We don’t usually take time out of our days to make special concert announcements, but we will make an exception this time.  The Santa Barbara Bowl has just announced that the all-world Arcade Fire will play our hallowed amphitheater on August 4th.  Tickets go on sale this Saturday May 10th at 11am HERE.

You may had enough of our incessant touting of this group (which first began in January).  But just when we think we’ve had enough of the caffeinated drip of Sylvan Esso and their addicting song Coffee, another pot gets stirred and the song’s sounds spill out of our speakers and seize all our senses and synapses.  And it shakes us wide awake with its roiling rhythms.  Such was the case (yet again) today when we caught the duo’s performance below of the song for Soundcheck.  While much of the song’s performance here tracks the recorded version, we see/hear the live possibilities and can imagine an enraptured crowd going entirely-espresso, the band responding in kind, and musical magic ensuing.  Were we to be in Paris, France on, oh say, May 19th, we wouldn’t miss ’em at the Cafe De La Danse when they open for tUnE-yArDs (or at any date of that tour, including in Cali in the first week of June, which you can check out HERE).  In the meantime, check out the performance below and go to Soundcheck HERE to listen to the full interview and additional songs Wolf and Dreamy Bruises.

And make sure you go over to NPR HERE and stream the entirety of their scintillating debut album until it’s release on May 13th.  It’s one of our favorites of 2014, and every song will get under your skin and feet, and leave you jibbing in joy.  Go pre-order it HERE or HERE (on Partisan Records)

Coldplay’s been pitching heavy-promotion to pave the path for their pending long-player, Ghost Stories.  And it’s growing on us.   Following their performances last weekend on Saturday Night Live, the band stopped in last night on The Tonight Show and again performed the ubiquitous Magic.  More importantly, they also performed another new track entitled Always In My Head as a web-exclusive for Fallon. Given that you’ve already heard Magic 1o,000 times (and Ghost Stories is yet to be released), check out instead Always In My Head.  If you insist on watching their Magic performance, you can go HERE to check it out.

The Antlers, are set to release their next album Familiars on June 16th in the UK (via Transgressive) and June 17th in the U.S. (via Anti-).  It’s the band’s first album since 2011′s brilliant Burst Apart. We’ve already been graced by The Antlers song and video Palace.  Now comes the band’s second cut from the new album, Hotel.  Check it out below.  Once again there will be harrowing and humbling horns to haunt you.  Just like we like it.   You can pre-order the new album, one of our most highly anticipated albums of 2014, HERE.

Given how many cover songs Bruce Springsteen has been performing on his current tour (some of them brazen panderings to local fans–see his cover in Perth of AC/DC’s Highway to Hell), it’s only right that someone should turn the tables on him.  The A.V. Club has a new video series entitled Pioneering, and the shining Sharon Van Etten has now returned the favor and paid homage to fellow New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen.  Check out below her signature cover of Springsteen’s Drive All Night at the legendary Stone Pony in Asbury Park.  Afterwards, check out the interview (by the endearing and bountiful Eef Barzelay) of Van Etten regarding Springsteen.  Van Etten has been on fire (a subtle cover song request for SVE) of late, releasing superb new songs from her impending self-produced album, Are We There (which will be released May 27th).  It’s one of our most highly anticipated albums of 2014.  Go pre-order Are We There HERE.

Photo by Lucas Hodge.

We have recently played hot and cold with Coldplay.  After initially being nonplussed by most of the songs off of their impending new album, Ghost Stories, we have since felt a global Coldplay warming (this performance helped the most).   We melted more last night when they performed on SNL and brought two new songs to life.  This, combined with Magic having now been beat into our brains (it now sounds more simplistically-genius than strictly-insipid), leaves us feeling more encouraged about Coldplay’s new offerings.  Time will tell the ultimate placing of these songs and album in their discography.

Check out below the band on SNL performing the languid and spare Magic, followed by the more kinetic and anthemic A Sky Full of Stars (which the band co-wrote with Avicii).

On May 18th, the night before Ghost Stories’ release, the band will have a hour special on NBC called Coldplay: Ghost Stories.

It was but one week ago that the Santa Barbara Bowl was finally Nationalized.  Good swaths of The National’s “Show of the Year” at the Bowl last Friday continue to trickle through our cerebellum (“It takes a lot of pain to pick me up, It takes a lot of rain in the cup”).  This is a good thing.  One week later, the CBC’s Studio Q has shared videos of The National making their record-setting sixth visit to CBC’s Studio Q.  While there, the band performed their songs Lean (from the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack) and Hard to Find from their Best Album of 2013 Trouble Will Find Me.  Enjoy and trickle on.  Those that disagree?  Well, “they can all just kiss off into the air.”

We’re suckers for humanity. We could write a terabyte or two about Bruce Springsteen and all that he has given to his fans and the world.  Yes, admittedly, he’s taken a deserved amount too (we ain’t beginners y’all).  But we caught this vignette below and think it speaks volumes of the musician and human that is Bruce Springsteen.  Watch below at minute 3:48 or so as Springsteen brings a young fan onstage to dance with him during Dancing In the Dark (yes, a la Courtney Cox in the song’s official video).  And then watch as Springsteen hoists the kid on his shoulders (at 4:13).  And then magic ensues at 5:06.  As Dave Letterman says:  “That’s all ya need right there!” We are suckers for the heart of Bruce Springsteen.  That there?  That’s entertainment writ large.