Concert Tickets with OK Go, The Flaming Lips, Sage Francis…

This may go down as one of the best spring and summer concert seasons in recent history. Not only are bands like U2, Muse and Green Day hitting the road for some high profile gigs, but venues big and small are being stacked with a huge number of not-to-be-missed. performances by indie, punk, hip-hop and rock acts. Also, the touring festival market looks to be huge this summer. Lilith Faire is stacking up to be the festival to beat with such acts as Metric, Kelly Clarkson and Cat Power leading the way, while Warped Tour has replaced such, umm, “musical acts” as Brokencyde and The Millionaires with The Dillinger Escape Plan and The Riverboat Gamblers. Hell, even the Mayhem Festival has Rob Zombie co-headlining.

While Warped Tour and Lilith Fair will go on sale later this month, this week’s concert tickets post features such bands as OK Go and Sage Francis. So get out your wallet and read along:

Headliner: OK Go

Opener: Earl Greyhound

Dates: April 13th in Salt Lake City thru May 29th in Quincy, WA  at the Sasquatch Festival. Find dates here.

Price: $20-$25

What’s The Deal: Watch this. This. This. And this. Oh, and they are great live too.

Tickets on Sale: Starting today.

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Headliner: The Flaming Lips

Opener: Stardeath and White Dwarfs (is it ironic to anyone else that both opening bands have names that involve the demise of a star… no? Only me, all rigth…)

Dates: April 15th in Charlottesville, VA thru April 29th in West Palm Beach, FL (then a bunch of US festivals in the Summer).

Price: $30-$45

What’s The Deal: It’s the Flaming Lips. Describing their live shows to someone is like Alice describing what she saw in Wonderland to a casual observer. “Ok, the lead singer walked on the crowd in a giant bubble while stuffed animals roamed the stage, sure bub…”

Tickets on Sale: This weekend.

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Headliner: Sage Francis (with full band)

Opener: B. Dolan and Free Moral Agents.

Dates: May 12th in Cambridge, MA thru June 25th in New York. Dates here.

Price: $15-$30

What’s The Deal: Indie rapper and Atmosphere BFF Sage Francis will hit the road with a full band in support of his upcoming “Li(f)e” album. For some reason rappers with full bands always seems to work so this might be something to check out even if you find rap shows a bit “soulless” (still feeling burned from the Vanilla Ice show in the early 90′s, eh?).

Tickets on Sale: This weekend.

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Headliner: Set Your Goals

Opener: Comeback Kid, The Wonder Years, This Time Next Year

Dates: April 16th in Palmdale, CA (wow, don’t see a lot of shows going off in Palmdale) thru May 16th in San Francisco.

Price: Punk rock pricing (not quite Fugazi pricing, but somewhere around $10-$15).

What’s The Deal: Set Your Goals is one of the new breed of punk rock bands which are hardcore infused, yet still Hot Topic ready. If New Found Glory ever wanted to figuratively pass the baton to a younger band who had successfully mastered “easy-core” Set Your Goals might be that band.

Tickets on Sale: Now.

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Headliner: Massive Attack

Opener: Not announced yet, but I’m sure they will be dark and moody…

Dates: May 7th in Toronto thru May 30th in George, WA for the Sasquatch Festival. Check out the multiple nights in a handful of cities here.

Price: Being dark and moody comes at a price… usually around $50…

What’s The Deal: Trip-hop was one of those genre’s which were big in the mid-90′s with bands like Massive Attack, Tricky,  The Thievery Corporation and Portishead leading the way. Though it went away for a time in the early, umm, ’00′s (?), festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza have coaxed several of the aforementioned bands out of retirement to show the public how much we really missed that genre (you have to admit, that new Portishead record was pretty damn amazing). On the heels of the release of their first new album featuring all original members in 12 years, Massive Attack will hit the road for what will eventually be a lengthy world tour.

Tickets on Sale: This weekend (check your local listings).

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Headliner: Hole

Opener: TBA

Dates: All right, there are only two dates as of now: April 22nd in Los Angeles and April 27th in New York. If Courtney Love survives these dates or doesn’t land in prison for assaulting an audience member again, except more dates to be added.

Price: $35

What’s The Deal: Hole… oh, sorry… “Hole” features only Ms. Love from the original line-up of the 90′s band which gave us such classic songs as “Doll Parts”, “Violet” and “Malibu”. Hole was a great band, but with this new cast of characters we will have to reserve our judgment until we are able to hear more of the new “Hole” record “Nobody’s Daughter” due in late April. After that, maybe they can team with Billy Corgan’s new “Smashing Pumpkins” incarnation and have the “Quotation Mark Tour”.

Tickets on Sale: Saturday.