Sun. July 1 

Roger Waters re-staged the grandest production he’s ever created, “The Wall,” a massive tour last year that stopped at TD Banknorth Garden in October, 2010. He's doing it again this time at - yes, on even a grander scale - Fenway Park, Sunday July 1, in front of, yes, our very own famous Wall. Tickets on sale Feb. 20. The conceptual double album came out in 1979 and it was one of the darkest extravaganzas, of then or now. All about alienation, smothering mothers, a bankrupt educational system, jingoism, war’s destructive power on all, rock star delusions, drug abuse, egotism and isolation. Fun stuff? You bet!  Pink Floyd tried to stage this monster in 1980-81 and it sputtered. Very expensive to mount and people didn’t exactly like the idea that as the show went on this gigantic wall that separated the crowd from the band. Hey, it was symbolic, but, well, you know, all that distancing meant you were detached from the band, which was part of the point. That wall served multiple purposes. At any rate, Waters has decided that “The Wall” really is his major statement and he’s mounted it again, spending tons of money, yes, but with modern technology and much more flexibility.

      Waters, 67, has spent a good part of his post-Pink Floyd career suggesting (sometimes rather pointedly) that he was Pink Floyd’s main man and the band that sometimes records and ventures out on the road – guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason plus whoever – was Floyd lite.

My niece, Deborah Yarchun, me, Amos Lee, my wife Roza Yarchun. At Lowell Summer Music Series, Boarding House Park, July 9

Roza Yarchun, me, Chef/host Daniel Bruce at the Boston Harbor Hotel's Wine Festival 2010

Sat. May 11

There aren't that many CAN'T MISS events we stress here at JSink, because there really are so many viable options out there. But this is one: The return to Boston of the Feelies, the Haledon, NJ-band that made the late-1970s and 1980s so much more wonderful with its mix of jangly (pre-REM) guitar, nervous, twitchy rhythms, inspired covers (the Beatles' "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey," Velvet Undeground), and a mix of resignation, bitterness, ennui and, yes, joy. They're playing the Paradise Saturday May 11.  The crazy rhythms drove you one way, the intertwining guitar lines of Glenn Mercer and Bill Million another and despite the subtext of anxiety and angst, there was a palpable sense of excitement. The Feelies reunited for a show July 1, 2008 at their old stomping grounds of Maxwell's and have, tentatively, at least, kept it going. Here's the new news: The Feelies will break a 19-year stretch of non-recording by releasing the CD "Here Before" on Bar/None, with new songs "Nobody Knows," "Should be Gone, "Where You Know," "Time Is Right" and "Blue Skies." Having new music, makes a band that much, well, vital, knowing it's not just laurels and history they're resting on. Frankly, it never seemed that way with the Feelies but just the notion that they're creating new music brings a smile. Life changes; Feelies are still at it.

Fri. March 30

Big noise in a tiny package.That’s the quick-hit take on singer-guitarist Ritzy Bryan and the Joy Formidable, the Wales-formed, London-based trio she fronts. The group nearly sold out Brighton Music Hall last year, returned to the Garden to open for the Foo Fighters and is back in our midst Friday March 30 at the Paradise. Their album was in my 2011 Top Ten, as submitted to the Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll.

The following is drawn from a Herald review I wrote.

The band’s name? It’s not ironic. Sure, at the nearly soldout Brighton Music Hall Tuesday, there was sonic turmoil and some gnarly sounds, but the pleasure principle was stoked throughout the 65-minute set. It wasn’t confectious pop, by any means. No one will confuse Bryan with the many chirpy, dance-pop Brit gals hitting our shores these days. She was certainly effervescent, bantering with the crowd and her band mates, chatting up the charity for the homeless the band supports. But the Joy Formidable gets inspiration from the shoegazer bands of the early-‘90s such as Slowdive, Ride, Lush and Swervedriver. That means the sound is something of a melodic cacophony, with the singer not concerned with conveying a specific message.