Free Concerts this Weekend: Punk Island, Alabama Shakes, Real Estate, & More

Now that the crazy midsummer heat and humidity (and the thunderstorms) have cleared out, it's time to see some great concerts—and there are plenty to free ones to choose from. Sunday alone has a veritable embarrassment of riches, in terms of free music.

(Of course there are also any number of paid concerts going on, one the most tempting being the Metallica-curated Orion Music & More Festival in Atlantic City. And tickets still seem to be available, according to the website. (If you can't make it to AC, watch the Orion Festival webcast, which will be streaming certain sets. See the link for details.)

And whoops, I forgot: this is also the weekend for the Governor's Ball on Randall's Island, featuring Fiona Apple, Beck, Passion Pit, Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Explosions in the Sky, and Santigold, among others.

After the video below, a look at some of the top free shows this weekend.


Ridgewood, NJ's Real Estate plays a free show in its hometown Sunday night.

* The Wood Brothers and Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis play the "Summer On the Oval" series at the Stuyvesant Town Oval (252 1st Avenue) at 3 p.m. Saturday. This is a high-powered lineup of roots music, with brothers Chris and Oliver Wood (the former is a founding member of Medeski Martin & Wood) and the husband-and-wife country duo of Robison and Willis. The series is open to residents of Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town and their guests, though I'm guessing you can hear the music from adjacent streets? (If anybody knows for sure, please leave a comment below.)

* Governor's Island once again becomes a self-contained world of all things punk rock with the return of Punk Island. More than 60 bands will perform starting at 12 Noon and running till midnight. It's all outdoors, all ages, and all free. Here's a partial list of the confirmed acts (see stage schedule here):

Sworn Enemy * Two-Man Advantage * Wombat in Combat * Panzie * Bucket Flush * The Scutches * InCircles * Hostile Times * Fried Chicken & Gasoline * The Nihilistics * Barons of Tang * World War IX * Cultivator * The Will * (A) Truth * Skum City * All New Episode * Praxis

* Alabama Shakes, Diamond Rugs, and Robert Ellis play SummerStage in Central Park at 3 p.m. Alabama Shakes has gained a lot of new fans through its sizzling live performances, and earlier this year finally came out with an album. This show is sure to attract a big crowd, so get to the Park early. And follow SummerStage on Twitter the day of the show to get updates on how the line's moving, etc.

* Real Estate, Toasted Plastic, and Spook Houses play an outdoor show in Real Estate's hometown of Ridgewood, NJ on Sunday night at 7 p.m. The concert takes place at the Kasschau Memorial Shell in Graydon Park (see map), which is near the intersection of North Maple Ave. and Linwood Ave. W. There are NJ Transit buses to Ridgewood from NYC, and Graydon Park isn't too far from the Ridgewood train station (you can get a cab there if you don't feel like walking.) Thanks to MySociaList.com for the heads-up on this gig.

Free Album Previews: New CDs by Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, the B-52s, & Many More

Above: Peter Gabriel performing "Solsbury Hill" live, one of the songs on his latest release, "New Blood."

This is one of those "when it rains, it pours" weeks for online album previews. You can hear the new releases from a number of big-name veterans artists, including one who's no longer alive (that would be Johnny Cash, represented in the new "Bootleg Volume 3: Live Around the World"release).

Among the artists who are still with us (and have been for a long time), there are new albums for preview from Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, the B-52s, and even Erasure and Judas Priest. The Gabriel release, "New Blood," is a collection of songs from different eras of his solo career performed with an orchestra and some guest musicians—an arrangement he's been touring with this year.

The Paul Simon release is a two-disc retrospective, including live versions of songs including "The Sound of Silence" and "The Boxer."

And for fans of the Pixies and Frank Black (like me), there's a new album that Black has (under his Black Francis moniker) with Reid Paley, called simply "Paley & Francis."

Among the younger artists with new albums are the New Jersey band Real Estate, Ben Lee, Rachael Yamagata, and Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers. If you liked the music of The Swell Season from the movie "Once," you'll want to check out the debut album from the female half of that duo, Marketa Irglova. And The new Ryan Adams album is previewing on Spinner this week, in case you missed it at NPR Music last week.

I usually give multiple listens to new albums that I'm interested in, but that should to be quite a challenge this week.

NPR First Listen:
"Days" by Real Estate

Spinner.com's Listening Party:
"Songwriter" by Paul Simon
"Deeper Into Dream by Ben Lee
"Anar" by Marketa Irglova
"Norman (Music From the Motion Picture)" by Andrew Bird
"Paley & Francis" Reid Paley & Black Francis
"New Blood" by Peter Gabriel
"Liberty Bell" by Kate Miller Heidke
"The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective" by Ben Folds
"Chesapeake" by Rachael Yamagata
"Bootleg Volume 3: Live Around the World"by Johnny Cash
"With the Wild Crowd!" by the B-52s
"Tomorrow's World" by Erasure
"The Sound of His Voice" by John Wesley Harding
"Ashes and Fire" by Ryan Adams

AOL Music Listening Party: 
"Evanescence" by Evanescence
"The Chosen Few" by Judas Priest
"Free EP" by Graffiti6 
"Gift Horse" by Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers

Tonight: The Feelies, Real Estate, & Times New Viking Play Celebrate Brooklyn

The Feelies perform "Too Far Gone."

The Garden State takes center stage at tonight's Celebrate Brooklyn show as the longtime indie band The Feelies headlines a free gig in Prospect Park. The band, which originated in the Passaic County town of Haledon, will be preceded on the bill by Real Estate (from Ridgewood, NJ) and the lo-fi sounds of Columbus, Ohio's Times New Viking.

The Feelies formed in the late '70s and their quirky sound was credited with influencing R.E.M. and other bands. The Village Voice was said to have named them "The Best Underground Band in New York" before their debut album, "Crazy Rhythms," even came out. (And that album was named by Rolling Stone as one of its "Top 50 Albums of the 1980s.) The band became dormant in the early '90s after releasing several albums, but has sporadically recorded and played out since then.

In recent years The Feelies have established a tradition of playing a run of a few shows at Maxwell's in Hoboken, the club they frequently played in their heyday. (See an article of one of this year's Feelies shows by rock critic Ann Powers. She also links to a review of the reissues of their first two albums, which explains The Feelies' sound.) The New York Daily News also has an article on The Feelies and tonight's Celebrate Brooklyn show.

The Feelies now have a new album, "Here Before," on Hoboken's Bar/None Records.

If you can brave today's sweltering weather and get out to Prospect Park, this will be a great show to see.

Details: The Feelies, Real Estate, and Times New Viking at Celebrate Brooklyn
7 p.m. (doors 6 p.m.), Prospect Park bandshell, 9th Street & Prospect Park West (See directions here)
Free, but $3 donation requested.

Deerhunter, Real Estate Give a Rocking Wrap-Up to Hudson's RiverRocks

Another summer concert series came to an end Thursday night with Deerhunter and Real Estate performing the last RiverRocks concert at Hudson River Park on Pier 54. It was a great pairing of bands, and the weather even cooperated for the most part, with light rain falling only toward the end of Deerhunter's set.

Above: New Jersey's Real Estate.

The concert drew a good crowd. Although most fans were there to see Deerhunter, Real Estate got a nice reception from the audience. They are apparently from Bergen County in the Garden State; they asked if anyone was there from (I'm guessing) their respective towns, which included Mahwah and Midland Park.

Above: Deerhunter closing the RiverRocks concert series.

Deerhunter hit the stage around 8:30 and played for a little over an hour and 10 minutes (I think... I left during the long, instrumental ambient tune the band was playing as its final encore, and it was still going on after I crossed West St. and headed east on 14th St.)

Deerhunter mentioned that Real Estate would be on tour with them this Fall. Deerhunter only lists a few shows on their schedule, coming up in the next few days. Real Estate plays only a few dates through early September, then has no dates schedules until their tour with Deerhunter the second half of October (which opens on October 15th in New York at Webster Hall).

Upcoming Deerhunter shows:

Fri., August 13 - Royale Nightclub, Boston, Mass.

Sat., August 14 - Pearl Street, Northampton, Mass.

Sun., August 15 - Flying W Airport and Pool, Medford, NJ

Upcoming Real Estate show:

Mon., Sept. 6 - Hampshire College, Amherst, Mass.