Welcome to Seven in Seven, where we look at shows coming to the region over the next week. As always, whether your musical tastes are rock ’n’ roll, jazz, heavy metal, R&B, singer-songwriter or indie, there will always be something to check out. Here are seven of the best on the docket for the week of May 16:
Metallica — Friday and Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field
Two years after it began, Metallica’s M72 World Tour finally comes to town. Ostensibly, it’s in support of the 2023 studio album, “72 Seasons,” but the real hook lies in the “No Repeat Weekend” aspect of the dates. Metallica has taken this concept all over the world, setting up shop in a city for a weekend and performing two nights without doing the same song twice. Sure, you can go to The Linc only on Friday or Sunday, but there’s no guarantee the biggest metal band in the land is going to play your favorite songs. You might hear “Enter Sandman,” but might not get “One.” However, if you commit to both shows, you’ll have a better chance of getting all your hard rock needs, ahem, met.
Midge Ure — Friday at City Winery – Main Stage
Midge Ure returns to town as part of a North American trek that kicked off with a performance at the Cruel World Fest in Pasadena, Calif., last weekend. The ever-busy musician is in the middle of a months-long global tour where he’ll be touching on an impressive catalog that includes fronting the groundbreaking electrorock outfit Ultravox, as well as being a member of such notable bands as Visage and Thin Lizzy. Ure was also one of the principal creators of Live Aid and Live 8, along with Bob Geldof. The City Winery gig will be a part of his ongoing “Band in a Box” shows, with longtime keyboard sidekick Charlie Round Turner in what Ure has likened to “the Pet Shop Boys with guitars.”
Hail the Sun — Friday at Phantom Power
While spending the late spring and early summer on the road with The Amity Affliction and Ice Nine Kills, California-based experimental rock act Hail the Sun are shoehorning in some headlining shows, including at Phantom Power in Millersville on Friday. The group’s latest album, “Divine Inner Tension,” finds them questioning everything about what it means to be here and to be alive, on both a micro level — where the importance of our existence is profound and paramount — and on a macro one, where our time on this planet is nothing but irrelevant and insignificant.
Barry Manilow — Saturday at Wells Fargo Center
Having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide, Barry Manilow is one of the world’s all-time best-selling recording artists. The multi-award-winning musician has had an astonishing 51 Top 40 singles, including 12 number one hits and 27 Top 10 hits. He is ranked as the number one Adult Contemporary artist of all time, according to Billboard and R&R magazines. But if you want to see him live, this might be the final chance. See, the hitmaker behind timeless tracks like “Mandy,” “Copacabana,” “Can’t Smile Without You,” “Looks Like We Made It,” and dozens more, is calling these gigs “The Last Concerts.” Like with many artists, we’ve been down this road before. In fact, Manilow himself embarked on the “One Last Time!” tour a decade ago. Turning 82 years of age next month though, one can’t help but imagine this may just be the final time the Adult Contemporary icon performs in the region.
Samia — Wednesday at The Theatre of Living Arts
Seeking comfort in absence on her new record, “Bloodless,” Samia explores the allure of existing as fantasy. Drawing inspiration from unsolved mysteries — inexplicable cattle mutilations, the presence of God, the impossibility of femininity — she examines how shadows can loom larger than their source. The result is an LP which shifts seamlessly from sparse folk to sweeping indie-pop epics, adorned with haunting harmonies and spectral imagery, seeking a path through that space between void and flesh-and-blood presence. Samia is aiming to be both, to be whole, to be impossible, both onstage and off.
Mei Semones — next Thursday at World Café Live
Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and virtuosic guitarist Mei Semones brings her multi-genre, J-pop sounds to World Café Live in support of her brand-new record “Animaru,” which is the Japanese pronunciation of the word animal. The album is a collection of musically impressive tracks that sees the 24-year-old sounding more adventurous, more vulnerable, and more confident than ever before. Semones’ sophisticated declarations of non-romantic love — love of life, love of family, love of music, and her guitar — exemplify an enchantingly wide range as a songwriter and musician, including some of the most challenging and most straightforward songs she has ever written.
A Place to Bury Strangers — next Thursday at Ukie Club
The seventh album from A Place to Bury Strangers, “Synthesizer” is a raw collection of songs, wild and loud, like the instrument itself, and can be heard on vinyl, streaming, or wherever you get your music. The band, however, is one that is meant to be witnessed in a live setting, where the songs take on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. Frontman and guitarist Oliver Ackermann, who also founded the storied DIY space — and now effects pedal factory — Death by Audio, puts just as much of himself into the group while building a wall of sound that encircles audiences while at the same time enveloping them with unfettered blasts of noise rock.
Soundcheck
• Metallica: “Orion”
• Ultravox: “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes”
• Hail the Sun: “Made Your Mark”
• Barry Manilow: “Can’t Smile Without You”
• Samia: “Hole in a Frame”
• Mei Semones: “Dumb Feeling”
• A Place to Bury Strangers: “You Got Me”
