Weezer: Voyage to the Blue Planet Tour 2024.

Playing Blue Album in Full!

With The Flaming Lips and Dinosaur Jr.

Tickets | Information

Doors at 6:30pm | Perfromance at 7pm

How to receive presale information

A presale is scheduled for Thursday, March 14 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (the public on-sale opens Friday at 10 a.m.). Subscribe to Cross Currents — The Current’s weekly newsletter — by midnight on Wednesday, March 13 to receive details about this week’s presale for Weezer at Xcel Energy Center on September 4.

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Weezer

The great American rock group Weezer are one of those acts whose reputation grows more secure with each passing year. Always to be relied upon for a memorable melody, a sticky hook and an often witty turn of lyrical phrase the songs of Rivers Cuomo and his accomplices have graduated from power pop, through indie to metal, often within the framework of a single number. They began by making clever and often nostalgic music with a contemporary twist: they were sharp but never too arch.

The classic albums, from the self-titled triple Platinum debut, via Maladroit, Make Believe, Pinkerton and the most recent Everything Will Be Alright in the End, have kept track with prevailing trends and often ambushed them. Brilliant singles like “Buddy Holly, “Undone – The Sweater Song” (both with iconic pop videos directed by Spike Jonze) “Say It Ain’t So” and “Pork and Beans” tend to defy trends and categorization but they have durable appeal meaning that Weezer are just as hip with younger audiences now as say, Nirvana or Ben Folds. On the other hand, they’ve retained a fanatical long term following. We are delighted to have the majority of their studio albums as well as the excellent compilation Death to False Metal (featuring Robert Pitt’s startling cover work). All their discs have charted in the US and UK. Pinkerton has sold in excess of 3,600,000 worldwide: Make Believe slightly more, so while they haven’t always scaled the heights as a singles act – Lord knows why – they have maintained their trajectory. The most recent single is “Go Away”, featuring Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino and it is an alluring mix of 1960’s pop, grunge chords and doo-wop. Go figure, but don’t think too hard. Weezer is a band to love and cherish; analysis is a side issue.

Weezer formed in Los Angeles in 1992 when Rivers Cuomo, son of jazz drummer Frank and mother Beverley, teamed up with Patrick Wilson (drums), Matt Sharp and later Scott Shriner (bass) and rhythm guitarist Brian Bell. That ensemble would be largely responsible for sales of 17 million-plus albums worldwide. Named Weezer because of River’s asthma they made their debut (sometimes called The Blue Album) with Cars man Ric Ocasek as the perfect production foil, for their weird take on pop music. Geffen released “Undone – The Sweater Song” as the first single and it was an immediate hit. The geeky “Buddy Holly” with its infernally catchy oo-wee-oo chorus name-checking the subject and the American actress Mary Tyler Moore was even more successful while the poignant “Say It Ain’t So” completed a trilogy of teenage angst tracks that connected with their natural audience and amused older hands. Looking back certain critics noted that Weezer had pre-empted the whole emo movement but you could hardly cast them in that scope for long since they were determined to hit the arenas with something thrilling. That album lit up many a collection in 1994 and is now totally recommended for discovery. The combination of Cheap Trick and Raspberries class tunes and the punky distillation of metal influences have kept it fresh. Try the 2004 Deluxe edition where a bonus disc, Dusty Gems and Raw Nuggets, collates some rarities and the band’s early demos aka Kitchen Tape plus a couple of pre-Ocasek pre-production numbers.

The Flaming Lips

Even within the eclectic world of alternative rock, few bands are as brave, as frequently brilliant, and as deliciously weird as the Flaming Lips. From their beginnings as Oklahoma outsiders to their mid-'90s pop-culture breakthrough to their status as one of the most respected groups of the 21st century, the Lips rode one of the more surreal career trajectories in pop music. After years in the underground, a major-label deal scored during the early-'90s alt rock craze gave them a bigger platform for their mix of psych, noise-rock, and bubblegum melodies, and their 1993 album Transmissions from the Satellite Heart spawned the unlikely Top 40 hit "She Don't Use Jelly." At the turn of the century, they delivered a pair of lush and heartfelt masterpieces with 1999's The Soft Bulletin and 2002's Grammy-winning Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Later, they took their experimental and pop impulses in wildly different directions. Whether collaborating with Miley Cyrus, issuing an expression of existential dread with 2013's The Terror, exploring the loss of innocence on 2020's American Head, or backing young singer/songwriter Nell Smith on 2021's Where the Viaduct Looms, their distinctive sound and uncommon emotional depth made them as true originals.

Dinosaur Jr.

Here is Sweep It Into Space, the fifth new studio album cut by Dinosaur Jr. during the 13th year of their rebirth. Originally scheduled for issue in mid-2020, this record's temporal trajectory was thwarted by the coming of the Plague. But it would take more than a mere Plague to tamp down the exquisite fury of this trio when they are fully dialed-in. And Sweep It Into Space is a masterpiece of zoned dialing.

In the decades since the release of Dinosaur Jr.'s original triptych of foundational albums, it has become clear that their sound -- once hailed as a sort of almost-tamed noise -- is/was/always-has-been fully functioning pop music of a sort. The subsequent generations of bands who grew up breathing Dino's fumes managed to tinker around with the edges of their original post-hardcore song-forms enough for listeners to realize there had always been melodies at the center of everything they did. What Dinosaur Jr.. produces is nothing but a beautiful new version of the rock continuum -- riff, power, beat, and longing, created with an eye on the infinite future.

Recorded, as usual, at Amherst's Biquiteen, the sessions for Sweep It Into Space began in the late Autumn of 2019, following a West Coast/South East tour. The only extra musician used this time with Kurt Vile. J Mascis says, "Kurt played little lead things, like 12 string one at the beginning of 'I Ran Away.' Then I ended up just mimicking a few things he'd done. I was listening to a lot of Thin Lizzy, so I was trying to get some of that dueling twin-lead sound. (laughs)"

“But the recording session was pretty well finished by the time things really hit the fan. So I just ended up doing more things by myself. Like the mini digital mellotron on 'Take It Back.' Originally I'd thought I'd have Ken Mauri (who has done keyboard work for Dino in the past) come in and play piano. But when the Lock Down happened in March, that meant I was on my own. But it was cool.”

Indeed, Sweep It Into Space is a very cool album. As is typical, Lou Barlow writes and sings two of the album's dozen tunes and Murph's pure-Flinstonian drumming drives the record like a go-cart from Hell. Lou's songs here are as elegant as always. "Garden" is a mid-paced ballad with genteel guitar filigree giving it a '60 Brit feel in spots. And the album's closer, "You Wonder," is a strangely excellent answer to the question -- "How would Blue Oyster Cult handle a country tune?"

J's tracks flow and flower in the different directions he often follows. Some are guitar howlers, like “I Met the Stones,” with a string sound midway between Hendrix and Asheton. Some are power ballads, like “And Me,” its lyrics atomized in a manner invented by Mascis, then famously borrowed by Kurt Cobain. And there are anomalies, like “Take It Back,” which starts with a blue-beat rhythm putting one in mind of Keith Richards' Jamaican explorations (at least for a little bit.)

But there are very few moments where you wouldn't know you were hearing Dinosaur Jr.. in blindfolded needle drop. They have a signature sound as sure as the Stooges or Sonic Youth or Discharge ever did. They continue to expand their personal universe with Sweep It Into Space, without ever losing their central core. So if you ever do find yourself swept into space (hey, who knows?), I just hope these tunes are on your playlist.