The Beach Boys –
Sunday, May 19, 8:00 p.m.
SOLD OUT


GREATEST HITS TOUR
CHEAP TRICK –
Tuesday, May 28, 8:00 p.m.
CHEAP TRICK may be one of the most covered bands of all time. Since the 70s they’ve been blending elements of pop, punk and even metal in a way that is instantly catchy and recognizable. With timeless classics such as “I Want You to Want Me,” “Surrender,” and “The Flame,” CHEAP TRICK are a musical institution. Anyone familiar with Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report will note that CHEAP TRICK wrote and performed the theme song.
With more than 5,000 performances, 20 million records sold, 29 movie soundtracks and 40 gold and platinum recording awards, the band was honored in October 2007 by the Chicago Chapter of NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences) for their contributions to the music industry. CHEAP TRICK were featured in the John Varvatos Spring 2008 ad campaign.
Their most current release, The Latest, has garnered glowing reviews worldwide and continues Cheap Trick’s reign as power-pop progenitors as they continue their legacy of over 35 years in the music industry. $59


JOAN BAEZ  –
Tuesday, June 4, 8:00 p.m.
From performing at Woodstock in 1969 to winning an International Bluegrass Award and the GRAMMY’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Joan Baez’s enduring musical journey has been a remarkable one driven by love of folk music and passion for human rights.
Two-thousand-and-eight was a landmark year for Joan Baez marking 50 years since she began her legendary residency at Boston’s famed Club 47. She remains a musical force of nature whose influence is incalculable – marching on the front line of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King, inspiring Vaclav Havel in his fight for a Czech Republic, singing on the first Amnesty Interna¬tional tour and just this year, standing alongside Nelson Mandela when the world celebrated his 90th birthday in London’s Hyde Park. She brought the Free Speech Movement into the spotlight, took to the fields with Cesar Chavez, organized resistance to the war in Southeast Asia, then forty years later saluted the Dixie Chicks for their courage to protest war. Her earliest recordings fed a host of traditional ballads into the rock vernacular before she unselfconsciously introduced Bob Dylan to the world in 1963 and focused aware¬ness on songwriters ranging from Woody Guthrie, Dylan, Phil Ochs, Richard Fariña, and Tim Hardin, to Kris Kristofferson and Mickey Newbury, Dar Williams, Richard Shindell, Steve Earle and many more.
Baez’s newest album, How Sweet the Sound (2009), features tracks spanning her whole musical career, including some of her most distinguished hits: “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Diamonds and Rust,” and “Oh Freedom.” The record shares the name of an American Masters PBS documentary about Baez that premiered in 2009. $39, $49, $59

Ian Anderson performs Thick As A Brick in its entirety for the first time since 1972, as part of his world tour.
This tour will feature a more theatrical production with video, additional musicians and a troupe of dancing elephants.
(Just kidding about the dancing elephants: they don't dance.....)
In 1972, Ian wrote the music (and the lyrics which were credited at the time to the fictitious character, 8 year-old Gerald Bostock, whose parents lied about his age) and recorded withJethro Tull, Thick As A Brick. The record became a number one Billboard album and enjoyed huge commercial success in most countries of the world. The album featured only one song, lasting nearly 45 minutes. To accommodate the album on LP vinyl and cassette, the seamless track was split on both sides of the record. It reached number one on the US Billboard Pop Albums chart.
Since 1972, the album has never been performed in its entirety although a few minutes of the material have been a regular repertoire staple in both Tull and IA solo shows over the years.
Now, scheduled for performance again in 2013, Ian will bring the original album to the Stiefel Theatre on Friday, July 12. It will be performed in its entirety with band, and additional guests. $69, $79, $89

A casual listen to the Boz Scaggs discography makes one thing obvious: Boz Scaggs is both a musical seeker and a man of sizable talent as a singer, songwriter and guitarist. His explorations in blues and R&B, Rock and Jazz have produced lasting work and a career that has brought with it acclaim, a loyal followin, and an enduring respect among musicians.
With MEMPHIS (429 Records), his first studio album in five years, Scaggs looks back musically and biographically. (His father and grandparents are from Memphis, as is his wife.) “I had been thinking about a record that involved going back into my past and finding songs that match my style and my voice,” Scaggs says. With producer Steve Jordan and a crack band he puts a distinctive touch on classics like “Rainy Night in Georgia,” “Corinna Corinna,” and “Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl,” as well as on a couple of originals. Thirteen tracks were recorded in three days at the city’s landmark Royal Studios, where the late Willie Mitchell produced so many of Al Green’s and Anne Peebles’ legendary albums.
“The project just fell out naturally,” Scaggs says. “It didn’t require working over takes or a lot of revising. Choosing the material came, to some degree, out of the work I’d been doing with the Dukes of September (a band featuring Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald and Boz). We’d considered hundreds of songs over the last three years so a number of these had been spinning around in my head for a while. Then when I sounded Steve Jordan about producing the record, his reaction gelled so completely and instantly with mine. Was it the first or second conversation we had where I thought he was reading my mind: Royal Studios in Memphis? Ace players like Willie Weeks and Ray Parker Jr. and Charles Hodges? YES.”
Raised in small towns in Oklahoma and Texas, Boz Scaggs took up the guitar at age 13. “As a kid in the Fifties I was swept away by music and radio. It seemed there weren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with that first wave of Rock and Roll coming out of (top 40 station) KLIF and (the local R&B station) KNOK. At night I had WLAC Nashville with deeper Blues and R&B out of the greater south, Jazz from Chicago’s WLS and out of Dallas on WRR an amazing show called Cat’s Caravan where the DJ Jim Lowe took us to school on Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Memphis Slim, TBone Walker and the Delta and Chicago masters. My high school friend Lewis MacAdams later wrote about that program, ‘I embarked on a journey each night into the life I wanted to live.’ That was me, too.” $55, $65, $74

Grammy winner Rick Springfield has secured his highest chart debut position in more than 20 years with his latest album, Venus in Overdrive. Coming in at No. 28 on the Billboard chart, Springfield's first CD of all new material in almost 5 years is also his debut album on New Door Records/UMe. Within the first few days, the album had tremendous momentum and did well at all retailers, including iTunes and Amazon.com where it was among their Top 10 sellers.
The singer has been highly visible with a string of national television appearances including: "Good Morning America," "Live with Regis and Kelly," "The Early Show," "FOX and Friends," "On the Record With Greta Van Susteren," "Entertainment Tonight" and the week before street date re-airing of "Oprah." Springfield also returned to "General Hospital" in the recurring role as Dr. Noah Drake, as well as the rock star Eli Love who performed the current single, "What's Victoria's Secret?"
Comments Springfield, "We worked really hard on these new songs and I haven't been this excited about a new record since the 80's. Yep, still call it a 'record'." Billboard magazine says Venus in Overdrive "demonstrates the strengths that keep Springfield in the game," saying the album has "broad stylistic range and pure emotional energy." $49, $59, $69