Concert Notes: Brooklyn Northside Festival, Clearwater, & More This Week

It's going to be an absurdly full weekend of music in the New York area, and it starts early tomorrow with Laura Marling at Celebrate Brooklyn and the beginning of the Brooklyn Northside Festival. The dB's, who are reunited and back with a new album, play at Le Poisson Rouge on Friday. And there's another great free show on Saturday, when Dawes and Kurt Vile and the Violators play SummerStage in Central Park in the evening.

And there's a solid musical lineup at the Clearwater festival on the Hudson River in Westchester.


Holiday Surprise 1, 2, 3 by Olivia Tremor Control, which is playing the Northside Festival. 

* The music portion of the Northside festival runs from June 14th to 17th (there are also film, entrepreneurship, and art programs). On the slate are Brooklyn bands such as Dinosaur Feathers and A Million Years (who I was impressed by a couple years ago at the Union County [NJ] Festival), as well as national and international acts such as:

Asobi Seksu, Buke and Gass, Caveman, Exitmusic, the Felice Brothers, Grass Widow, GZA, Jens Lekman, Kitty Pryde, Leda, Of Montreal, The Olivia Tremor Control, ?uestlove, The Thermals, These United States, Tinariwen, and Widowspeak, among many others.

Having trouble picking what to see? Check out Free Williamsburg's choices for the best things to see at the Northside Festival. [Update: The Village Voice's "Sound of the City" column put up its guide to the top seven Northside concerts, with videos, on Thursday.]

It all kicks off Thursday at 7 p.m. On the following days, the music starts in the afternoon (4 p.m. on Friday; earlier on Saturday and Sunday). Find the complete Northside music schedule here, and get Northside badge and ticket information here.

* Clearwater's annual Hudson River Revival (Saturday and Sunday) has quite a strong musical lineup this year, with top-notch artists from the festival's traditional roots-oriented genres of folk/Americana, rock, blues, and more. Below are some of the highlights from each day. See the full Clearwater stage schedule here.

Saturday: 

Arlo and the Guthrie Family, Aoife O'Donovan, Donna the Buffalo, Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Joan Osborne and the Holmes Brothers, Forro in the Dark, Bela Fleck, Tom Chapin, Guy Davis, and Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Sunday:
Deer Tick, Ani DiFranco, David Wax Museum, Jose Conde, Martin Sexton, Alejandro Escovedo, Dawes, Loudon Wainwright III, Jill Sobule, The Klezmatics, Holly Near, Sara Watkins, Ollabelle, and Balkan Beat Box

I'm sure there's a festival or two that I've forgotten about; if I remember what they were I'll post info on them.