Here are the Top 5 Concerts of the Coming Week:
1. BILLY GILMAN
Talk about a comeback.
Just days after he turned 12 in 2000, Billy Gilman released the single “One Voice,” which became a Top 20 Country chart hit, making him the youngest artist to ever to reach that height. His album of the same name went double platinum. In the 18 years since, Gilman had no more Top 30 hits.
In 2016, Gilman competed on the NBC singing competition “The Voice” and finished as runner-up. It reignited his career, giving him a Top 15 Digital chart hit with his would-be coronation song, “Because of Me.”
Now, at 30, he’s on a Christmas tour as he prepared to release his first album in more than a dozen years.
8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 15, Sands Bethlehem Event Center. Tickets: $29.50-$49.50. www.sandseventcenter.com, 800-745-3000.
2. WILLIE NILE
When Willie Nile released his 1980 self-titled debut album, The New York Times called the folk-punk musician “the most gifted songwriter to emerge from the New York folk scene in some time.” He toured with The Who and Bruce Springsteen.
Legal problems and other woes sidetracked Nile for two decades, but he re-emerged in the early 2000s with “Streets of New York,” which critics fawned over. In 2013, his “One Guitar” won an Independent Music Award for Best Social Action Song.
His new disc, “Children of Paradise,” is among his best — a collection of uplifting songs about difficult times. The title track is a rousing call, with a punk heart, for society’s forgotten and downtrodden. Nile is still among the most gifted.
8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 15, with John Eddie and Morgan Pinkstone, Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Ave. Tickets: $20 adv., $22 day of show, $35 seated, www.ardmoremusic.com, 610-649-8389.
3. EDWIN MCCAIN
Let’s recap: Edwin McCain has not released a disc of new music in more than seven years and only one in more than a decade. He hasn’t had a charting hit this century. Even his biggest albums didn’t peak in the Top 50 on Billboard.
So why does McCain continue to have such a fervent following, nearly 20 years after his commercial peak?
It’s because McCain released two of modern music’s great love songs: 1998’s “I’ll Be” and 1999’s “I Could Not Ask for More.” The former was voted the biggest wedding song of its time and was used in the season finale of the hit late-’90s TV series “Dawson’s Creek.”
McCain also has continued to write great (if not as commercially successful) music (2010’s “Walk With You” was another great wedding song), and his performance skills remain.
7:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 16, Sellersville Theater 1894, 24 W. Temple Ave. Tickets: $35 (other areas sold out), www.st94.com, 215-257-5808.
4. SPONGE
Alternative rock band Sponge in the 1990s had five Top 20 Mainstream Rock chart hits. Its 1994 debut album, “Rotting Pinata,” was certified gold and broke through with the 1994 Top 5 Modern Rock chart hit “Plowed.”
But that band had its biggest success in 1995 with “Molly (16 Candles Down the Drain),” which hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock chart and crossed over to Billboard’s overall singles chart. The band had another Mainstream Rock hit, “Rainin’” off that disc.
Sponge’s sophomore disc, “Wax Ecstatic,” produced two more hits on that chart: “Wax Ecstatic (To Sell Angelina)” in 1996 and the No. 7 “Have You Seen Mary” in 1997. Sponge’s music also was featured in the ‘90s movies “Mallrats,” “The Craft” and “Chasing Amy.”
The group has released six more albums, with the latest being 2016’s “The Beer Sessions,” none of which have charted. Front man Vinnie Dombroski is the only remaining member from the classic lineup.
But those songs still sound good, and the band still is able to perform them well.
5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 15, OneCentreSquare, 1 Centre Square, Easton. Tickets: $15 general admission adv., $18 door, www.onecentresquare.
5. WEEN
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, alt-rock duo Ween was considered avant-garde.
The group Ween formed in 1984 in New Hope, and released 11 studio albums and a half-dozen live albums before calling it quits in 2012. The band had a Top 25 Alternative hit with 1992’s “Push th’ Little Daisies” and a Top 40 Alternative hit with 1994’s “Voodoo Lady.”
But Ween may be best known for its 1994 song “I Can’ Put My Finger on It,” a video of which appeared on the MTV cartoon show Beavis + Butt-Head. The duo also in 2000 wrote the song “Loop de Loop” for a “SpongeBob SquarePants” cartoon episode and in 2004 had its song “Ocean Man” used in the credits of “The SpongeBob Movie.”
After eight years without a new disc, in 2016, it released the live disc “GodWeenSatan Live.”
8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14, The Met Philly, 858 N. Broad St., Philadelphia. Tickets: $49.95-$320, www.themetphilly.com, 800-745-3000.
OTHERS TO CONSIDER:
SLINGSHOT DAKOTA, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14, with Small Mess, Blast Furnace Room at ArtsQuest Center, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem. Tickets: $10 adv., $12 day of show, www.steelstacks.org, 610-332-3378.
Bethlehem-based indie-rock duo Slingshot Dakota play drum and keyboard. But the sound it makes is far bigger and broader than you expect. Maybe that’s why it has gotten wide attention from its showcase performances at the massive South-by-Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. And why it’s now getting more attention in its home base of the Lehigh Valley.
