Looking for something to do on Friday? The Straight’s got you covered. Here are 56 events happening in or around Vancouver on Friday, March 16.

CONCERTS

American comedic glam-metal band Steel Panther plays the second of three nights at the Commodore Ballrooom.

Groundbreaking Indigenous artists Tanya Tagaq and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory perform at the Chan Centre for Performing Arts as part of the Beyond Words series. 

The Dreadnoughts host the first of two nights of local punk/folk/ska/metal at the Rickshaw Theatre, with guests Daggermouth, SLIP~ons, The Staggers & Jaggs, Russian Tim and Pavel Bures, and AntEater.

Celtic Fest Vancouver Ceilidh 2018 at the Scottish Cultural Centre features Celtic music, dance, and song by Blackthorn, BC Regiment of Irish Pipes and Drums, Eire Born Irish Dance Company, and Shot of Scotch Vancouver Company.

Victoria-based musician Syl Thompson and his band Ground Control pay tribute to David Bowie’s music at Ladner's Genesis Theatre.

John Reischman & the Pine Siskins perform folk-bluegrass music at Centenial Lodge in New Westminster's Queens Park.

Canadian blues artists Carlos Del Junco & the Blues Mongrel play White Rock's Blue Frog Studios.

Calgary rock band Ten Minute Detour plays the Railway Stage and Beer Café, with guests Jarrod Tyler Band and Bryan Michael.

Bonnie Kilroe impersonates vocalists Dolly Parton, Cher, and Lady Gaga at Mission's Clarke Foundation Theatre.

Victoria singer-songwriter Alison Hogan celebrates the release of her album Songs From the Third Act at Trees Organic Coffee & Roasting House.

Tina Turner impersonator Luisa Marshall performs at North Van's Centennial Theatre.

ETCETERA

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a Celtic-themed dinner and dance to the sounds of local blues/R&B band Lesismore at Hycroft Manor.

TAKE ACTION

Be the Change conference at New Westminster's Anvil Centre features 12 speakers presenting on truth & reconciliation, homelessness, the opioid crisis, and resistance, resilience & recovery. Speakers include Bif Naked (above), Melanie Mark, Hon. Judy Darcy, Dina Lambright, Duane Howard, Chief Ernie Crey, and Dr. Vikki Reynolds.

COMEDY

Canadian comedian Jess Salomon performs the second of three nights of standup at Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club

American comedian Mike Vecchione performs the second of three nights of standup at the Comedy Mix.

The monthly Dirty Betty Show! at Café Deux Soleils features Vancouver improvisers, comedians, and drag queens. 

ARTS ETCETERA

Vancouver’s one and only late-night art party, Fuse, returns to the Vancouver Art Gallery with an evening for contemplating the space between transcendence and destruction, curated by Tara Hogue (above).

DANCE

The Vancouver International Dance Festival runs until March 24 at various Vancouver venues. Performances today include White Wave Dance's iyouuswe at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre.

LITERARY

Author Angel Kyodo Williams leads a Dharma talk at a signing of her book Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation at Banyen Books and Sound.

MUSIC

Music in the Morning presents Canadian violinist Adrian Anantawan at West Vancouver United Church.

THEATRE

The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Forget About Tomorrow, Jill Daum's play about a woman whose husband is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, at Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre.

Performance at Metro Theatre of director Joan Bryans's adaptation of She Stoops to Conquer, Oliver Goldsmith’s self-described "laughing comedy" about a young bachelor who discovers that his love has the power to overcome his fear.

First Impressions Theatre presents A Few Good Men, a play that sees a lawyer and his team uncover a conspiracy at the highest level while defending their clients accused of murder, at Deep Cove Shaw Theatre.

Carousel Theatre for Young People presents The Velveteen Rabbit, the tale of a toy rabbit transformed by one little boy’s love, at the Waterfront Theatre.

Contemporary adaptation of Antigone at Douglas College Studio Theatre takes Sophocles' intellectual argument and works toward an extended metaphor about the aftermath of war.

Exit 22 Company Productions (Capilano University Theatre) presents Anne of Green Gables, the iconic Canadian story of a fiercely imaginative little girl who touches the lives of everyone she meets, at the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts.

Realwheels Theatre presents Sequence, a fast-paced science thriller that explores the intersection of math, nature, and spirituality, at Presentation House Theatre.

Director Jessica Anne Nelson puts a 2018 spin on The Crucible, Arthur Miller's timeless parable of morality, at UBC's Frederic Wood Theatre.

Gateway Theatre presents the world premiere of I Lost My Husband, Leanna Brodie's translation of Catherine Léger's comedy about an aging party girl and her dreams of independence.

Canadian playwright Judith Thompson's Lion in the Streets tells the stories of many interconnected lives, and one little girl whose experience threads them together, at the Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre.

Naked Goddess Productions presents Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor's story of love and friendship, A Beautiful View, at Kitsilano Neighbourhood House.

Western Gold Theatre kicks off its 25th anniversary season with Harvey, a comedy about a man and his best friend, an invisible and very tall pooka resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit, at PAL Studio Theatre.

Opening night at Performance Works of Little Miss Glitz, a musical that follows the story of a naïve, starry-eyed little girl as she navigates her way through her first beauty pageant.

GALLERIES

More than 55 paintings and sculptures are featured in Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg, the first-ever retrospective of Murakami's work in Canada, at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Bombhead at the Vancouver Art Gallery is a thematic exhibition exploring the emergence and impact of the nuclear age as represented by artists and their art.

空/Emptiness: Emily Carr and Lui Shou Kwan at the Vancouver Art Gallery uses works by Emily Carr and Lui Shou Kwan to explore how each artist experimented with modernist movements and mysticism through their respective depictions of nature.

Two Scores is a solo exhibition of work by Canadian artist Brent Wadden at Contemporary Art Gallery.

Polygon Gallery's inaugural exhibition, N. Vancouver, explores how a specific locale can be reflected through existing and newly commissioned artworks by artists from Vancouver and beyond.

Living, Building, Thinking: art & expression at the Vancouver Art Gallery uses the German Expressionist collection from the McMaster Museum of Art to explore the development of Expressionism in art from the early 19th century to the present day.

MUSEUMS

The Fabric of Our Land: Salish Weaving at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC takes visitors on a journey through the past 200 years of Salish wool weaving.

In a Different Light: Reflecting on Northwest Coast Art at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features more than 110 historical indigenous artworks and explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands.

The Lost Fleet at the Vancouver Maritime Museum investigates the unjust 1941 seizure of 1,200 Japanese-Canadian fishing vessels following the bombing of Pearl Harbour through a collection of historic photographs, models of Japanese-Canadian-built fishing boats, fishermen’s tools, and replica documents.

ATTRACTIONS

West Vancouver's Cypress Mountain features skiing and snowboarding lessons, snowtubing park, cross-country ski trails, downhill skiing and snowboarding trails, and snowshoeing tours.

At the Bloedel Conservatory you can take in more than 200 free-flying exotic birds and 500 exotic plants and flowers.

Mount Seymour features skiing and snowboarding, lessons, chairlifts, terrain parks, tubing and tobogganing, and snowshoe trails.

North Vancouver's Grouse Mountain features a Skyride to the peak with views of the city and the Pacific Ocean, as well as ziplines, a wildlife refuge, helicopter tours, paragliding, dining, and the Grouse Grind.

Take a ride in an exterior glass elevator and get a 360° view of Metro Vancouver and the North Shore mountains at Vancouver Lookout.

The new Parq Vancouver features two luxury hotels, a 24-hour casino with 600 slot machines and 75 table games, eight restaurants and lounges, and the sixth-floor outdoor Parq.

Stanley Park features 400 hectares of trails, gardens, beaches, and West Coast rain forest, with scenic walking and biking along the 8.8 kilometre seawall.

The Vancouver Aquarium features almost 800 animal species in galleries ranging from Canada's Arctic to the Amazon rainforest.

Science World features hundreds of interactive exhibits in five permanent galleries, live science demonstrations and workshops, and giant movies in the Omnimax Theatre.

MOVIES

Vancouver premiere at the Cinematheque of Trinh T. Minh-ha's documentary Forgetting Vietnam, which draws on ancient stories of Vietnam’s creation. 

Screening at Vancity Theatre of The Road Movie, an anthology of dashcam footage from the roads of Russia, by turns scary and profane, hair-raising and hilarious.

Free afternoon screening at Vancouver Public Library's Renfrew branch of the animated kids' movie, Bolt.

SKABC presents an evening of paddling films at Langara College, with proceeds to B.C. Marine Trails campsites in Howe Sound.

Free screening at Vancouver Public Library's Mount Pleasant branch of the animated kids' movie Kung Fu Panda 3.

For all the latest Metro Vancouver event announcements and updates follow @VanHappenings.