A few of the old Attractions are on board; the new album has nothing to do with Burt Bacharach; and he ain’t getting any younger: three reasons to go see Elvis Costello this time around. The ’02 Comeback tour hits the FleetBoston Pavilion (617-931-2000) on Friday and the Oakdale Theatre (203-265-1501) in Wallingford, Connecticut, on Saturday. He’s all Phished out, and that short-lived collaboration with Primus weirdo Les Claypool fizzled more than it fried, but hippie magnet Trey Anastasio is back on the solo trail with gigs on Friday at the Tweeter Center (617-931-2000) in Mansfield and Saturday at the Champlain Valley Exposition Fairgrounds (802-863-5966) in Essex Junction, Vermont. With R. Kelly indicted on child-pornography charges, the position of male R&B heartthrob is vacant; Atlanta hitmaking hottie Usher auditions for the part with a tour that hits the Tweeter on Saturday and the Meadows Music Centre (860-548-7370) in Hartford next Friday, June 21. Nas, Faith Evans, and Mr. Cheeks are along for the ride. The first Canadian band to have a #1 hit single simultaneously in the US and Canada were the Guess Who with, uh, " American Woman. " The second were current modern-rock charthorses Nickelback with " How You Remind Me. " They’re at the Tsongas Arena (978-848-6900) in Lowell on Tuesday with Jerry Cantrell, for whom an Alice in Chains reunion is now out of the question. At least in this life.

As proficient with a well-turned punch line as he is peeling off impossible licks on his custom hybrid six-string/pedal steel guitar, Junior Brown brings his low-riding honky-tonk to Johnny D’s (617-776-2004) in Somerville on Friday and to the Wellfleet Beachcomber (508-349-6055) down the Cape on Saturday. Ravi Shankar, who taught the Beatles how to drone, has two musical daughters: Anoushka, who took up her father’s instrument, and Norah Jones, the Texas-reared, jazz-disciplined, Americana-rooted singer/songwriter whose Blue Note debut, Come Away with Me, has critics and a burgeoning grassroots audience taking her up on the offer. Jones does an in-store at the Borders (617-557-7188) at Downtown Crossing on Monday before playing a sold-out gig at the Somerville Theatre (617-931-2000) on Tuesday. The mercurial, eternally baby-faced man-child godfather of indie rock, Jonathan Richman, turned 51 a month ago this week. Rounder has just brought out two greatest-hits collections: Home of the Hits: The Best of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers hit shelves last week, following the post-Lovers compilation Action Packed: The Best of Jonathan Richman. Catch him in the flesh on Saturday at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence and next Thursday, June 20, at the Somerville Theatre.

And last but surely not least, the Laconia Motorcycle Rally in New Hampshire — one of the big-three biker rallies in the country — gets a whole lot wilder and woollier tonight (Thursday, June 13) as mondo mantrapping marauders Scissorfight go home for a hell-on-wheels set at Laconia’s Club Atlantis (603-527-0177) with the Salves, the Drunks, and Rob Kliner.

Issue Date: June 13 - 20, 2002
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