Shinedown Caps A Loud Week

The Marquee

Shinedown have spent more than twenty years writing rock songs built for rooms exactly this size, and they arrive in Charlotte behind Ei8ht, the new record that happens to be, fittingly, their eighth. Shinedown headline Spectrum Center on Sunday, July 26 on the second act of their Dance Kid Dance tour, and they do not travel light. Coheed and Cambria, Skillet, and From Ashes to New round out a bill that turns the last night of the week into four bands worth of volume. Frontman Brent Smith works an arena the way a preacher works a room, all big choruses and held notes, so count on the anthems everyone already knows and a full house singing them back. It is the biggest ticket of the week and the right way to end it.

Around The Neighborhoods

Start outside the center city, because the amphitheaters own the front half of the week. Truliant Amphitheater up in University City runs two nights that share nothing but a stage. Motionless in White bring their theatrical metal on Tuesday, July 21 with Lorna Shore and Fit for a King along for the noise, then on Friday, July 24 the room turns classic when Lynyrd Skynyrd and Foreigner run the southern rock and arena rock songbooks one after the other. Down in Ballantyne, Rick Springfield plays the hits at the TD Amp on Wednesday, July 22, and the same stage flips to reggae on Friday, July 24 with Buju Banton and Stephen Marley. Out on Sugar Creek Road, Green Velvet takes the Blackbox late on Friday for a night of Chicago house.

North of Uptown, the Fillmore books a rap and soul run that barely lets the stage cool. Qveen Herby opens the complex on Wednesday, July 22, BossMan Dlow brings his Florida rap with Yung Miami on Friday, July 24, and Saturday, July 25 belongs to Fetty Wap, whose 2015 run of hits still fills a room a decade on. The Sunday finale goes to Detroit when 42 Dugg closes the week with Babyface Ray on July 26. Downstairs in the Underground the same Saturday, Lyfe Jennings brings his soul to a smaller crowd.

East on Independence, Toosii headlines Ovens Auditorium on Saturday, July 25 with Ann Marie. He came up in Raleigh, which makes a corridor show two hours from home close to a homecoming.

South End keeps it lower key, the way it likes to. Willis plays Amos' Southend on Thursday, July 23, and on Friday, July 24 the open air Music Yard hosts the German producer Nils Hoffmann for a sunset set of melodic dance. Annabelle Dinda closes the neighborhood's week back at Amos' on Sunday, July 26. Up in NoDa, DustBowlChampion take the Evening Muse on Tuesday, July 21 for the kind of quiet room set the songwriter house does best.

The Comedy Card

The comedy calendar runs deep this week. At the Comedy Zone in the Music Factory, Mike Epps headlines a full weekend from Friday, July 24 through Sunday, July 26, a familiar face from the Friday movies and years of Def Comedy Jam who still fills a club on name alone. The week opens in the same room with Pauly Shore, the 90s MTV fixture, on Monday, July 20, Jamie Lissow takes the earlier slots Thursday through Saturday, and Tacarra Williams adds her own sets on Saturday, July 25. Over at Duckworth's in Uptown, Matty Chymbor runs Thursday through Saturday, with Shama Mrema closing the upstairs room on Sunday, July 26.

Next Week's Radar

Next week lands loaded, so plan ahead. Melanie Martinez brings her full theatrical world to Spectrum Center on Monday, July 27, and the following weekend Tame Impala take the same arena for two nights, Saturday, August 1 and Sunday, August 2, with Djo opening both. Two arena nights from one act do not happen often here, so move on those before they move on you.