With most states either eradicating or loosening pandemic-era restrictions, the world is opening again and this means live music is back. This post will round up the top eight shows to attend from some of 2022’s best artists as the pandemic ends (sort of).
Tame Impala
February 27 to October 29
Aptly named the Slow Rush Tour after its 2020 album and the slow-releasing follow up remixes and additions, Tame Impala will bring its synth-supported, new wave indie rock in support of what will be a Slow Rush box set.
February 27 in Tempe, Arizona will mark the start of the psychedelic project’s second tour of the 2020s after returning to touring in 2021 with the teasingly-named Phase 1 Rushium Trials. Australian-born Kevin Parker and his band will essentially be following with phase two in 2022 performing after opener Junglepussy rocks the crowd with her bouncing R&B licks.
John Mayer
March 18 to May 10
We still haven’t figured out if John Mayer’s new, 1990s-era soft pop-rock experience Sob Rock is a joke or not. What is incontrovertible, however, is that Mayer knows how to rock. Whether it’s his first indie-rock offerings, his blues phase, or his new soft-hearted, saccharine-sweet tracks, Mayer is a true musician. Tight tracks, sick licks, and undeniable charisma, Mayer’s whole package will be on display throughout this spring.
Venues tend to travel from the West to East Coast, and Mayer is appearing with Dead & Company, consisting of remaining Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann along with Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti.
Tyler the Creator
March 18 to August 3
Tyler, the Creator sets out on his world tour moving up the West Coast of North America after his stellar 2021 album, Call Me If You Get Lost. What may be the hip-hop superstar’s best album also might be his most subtle, and, as such, most polished. The horror-core lyrics still remain, but they offer sharper cuts with a more skilled blade beneath beats that are less in-your-face and more head bobbing.
The international excursion will, of course, feature support from multiple characters including Vince Staples, Kali Uchis, and Texas MC Teezo Touchdown. Tyler already kicked off with a show in Phoenix on February 8 and shows are selling out as soon as they unfold.
Beach House, Once Twice Melody Tour
March 22 to July 4
Beach House, the musical duo formed in Baltimore, Maryland in 2004, has only gotten better with each album release. This is just as true of Once Twice Melody, their 2022 release that captures the band’s spacy, soaring pop-rock.
The new album is a behemoth — 18 songs released across four chapters over four months. The band’s subsequent tour is also, appropriately, a beast in itself — over 30 dates that take them from the eastern United States westward until they hop across the pond to Europe and return to their roots in the summer. There’s no word yet, however, if the band will bring along its string ensemble, but vocalist and keyboardist Victoria Legrand and guitarist, keyboardist, and backup vocalist Alex Scally will be sure to woo crowds across the Western world.
The War on Drugs
March 22 to October 11
The War on Drugs will be supporting not one, but two 2020s albums — 2021’s I Don’t Live Here Anymore and the 2020 live release, Live Drugs. Seeing as the band’s music lifts itself aloft with melodies that try to fill the entire atmosphere, it makes sense that the band’s collective live sound works to weave a similar, full-bodied tone.
Lead singer Adam Granduciel often presents himself as a man adrift in lyrics that find him out on the road, standing in the rain, floating between the waves, and lost in a dream. Fans who get to catch the epic, Floydian show may just find themselves forgetting about a cynical, roiling world outside.
Olivia Rodrigo
April 5 to July 7
Olivia Rodrigo, the 18-year-old former Disney princess might be the biggest act on the planet right now. Given, she’s going to have the support of tween and teen girls across the world, but this belies the fact that Rodrigo is a very talented and entertaining act. Her rocking, bopping perfect pop tracks are buoyed by the singer’s raw and powerful vocals. You may already know this, though, as two of Rodrigo’s tracks on her new Sour album have more than a billion listens.
Though it lasts four months and travels across two continents, Rodrigo’s Sour Tour, however, is already sold out. Don’t get bitter, though. Those grapes can be found on alternative vines like StubHub.
Haim
April 24 to June 14
Not only are you going to get almost perfect pop-rock with the multi-instrumentalist sister trio of Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim, now you get to see an Oscar nominee rocking a guitar as a bonus. Alana has been acclaimed in her role as Alana Kane in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 film, Licorice Pizza.
By the time the sisters kick off their April One More Haim tour, audiences will already know if she’s carrying along a golden statuette. Don’t go just for the taste of fame, however. Haim’s genre-varied, multidimensional songwriting shines with an intimate touch of personality along with a wonderful exploration of melody and style.
The Weeknd
July 8 to September 3
The 2020s have already witnessed Canadian singer-songwriter and music producer Abel Makkonen Tesfaye appear as a maimed plastic surgery victim and as an aged, gray-haired senior. Changing his face is not the only trick that the Wknd has up his sleeve, though. His sonic versatility and dark lyricism are on full display in his 2022 album, Dawn FM.
The concept album underscores a helpless melancholy as a trapped mindset. Since he first appeared in 2009, Tesfaye’s music has built greater and greater structures to explore an escape from reality and doomed romance that is often inspired by personal experience. This exploration is not only on full display on the album’s accompanying musical movie on Amazon Prime, but will be available to fans beginning in July in Toronto (with Doja Cat opening).
