. Finals are less than a month away, after all, and it's a race to the finish. The best study break, however, and the best way to cure the post–concert blues, is attending another show, and there's no better week to do it: from rising stars to pop icons, alternative slow jams to hardcore headbanging, there's a little something for everyone, whether you have $500 to spare or only $25.
Bad Suns at TLA (April 16)
Hot off the release of their third LP Mystic Truth, the California alt–rock band Bad Suns gets the week off to a proper start with a Tuesday TLA show. With the jean jackets and shaggy hair of garage rockers of yore, the catchy riffs and crooning vocals of pop music at its finest, and additional inspiration from the post punk scene of the 1980s, it's difficult to find a band with such crossover appeal. Lead vocalist Christo Bowman stated as such in an interview with the Dallas Observer when he called the band's sound "a blend of different ingredients from a lot of music that inspires [them]." Opening is Carlie Hanson, an eighteen–year–old alt pop icon who went from working at McDonald's to opening for Troye Sivan.
Cher at Wells Fargo Center (April 20)
Does Cher really need an introduction? She's sold over one hundred million albums, won an Oscar, a Grammy, an Emmy, and three Golden Globes, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is the only artist to date to have reached number one on a Billboard chart in each of the past six decades, and now has a Broadway musical about her life. Now, following her turn as Ruby Sheridan in Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! last summer, she's bringing her Here We Go Again Tour to Wells Fargo Center, where she'll be performing songs from ABBA's catalog. Tickets start at just under $50, while a front row seat will set you back $550, but come on. It's Cher.
Foals at The Fillmore (April 20)
If Cher isn't your style, or if you don't have half a grand to spend on front row tickets, a very different act will be headlining at the Fillmore that night. In the interim between the March release of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and the upcoming Part 2 release in September, English alt rock band Foals is hitting the road with Canadian post–punk band Preoccupations and Atlanta trio Omni. This is Foals' first tour without founding bassist Walter Gervers, and bass duties are in the more than capable hands of Jeremy Pritchard from Everything Everything. Just watch out for frontman Yannis Philippakis jumping into the pit mid–set.
La Dispute at Union Transfer (April 21)
After opening for Philadelphia natives Circa Survive at the Fillmore back in December, post–hardcore band La Dispute is returning on Easter Sunday to promote their new album Panorama. Although it's no substitute for going to church, Jordan Dreyer's spoken–word vocals will provide a transcendent experience from breakout 2019 single "FOOTSTEPS AT THE POND" to the band's closing seven–minute epic, "King Park." With Gouge Away and Slow Mass supporting, the show is bound to be a cathartic release of anger and energy, the perfect end to a long and stressful pre–finals week.
