Music:

Catalpa Festival

Kicking off its first year, the Catalpa Festival offers yet another chance to see top-tier musical acts playing outdoors within city limits. The fest will feature more than 40 performers, including blues rock superstars The Black Keys and Snoop Dogg rocking his seminal album Doggystyle in its entirety. Other highlights include NYC faves TV on the Radio, Girl Talk and hip-hop instrumental wizard AraabMUZIK. There will also be a reggae stage sponsored by High Times magazine, a “sculpture” that belches fireballs in the air and various other novelties (inflatable “sham marriage” church?) included to distract from the fact that music lineup is mostly weak, aside from the headliners.

July 28-29; $140–$180 for the weekend. Randall’s Island Park, www.catalpanyc.com.

Electric Zoo

This is for those who dance. A lot. It’s three days; an all-night(s) blitz of modern dance music from the likes of David Guetta, A-Trak and more. If you appreciate the contemporary offshoots of what we used to call techno, this fest will be something of great joy. A zoo—of dancing people. 

Aug. 31-Sept. 2; $299 for all three days. Randall’s Island Park, electriczoofestival.com.

Washington Square Music Festival

Consisting of four Friday night concerts in July, the Washington Square Music Festival is now in its 54th year of entertaining New Yorkers in one of our most beautiful parks. This year, the festival will include a night of music and poetry, a night of Viennese chamber music, a night of music for strings and wings and one of the West African sounds of the Deep Sahara Band. Seating is first-come, first-served, so get there early to enjoy a night of music beneath the stars—and the park’s famous arch—or at St. Joseph’s Church, where the first two concerts will take place.

July 10, 17, 24 & 31, 8 p.m.; free. St. Joseph’s Church, 371 6th Ave. at Waverly Place and Washington Square Park, 5th Ave at Waverly Place, washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org.

Theatre:

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot

Tired of waiting in the stifling heat for Shakespeare in the Park to no avail? Fear not; there’s another free outdoor option to view the Bard’s work. The Drilling Company’s LES staple, taking place in the municipal parking lot at the corner of Broome and Ludlow streets, will present The Merry Wives of Windsor in July, followed by Coriolanus in August. Keep in mind that these productions are prone to interruption; the action occurs around parked cars whose drivers sometimes return and drive away mid-performance. Now that’s something performers never needed to concern themselves with during the Elizabethan era!

Thursdays-Saturdays, July 12-28 & Aug. 2-18, 8 p.m.; free. Broome St. at Ludlow St., shakespeareintheparkinglot.com.

Fringe Fest

Even at 16 years old, this annual marathon of offbeat, cutting-edge theater—which birthed Rent, among other memorable shows—is devoted to the new and the strange. This year’s performances will include From Busk Till Dawn: The Life of an NYC Street Performer, Love Death Brains (A Zombie Musical), Occupy the Constellations: A Collaborative Revolutionary Puppet Tale and, all the way from California, a show called What I Learned From Porn. Not everything you’ll see at the Fringe is great, but it’s always done with humor and spirit, making it more interesting—if not quite as professional—than most other festivals.

Aug. 10-26. fringenyc.org.

New York Musical Theatre Festival

Featuring live music, workshops and full productions of brand-new musicals, the NYMTF has been giving New York audiences a chance to experience exciting musical theater without Broadway price tags (or tourists) since 1994. This year’s lineup is particularly strong, with 30 musicals including A Letter To Harvey Milk, about a butcher sending a letter to Milk; Baby Case, Michael Ogborn’s take on the Lindbergh baby’s disappearance; and Prison Dancer, a show based on the Filipino prisoners who became a worldwide sensation thanks to their YouTube performances.

July 9-29. Various locations, nymf.org.

This is the third time I’ve gone to a stadium show at the Garden. There’s a running line of indie turned commercial bands, main staging, where they once blew up the little old black box. Kings of Leon with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The Strokes (who Kings of Leon  opened for in the black box, way back in early aughts) with Devendra Banhart. And last night The Black Keys with Arctic Monkeys. Friends who had seen The Black Keys perform warned that the band doesn’t have what it takes to keep the attention of a thousand misfits, screaming and standing. I worried that the concert might be a re-hash of the Death Cab for Cutie concert I went to in tenth grade. Nice music, but not enough to hold my attention. Enough to hold up a lighter until the flame blew out.

Arctic Monkeys took the stage first. The band received a certain amount of hype with their first album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, and a certain amount of hate thereon. Pop culture relishes the pauper to the king story, but loves the king to the pauper one even more. Take a look at Jesus. The funny thing is that the band has greatly matured since their “I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor,” days. They’re adept musicians, who have continued to put out exceptional music even with a public throwing heads of cabbage here and there. They’ve played with the various genres of rock, mixing in the lyrical Stones, the heavy AC/DC, and little Don Henley whimsy here and there. Unfortunately, their music performing skills have yet to catch up with their music making ones.

Each member was spaced out about ten feet from the other, so that they could properly “fill” the stadium stage. In doing so, they lost the vigor in their performance. There wasn’t the feel of a band, but five great musicians who just happened to be playing together that night. They put their passion in their pop songs, the ones we’ve all heard, which left the new ones tepid in the wake of frenetic energy, which the lead singer, Alex Turner, is full of. Spewing an everlasting gobstopper of lyrics, faster than a normal brain can register them. In a smaller venue they would have brought the house down.

Then The Black Keys. I’m not quite sure when or where my friends saw the duo (now backed with a bassist and a keyboardist) play, but from the moment they stepped on the stage they owned it. The drum kit was up front, rather than in back, so we could see Patrick Carney bang away, while lead singer Dan Auerbach wailed into the mic and strummed the guitar. After a few songs, the backing instrumentalists left stage, leaving the founders to play it the way it was intended. A drummer. A guitarist. A voice. Boom.

They played a range of songs from their discography. They’ve amassed seven albums in the 11 years they’ve been together. The oldies were much more exciting than the newbies, though they didn’t disappoint none either. Their style can only be described as dirty. It’s unbridled rock ‘n roll. Manly but vulnerable. Country but big city. Muscle car but VW van. “Next Girl,” rang of the sorrow of redemption and lost love. “I’ll Be Your Man,” echoed the funk of a jive walking a 70’s pimp. For their encore, they brought down a giant disco ball to play “Everlasting Light.” For their final song they had the whole stadium clap to the beat, and I swear I’ve never heard so many audience members put hand to hand. The sound was like cannonball after cannonball, but only added to the music mayhem that ended a phenomenal concert.