Sat. Sept. 17

Indulgence. Moderation. We all try to balance these things, do we not? Well, the scales (literally?) will tip toward the former during the third annual New England Dessert Showcase at the Sheraton Boston Hotel's Grand Ballroom Saturday Sept. 17. What you get for the $75 admission is the chance to sample desserts from the likes of Konditor Meister, Finale, the Chart House and more, meaning you will have all the chocolate, ice cream than you'd ever want. Wine, too. There are two sessions, 11 a.m - 2 p.m. and 3 p.m- 6.pm.

39 Dalton St., 617-538-6829, 617-381-4746 www.anthemevents.com www.nedessertshowcase.com

ongoing

We’ve all seen scads of Holocaust-themed movies. Do we need to see one more? I’ve asked myself that question - after “Shoah,” “Schindler’s List” and especially after ‘Life is Beautiful” or “Inglorious Basterds – and the answer, with a deep sigh, is always yes. Maybe even more now than ever with that sub-species of Holocaust deniers crawling around, quite prominently, out there. Hello Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  “Sarah’s Key” is two stories – one set in the present, the other during World War II when the French start moving Jews out of Paris, first into a stadium, later to concentration camps.
    Julia, an American journalist played by French-speaking Kristin Scott Thomas, comes to a Paris flat her husband buys and discovers in 1942 it was seized from Jews by the French. It’s called the Vel d’Hiv Roundup and just like Thomas’ character in the beginning, I had no idea about this piece of history, what the French did to an estimated 78,000 Jews. Anti-semitism was not contained to Germany. French officials fell in line with Hitler’s Final Solution.
  The “key” in the movie’s title is the key for the closet 10-year-old Sarah (Melusine Mayance) hides her younger brother in to protect him from being seized, as she and her parents are being whisked away. Her intent is to come back and rescue him when this unpleasant ordeal is over. She, of course, does not know the extent of the unpleasantness. Eventually, miraculously, she gets back home. What she finds in the closet isn’t pleasant. We are not shown what she sees. As with certain Hitchcock films sometimes what we can imagine is worse than what the director can depict.

Sat. Sept. 17

 It’s “Tommy” time again at Agganis Arena, Saturday Sept. 17.  It’s not the Who performing it, but it is Roger Daltrey singing it – with various members of his and Who backing bands – and it has the stamp of approval from its creator and Who bandmate, Pete Townshend.  "The reason I am not on the road with Roger is that this is entirely Roger's adventure, one that is bringing him great joy," Townshend blogged. "I don't belong on this tour. I wish him well, sincerely, and I look forward to playing with Roger again doing ‘Quadrophenia’ next year." Yep, that’s right. The Who’s best rock opera, one they’ve kicked up spectacularly now and again, will make a 2012 swan song. (This, though Townshend has partial deafness and tinnitus. The Who, of course, at this point, with Entwistle and Moon gone, is essentially Pete and Rog plus sidemen.)
    But “Tommy” was what started it all in 1969, if you don’t count the mini-operas the Who did before that from “Sell Out.” And Daltrey is nothing if not a worker. Some years ago, before a “Quadro” tour he said he was going to sing this stuff ‘til he couldn’t any longer, realizing he wasn’t going to hit those screams and sustain those notes forever. The Who’s once-and-future singer is 67.
   What does he sound like? Two years ago, I covered him for the Herald at the House of Blues. When he sang “My Generation,” he re-worked it as a slow blues song, the back end of Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man.” And he stopped short of the killer line, “Hope I die before I get old.” Hey, you can only deal with so much irony.

Sat. Sept. 17  

   “I’ve been making a lot of money for a decade and a half,” said Toby Keith, on the phone from Saratoga, NY. He is both brash and matter-of-fact. Indeed, Forbes recently ranked the singer-songwriter-superstar as the world’s biggest earning country music performer. His music and investments earned him over $50 million from May 2010-May 2011.
   Five years ago, he released an album called “White Trash With Money.”
   Keith, whose “Locked & Loaded” tour stops at Comcast Center Saturday, is also a proud patriot with massive blue-collar appeal. He’s scored hits such as the controversial, post-9/11 call to arms, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” and “American Soldier” as well as rousing, party-hearty numbers like “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Beer for My Horses.” His current hit is “Made in America,” about a heartland couple who defiantly insist on buying American-produced goods even if they cost more.
    Many people in his audience have taken huge knocks in the recession. So, Keith was asked, should those in his income bracket be more heavily taxed, as Warren Buffett advocates, to help ease America’s financial crisis?
    “I don’t know, but I expect the wealthy to write a check ‘cause it’s as bad as it’s ever been,” the Oklahoma-born Keith said. “It would be unpatriotic not to try to save the country. I’m sure people will bitch about it, but if it meant we get to operate in this country and live here another day, then so be it.

Fri. Sept. 16

    In the 1980s, Boston rock fans knew Warren Zanes as the younger, guitar-playing brother of Dan Zanes, leader of the Del Fuegos. Warren was just 17 when he came down from Andover, NH to join the trio. His bandmates nicknamed him Ork Boy. This, Zanes, notes Zanes did not exactly help him with the ladies. That and the fact that he looked about 12.
    “I walked into the madness of band life and the haze of a fantasy of what it might be,” said Zanes, 46, looking back. “I came out of it off the rails and insane.”
    Big in Boston, the Fuegos had moderate national success. Warren lasted five years, and fought with his brother about not being allowed to contribute songs. (They’ve since made peace and played two Del Fuegos reunion concerts at the Paradise earlier this summer.)
     But it’s in his post-Fuegos life, where Zanes has blossomed.
     He wrote a bio of Dusty Springfield. Martin Scorsese asked him to interview George Martin, Eric Idle, Jeff Lynne and others for a documentary on George Harrison. (It airs in Oct. 5 and 6 on HBO.) Zanes is currently working on an authorized biography of his friend Tom Petty.
    His day job? Zanes is Executive Director of Steve Van Zandt’s Rock and Roll Forever Foundation, which is creating an on-line rock ‘n’ roll curriculum for middle and high school students.
     And he’s just released his third solo album, “I Want to Move Out In the Daylight.” It’s a brooding, emotionally charged album, with many catchy, mid-tempo rock songs. Zanes and his wife, Elinor Blake (also known as singer April March) have separated and are in the process of divorce.
    Breakup songs and albums are staples of rock ‘n’ roll.  “This just felt like I was chronicling a breakup without pointing fingers,” said Zanes, by phone from his Montclair, NJ home. “The word I would choose wouldn’t be ‘bitterness.’ I might say there’s more anger. You can see the way the sequence goes. It’s almost like those cycles of grief they talk about.”