E-Mail This Article to a Friend Live wires Downsizing the concert industry BY CARLY CARIOLI

The concert industry took a punch in the mouth during the summer of 2004, with all but the biggest superstars (Madonna, Springsteen) finding that their drawing power isn’t quite what it used to be. The blow wasn’t felt as hard in New England, where Mansfield’s Tweeter Center was one of the top-grossing sheds in the country, and where Madonna sold out four nights at the Worcester Centrum. But as of press time, there were no concerts scheduled for early 2005 at the Centrum, and only one — the Mötley Crüe reunion on March 5 — scheduled for the FleetCenter. (Hilary Duff, one of the few teen-pop stars with enough clout to sell out an arena tour, has two currently announced dates in New England, but none in Massachusetts.) And with the economy unlikely to turn around anytime soon, the future may lie in midsize — maybe we should call them downsized — arenas such as the Tsongas in Lowell and the newly opened Agganis Arena at Boston University.

Is this a sign that people aren’t going to concerts, or that they’re going to different concerts? Although stadium stars have trouble selling out their venues, on the other side of the coin under-the-radar rock bands seem to be jumping from tiny clubs to large ballrooms more quickly than ever. Canadian indie-rock group the Arcade Fire and campy NYC-via-London disco-pop outfit Scissor Sisters both had sold-out debuts at T.T. the Bear’s Place late in 2004; when they return in early 2005, they’ll be playing the Roxy and Avalon, respectively — with, in each instance, a nearly tenfold increase in capacity. Blockbuster tours may be on hold for the first quarter (or they may just be waiting for the Christmas rush to pass before they’re announced — you never know), but in the post-Pixies-reunion era, "blockbuster" is a relative term. Just ask the kids at the Slint reunion.

While a bunch of late-winter and spring tours are still being firmed up (for instance, though we don’t yet know exactly where or when, you can expect to see reunions of Erasure and Gang of Four, and gigs by the Mars Volta, Fantomas, the Killers, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World, and Queens of the Stone Age), there’s already plenty on the way. What follows is a quick month-by-month rundown of some of the better — if not bigger — concerts of the first quarter.

January

January belongs to Conor Oberst. He already had one of those seismic record-industry events when the singles from each of the new Bright Eyes albums debuted at #1 and #2 on the Billboard sales chart — a possible harbinger of what will happen when I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (both Saddle Creek) drop on January 25. The night before, he’ll bring a band to Sanders Theater to focus on the folkier of the two, I’m Wide Awake. (His tour to promote Digital Ash, with the Faint as his backing band, is also expected to stop in Boston, in the spring.) Get tickets soon, and show up early for Parisian blues sister-act CocoRosie and tap-dancing Tilly and the Wall, who make the best eMotown indie pop since Saturday Looks Good to Me.

Already familiar to the Warped Tour kids, the world’s best punk-rock cover band ever, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, hit Axis in Boston on January 8. Featuring NOFX’s Fat Mike, Spike from Swingin’ Utters, Lagwagon’s Joey Cape and Dave Raun, and Minor Threat/Bad Religion guitarist Brian Baker, they can play just about anything schlocky that’s been written in the past 40 years: from Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, and Billy Joel to Seal and Whitney Houston. Dropkick Murphys, Kay Hanley, and Peter Gammons rub shoulders with curse-breaking Red Sox GM Theo Epstein and other of your world-champion team at the annual "Hot Stove, Cool Music" benefit at the Paradise in Boston on January 9; it’s already sold out. Things could be worse for Gavin DeGraw: he could have been scheduled to play a Bruins game. Instead, he’s just stuck with the lowly Celtics, performing after their contest with Atlanta at the FleetCenter on January 14. And anyway, that night you’re better off going to see Scissor Sisters at Avalon, or former Hüsker Dü/Sugar frontman Bob Mould at the Paradise. Classic-rocking Swedes the Soundtrack of Our Lives kick off a brief American tour previewing their new Origin (Warner Bros.) at the Middle East in Cambridge on January 15. Two of Canada’s finest mega-rock outfits come south in January: Danko Jones has an album coming on Razor & Tie, and hits the Middle East on January 17, while T.T. the Bear’s Place hosts the formidable Canadian bass-and-drums duo Death from Above 1979 on January 26. The Jimmy Chamberlain Complex features the former Smashing Pumpkins/Zwan drummer attempting a Grohl-like solo turn; he’s at the Paradise in Boston on January 18. Motown-soul revivalists the Detroit Cobras take the unorthodox (for them) step of including an original tune, "Hot Dog," among the vintage hot-buttered covers on their new Baby (Rough Trade); ask for it by name when they hit T.T. the Bear’s Place in Cambridge on January 21. A pair of Nashville’s most commercially savvy new traditionalists, Brad Paisley and Sara Evans, hit Tsongas Arena on January 22. Postgrad indie-prog fave Colin Meloy, frontman for the Decemberists, plays a rare solo gig at T.T.’s on January 23.

What with her Go-Go’s cover, her tween-cinema empire, her bitchin’ feud with Lindsay Lohan, and her just-short-of-subversive mall punk (see "Haters," the best teen-pop evocation of Fugazi’s "Waiting Room" since No Doubt’s "Waiting Room"), Hilary Duff is this close to overexposure. Having landed a pair of albums on the Billboard charts at #1 (Metamorphosis) and #2 (Hilary Duff) in 2004, she plays the Verizon Wireless Arena in New Hampshire on January 27. And former Replacement Tommy Stinson still hasn’t been called back to finish Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, so he’ll do another leg of a solo tour that hits the Middle East on January 30.

February

The Arcade Fire’s maddening and melancholy orch-pop debut Funeral (Merge) has already inspired its own cult of frenzied sing-along kids; on February 3 we’ll find out if the following (or rumors of the following) is enough to fill the Roxy. Filling in until Chris Martin can tear himself away from Gwyneth long enough to make another Coldplay album, Brit piano-pop sensations Keane hit the Orpheum on February 5. Low try once again to convince everyone they can write songs that aren’t interminably slow with a heavier album, The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop), and a tour with Pedro the Lion that hits, or at least gently taps, the Somerville Theatre on the same night (February 5). The oddball Swedish indie-pop singer-songwriter Jens Lekman comes to P.A.’s Lounge on February 11, on the same night that everyone from Creed who isn’t Scott Stapp convenes again as Alterbridge at Avalon. If he actually makes the date, Chingy might just prove he’s more than the poor man’s Nelly at the Palladium in Worcester on February 13. On February 22, Social Distortion make their second visit to Avalon in support of their underrated Sex, Love, and Rock ’n’ Roll (Time Bomb) — but this time they’re bringing unsung Swedes the Backyard Babies, whose Total 13 (Scooch Pooch) rates alongside the Hellacopters’ Payin the Dues and Turbonegro’s Apocalypse Dudes as one of the five best punk-rock-and-roll albums of the ’90s. The month closes out with some interactive-sports tours: on February 27, the annual Sno-Core tour brings nu-metal holdovers Chevelle to the Palladium in Worcester with Helmet, Crossfade, and the Future Leaders of America; on the following night, Kevin Lyman’s new "winter Warped" outing, the Taste of Chaos tour, brings the Used and Massachusetts’s Grammy-nominated Killswitch Engage to Tsongas Arena in Lowell with My Chemical Romance, Senses Fail, and Underoath.

March

Oh, big deal, Ashlee Simpson can’t sing: if you had watched her reality show, you’d have heard her A&R rep say so to her face on national television months before her interpretive-dance episode on SNL. What we can’t figure out is what happened to "Sorry," the bonus track that apparently didn’t make the US edition of her album: it’s sort of her "All Apologies," and, like Kelly Osbourne’s "Come Dig Me Out," it’s one of teen pop’s few great parental-guilt-trip songs, and also has the most longing melody of anything on her Autobiography. Count us among the folks hoping Ashlee makes the malfunctioning backing track part of her spring tour (hey, Fischerspooner did it), which hits the Orpheum on March 18.

Ireland’s the Frames, now signed to Epitaph’s Anti- imprint, are at the Paradise on March 5, and they won’t be the only Irish eyes smiling this month: Dropkick Murphys have already sold out their five-show, four-day run at Avalon, March 17 through 20. The Mötley Crüe reunion arrives at the FleetCenter on March 5, marking perhaps the most socially irresponsible event of the spring. If that makes you feel icky, you’re in luck: the most socially responsible jaunt of the spring, the Take Action Tour (an emo tour that benefits a teen-suicide hotline: talk about hope to the hopeless) brings Sugarcult, Hawthorne Heights, Anberlin, Head Automatica, and Hopesfall to the Roxy. The masks are kinda cheesy, but Slipknot’s thrash is the only mainstream metal this side of System of a Down that doesn’t make us roll our eyes. Their tour with underground heroes Lamb of God and Shadows Fall hits Tsongas Arena on March 15 (tickets go on sale January 15). Neo-soul queen Jill Scott hits the Orpheum on March 13. Xiu Xiu’s homoerotic avant-folktronica often feels more like art spectacle than pop; still, it’ll be more than a bit odd to see them performing at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Remis Auditorium on March 20. That is, assuming any of their fans aren’t already committed to seeing Slint, the quintessential Louisville, Kentucky, indie-rock outfit, who’ve reunited for a brief world tour that stops at the Roxy on March 20. Emo goofballs New Found Glory hit the Palladium in Worcester on March 25.

April

It’s not an April Fools’ joke: Duran Duran really are playing Boston University on April 1, their first gig in town since an underwhelming MixFest appearance in late 2003. They’ll christen BU’s new state-of-the-art hockey rink, Agganis Arena; then the jam-band kids will have the run of Agganis for the Widespread Panic gig on April 12. Bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs is booked into the Tremont Temple, of all places, on April 9. The warped psych-folk duo Animal Collective are at the Middle East on April 17; they’re nothing like the time-warped psychedelic-era folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, who’re being brought out of the PBS-pledge-drive freezer to play Lowell Memorial Auditorium the same night. In an event that’s become the linchpin in Massachusetts’s rise to metal greatness, the seventh annual New England Metal and Hardcore Festival expands to three nights at the Palladium in Worcester, April 22–24; among the acts already confirmed are Cryptopsy, King Diamond, Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, Behemoth, Nile, and the Black Dahlia Murder. And if that doesn’t leave you lifeless, the husband-and-wife electro duo from Detroit, Adult., drain dance music of any trace of humanity at the Middle East on April 30.