According to the folks at Environment Canada, we’re in for a scorcher this year. At the beginning of June the long-term forecast was summed up in three words: hot, hot, hot. And, no, they weren’t talking about the Buster Poindexter song.

Looking at this from a cynic’s point of view, these are the same folks who promised this past winter would be snowier than Hohman, Indiana, in A Christmas Story, and we all know how that worked out. There’s nothing like getting up on Christmas morning and having to wring out your socks after a quick walk around the block.

Let’s say the weather people are right, and this is going to be a summer where the only time you aren’t sweltering is between 2 and 5 a.m., but only if you’re sleeping in the raw after kicking the covers off. And you know what? You should not only embrace it, but also ramp up the sticky-and-sweaty factor by catching some great live music. Below you’ll find an overview of some of the summer’s most guaranteed-to-please shows. Even if the coming season turns out to be more miserable than Tommy Lee Jones, at least a couple of nights are guaranteed to be insanely hot, especially if you end up making it all the way to the front row.

Fall Out Boy

Eight years ago, when emo was the big music-industry buzzword, and Fuelled By Ramen was the most successful indie record label since Sub Pop circa ’91, Fall Out Boy was one of the biggest bands on the planet. Pinup-perfect bassist Pete Wentz and those other three guys were on the cover of Rolling Stone, hanging out with Dick Clark on New Year’s Eve, and scoring Top 10 records on Billboard. Following a hiatus that saw a messy high-profile divorce (Wentz and Ashlee Simpson), a failed solo career (singer Patrick Stump), and missing-persons reports (those other two guys), Fall Out Boy is back with a new record titled Save Rock and Roll. Maybe it’s just us, but, man, does Wentz still look fucking sexy.
When and Where: June 20 at the Commodore.
Suggested Retail Price: $35 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: That famous self-taken cellphone shot of Wentz’s incredible expanding garden hose.
Fan Profile: Twenty-something women still trying to get over the fact that they are never going to marry Pete Wentz.
Appropriate Attire: T-shirts emblazoned with “Will you marry me, Pete Wentz?”
What You’ll Walk Away With: A raging boner/wide-on for Pete Wentz.

TD Canada Trust Vancouver International Jazz Festival

Vancouver’s annual jazz fest is not only one of the city’s most enduring blue-chip cultural events, it’s also among Vancouver’s most loved. Once again diversity is the key this year, with the musical smorgasbord ranging from hometown garage blues up-and-comers the Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer to international jazz giant Herbie Hancock to swamp-voodoo alchemist Dr. John. And that’s just the tip of a massive iceberg.
When and Where: June 21 to July 1 at various locations.
Suggested Retail Price: Visit www.coastaljazz.ca/ for a full breakdown.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: A still-in-the-shrinkwrap copy of Dr. John’s swamptastic mindbender Gris-Gris and/or one of those robots from Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” video.
Fan Profile: Free thinkers who understand that jazz in the 21st century is as much about the Herbaliser as it is Coleman Hawkins.
Appropriate Attire: Why not go the winking retro-chic route, and ask yourself “What would Maynard G. Krebs wear?”
What You’ll Walk Away With: The burning desire to visit New Orleans to discover where it all began.

Dandy Warhols

Originally signed in the mid ’90s during the post-Nirvana alt-rock gold­rush, the Dandy Warhols took a while to find their stride. Success finally arrived in 2000 when the single “Bohemian Like You” from that year’s Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia seemed to be everywhere—partly thanks to its placement in both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a Vodafone commercial. Well aware that no one is clamouring for songs off last year’s This Machine, the Portland-based Warhols are going the nostalgia route for this tour, playing Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia in its entirety. Feel free to camp out at the front of the stage and screech “ ‘Bohemian Like You’ ” for the duration of the set, even if they’ve already played it twice right off the top.
When and Where: June 22 at the Commodore.
Suggested Retail Price: $26.50 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Because everyone loves an insane shitshow, the Dandy Warhols/Brian Jonestown Massacre documentary Dig, preferably on a well-worn VHS cassette, which captures its grimy flavour in a way Blu-ray never will.
Fan Profile: Gen-Xers who swore they’d never buy into nostalgia.
Appropriate Attire: See Singles, Cameron Crowe’s loving ode to Generation X.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Fond memories of that circa-2000 mix tape where you cleverly sandwiched “Bohemian Like You” right between Blink-182’s “All the Small Things” and Mudvayne’s “Dig”.

Killswitch Engage

Killswitch Engage wasn’t the first band to come up with the idea of combining brute-force hardcore with road-rage metal. Suicidal Tendencies dragged long-haired headbangers into the mosh pit with 1987’s Join the Army, D.R.I. getting in on the action that same year with Crossover. Killswitch Engage’s great trick has been cracking the mainstream with a sonic assault that’s totally uncompromising. The Massachusetts five-piece didn’t invent “metalcore” with 2004’s landmark The End of Heartache, but it definitely perfected it.
When and Where: June 27 at the Commodore.
Suggested Retail Price: $43.50 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Earplugs, preferably of the Worker’s Compensation Board–approved variety.
Fan Profile: Very, very fucking angry.
Appropriate Attire: Think Pantera merch, but from the Vulgar Display of Power years rather than the Metal Magic ones.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Lumps and broken bones, unless you’re planning to get into the mosh pit, in which case you can add a concussion and missing teeth to the equation.

Buckcherry

Remember that Spinal Tap scene that argues Nigel Tufnel and company have made a career out of “treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality”? That observation could have easily been made about Buckcherry, which, in a sad commentary on modern society, revived its then-dying hard-rock career a few years back with a song called “Crazy Bitch”.
When and Where: June 28 at the Commodore.
Suggested Retail Price: $36.50 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Actually, you can just fucking have them.
Appropriate Attire: Tattoos, cowboy boots, and a wife-beater. Same ensemble for the guys.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Scraped knuckles from dragging them on the pavement..

Taylor Swift

Even though it’s done nothing to wipe that famously blinding grin off her face, Taylor Swift has had something of a rough ride the past year. Critics have started slamming her for turning every failed relationship into a new song, while those on the Twittersphere have stooped so low as to suggest she’s an old-fashioned ho-bag. The latter charge, of course, has everything to do with the perception that she goes through men at a rate we haven’t seen since Sasha Grey in Frat House Fuckfest 4. There’s an old saying, though, that what doesn’t kill you after making the gossip rags only makes you stronger. Or, in the case of Swift, helps you pack out 60,000-seat football stadiums.
When and Where: June 29 at B.C. Place.
Suggested Retail Price: From $44 to $111.50 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: A date with Taylor Swift, with the fact that she’s dated everyone else making that seem like it’s actually in the realm of possibility.
Fan Profile: Squeaky and clean, a least on the outside.
Appropriate Attire: Veneers.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Undying hatred for Joe Jonas, John Mayer, Taylor Lautner, Cory Monteith, Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor Kennedy, and Harry Styles, to name just a few.

Alice in Chains

Normally bands that replace a long-established singer with a new face end up discovering that, for every Van Hagar, there are a dozen disasters like Sublime With Rome and INXS featuring that reality TV show guy who now lives in a box under a bridge. Alice in Chains—whose grunge-era landmark Dirt remains one of the most harrowing drug albums of all time—got it right, though, with their replacement for Layne Staley. If you’re going to stick a new man in front of the mike, make sure you have the good taste to get the old guy to die.
When and Where: July 1 at Deer Lake Park.
Suggested Retail Price: $49.93 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Mark Yarm’s must-read book Everybody Loves Our Town, which offers a smack-and-all oral history of the Seattle grunge boom.
Fan Profile: Those who actually had no problem with Van Halen during the Gary Cherone years.
Appropriate Attire: In memory of Staley, D.A.R.E. apparel.
What You’ll Walk Away With: The sense there might be hope for the Stone Temple Pilots featuring Chester Bennington.

The B-52s

Who gives a shit if the pop equivalent of a John Waters film hasn’t had a legitimate hit since “Love Shack” in 1989? The reality is that you’re likely headed to the River Rock Show Theatre in a horrid-looking leisure suit and carefully sculpted beehive hairdo to hear the classics: “Rock Lobster”, “Planet Claire”, and “Dance This Mess Around”. And, no, we won’t judge you for singing alone to “Roam” if you must.
When and Where: July 5 at the River Rock Show Theatre.
Suggested Retail Price: $74.50/64.50 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Two crates of Hairspray–brand hairspray.
Fan Profile: Lifelong flyers of kitsch-cool freak flags.
Appropriate Attire: Go with this guiding principle: if it was good enough for Divine, it will be more than good enough for you.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Hopefully a remastered 180-gram vinyl version of The B-52’s, which, God willing, will be on sale at the merch table right next to the B-52s TV dinner trays and retro-toasters.

Kiss

In which a bunch of cold and calculating career businessmen somehow make the case that there’s nothing weird about 60-somethings cavorting around the stage in greasepaint and the same glorified Halloween costumes they’ve been wearing since Jimmy Carter was president. Kiss isn’t a band: it’s a cheap brand, and somehow it’s still selling.
When and Where: July 6 at Rogers Arena.
Suggested Retail Price: $21 to $126 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Kiss caskets, which we’ll probably be using before the seemingly ageless Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons.
Fan Profile: Army enlistees whose sole ambition in life is to rock ’n’ roll all night and party every day.
Appropriate Attire: Keep it simple, stupid, with greasepaint, Spandex, and 12-inch platform boots designed to look like Beelzebub’s skull.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Kiss flashlights, coffee cups, tea cups, thongs, fountain pens, dildos, throw rugs, shower curtains, and diaper pails.

New Kids on the Block

Even if it’s begrudgingly, give the act that created the template for the modern boy band credit. At a time when Debbie Gibson can’t get a gig at Lougheed Mall and Tiffany has been AWOL since peeling for Playboy, New Kids on the Block is still headlining hockey rinks. Making that seem even stranger is the fact that they haven’t had a hit since Mel Gibson was rocking the mullet in Lethal Weapon.
When and Where: July 10 at Rogers Arena.
Suggested Retail Price: $85 to $25 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: That Playboy where Tiffany totally gets her ya-yas out.
Fan Profile: Emotionally stunted and unable to accept the fact that their inner 14-year-old is deader than Nick Carter’s soul.
Appropriate Attire: For old time’s sake, training bras and braces.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Legitimate hope that Mark Wahlberg might be tired enough of making movies to pull the Calvin Klein boxers back on and call up the Funky Bunch.

Khatsahlano! Music + Arts Festival

For years, Vancouver could only look longingly at Seattle’s Capitol Hill Block Party and wonder why the hell Washington State seems to do everything better. Those days are now over, with the Khatsahlano! Music + Arts Festival rapidly becoming one of the city’s premier cultural events. Delivering exactly what it advertises, the free all-day blowout in Kits is heavy on local talent, this year’s edition including the Pack a.d., Gold & Youth, Brasstronaut, Rich Hope and His Blue Rich Rangers, Portage and Main, and more.
When and Where: July 13 on West 4th Avenue.
Suggested Retail Price: Free.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Considering the price, that would be just plain wrong. But how about a copy of Slow’s Against the Glass?
Fan Profile: Drive by the Electric Owl, Cobalt, Media Club, and Biltmore on a local band night, take a picture, and then multiply by five or six thousand.
Appropriate Attire: God willing, a Korean tourist-issue sun visor.
What You’ll Walk Away With: A sudden sense of superiority to Seattle.

Rancid

Screw Bono, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry: there’s a valid argument to be made that Rancid’s Tim Armstrong is the most fascinating character in modern pop music. Once the kind of alcoholic crusty who can be found squeegeeing windshields at every major metropolitan intersection in North America, he’s now an icon, and not just with the absolutepunk.net set. When not cranking out gold-standard albums with Rancid, he’s exploring his tapes-and-loops side with the Transplants, writing with mainstream stars such as Pink, and helming comeback records by reggae giants like Jimmy Cliff. Now who you calling a punk?
When and Where: July 13 and 14 at the Commodore.
Suggested Retail Price: $28.50 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Proof that it was Armstrong, not Brody Dalle, who wrote all the Distillers’ songs.
Fan Profile: Spiky, dyed, and really dirty.
Appropriate Attire: Squeegee-kid casual.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Mohawk-inflicted puncture wounds should you end up in the pit.

The Postal Service

Assuming you haven’t memorized every episode of Grey’s Anatomy, don’t obsess over who’s playing in the background of UPS commercials, and found Garden State to be totally overrated, it’s entirely possible you have no idea who the Postal Service is. Those who’ve officially joined the cult, however, couldn’t be more stoked over the reunion tour for the indie-electro side super-project helmed by Jimmy Tamberello and Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard.
When and Where: July 16 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
Suggested Retail Price: From $$59.50/49.50 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: A Mauritius 2-penny Post Office blue 1847 stamp.
Fan Profile: Electronic music fans who don’t actually like electronic music.
Appropriate Attire: Button-up shirts and crisply pressed shorts in good old-fashioned UPS brown.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Renewed bitterness that the Postal Service is no closer to recording a second album than it was a decade ago.

Vancouver Folk Music Festival

It’s a brave new world out there, with the acoustic-oriented Bon Iver one of the most successful acts on the planet, and half of the Sub Pop roster consisting of acts that fall under the umbrella of “folk” (hello Fleet Foxes and Iron and Wine). Reflecting that reality, the Vancouver Folk Music Festival continues to move in a new and cutting-edge direction. On the stellar undercard this year you’ll discover the likes of doom-soul diva Cold Specks, breakout electro-pop queen Hannah Georgas, and the gorgeously old-timey Hurray for the Riff Raff. At the top of the marquee are need-no-introduction heavy hitters like Steve Earle, Devotchka, Kathleen Edwards, and moonlighting Dixie Chick Natalie Maines. Folk? That only begins to describe things.
When and Where: July 19 to 21 at Jericho Beach Park.
Suggested Retail Price: Visit thefestival.bc.ca/ticket-information/ for a full breakdown.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: A blanket set up at the foot of the Main Stage and surrounded by a red velvet rope.
Fan Profile: About as far away from 1968 as one might possibly imagine.
Appropriate Attire: In honour of Maines’s heroic efforts to unseat America’s last president before Barack Obama, a NOFX “Idiot Son of an Asshole” button.
What You’ll Walk Away With: An expanded mind, that having nothing to do with the bushel of hemp seed you plan to smoke by the park’s duck pond before entering the site.

Bruno Mars

Talk about getting in through the back door. After going nowhere with a Motown contract in the early ’00s, Bruno Mars discovered he had a knack for hits, as long as the likes of K’naan or Flo Rida were singing them. With 2010’s smash breakthrough Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Mars finally arrived on his own as a star, even if four out of five people who don’t listen to mainstream-pop radio have no idea what he looks like.
When and Where: July 20 at Rogers Arena.
Suggested Retail Price: $94 to $40 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: A single royalty cheque for “Nothin’ on You”.
Fan Profile: Yaletown condo dwellers.
Appropriate Attire: Hats of a stylin’ variety rarely seen beyond the borders of Little Havana in Florida.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Assuming you don’t live in Yaletown, finally an idea what Bruno Mars actually looks like.

Alabama Shakes

Not to brag, but we here at the Straight saw Alabama Shakes at the Media Club in January of last year, which means we were close enough to frontwoman Brittany Howard to mop the sweat off her brow. Three Grammy nominations later, the indie-soul garage-blues fusionists make the big jump to soft-seaters. Try not to be jealous—not just of Alabama Shakes, but also of us.
When and Where: July 23 at the Orpheum.
Suggested Retail Price: $35 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: A Media Club bar tab.
Fan Profile: White on the outside, a soulful shade of blue on the inside.
Appropriate Attire: Because Howard is a huge fan of Bon Scott, anything emblazoned with the cover art of Highway to Hell.
What You’ll Walk Away With: The ability to tell people you saw Alabama Shakes at the Orpheum when, a year and a half from now, they are playing Rogers Arena.

One Direction

Like the clap, pubic lice, and Donald Trump, boy bands refuse to go away. As much as One Direction is going to be about as culturally relevant as the Jonas Brothers tomorrow, today is definitely its day.
When and Where: July 27 at Rogers Arena.
Suggested Retail Price: $89.50 to $29.50 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: Let’s go with a board game, namely 1975’s Bay City Rollers on Tour for two to four players, ages six and up.
Fan Profile: Headgear and liberally padded training bras.
Appropriate Attire: Taylor Swift tour jackets, but only if you write “...is a skank” after her name in Crayon.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Deafness from the fruit-bat-like shrieking you’ll be subjected to in the stands for 90 minutes.

Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake

On paper it’s a modern update of the odd couple: take an ex-Mouseketeer turned over-processed boy bander and pair him with a former gang banger from the projects of Brooklyn whose rap sheet includes occasionally shooting his own siblings and slinging crack cocaine. You know them better as Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z, both of whom have managed the usually impossible task of combining massive street cred with mainstream mega-success.
When and Where: July 31 at B.C. Place.
Suggested Retail Price: $39.50 to $250 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: An invitation to what promises to be the most insanely lavish after-party in Vancouver concert history.
Fan Profile: Urban. Which doesn’t mean “lives downtown in a big city”.
Appropriate Attire: Crisp white designer duds offset by a blue New York Yankees ball cap.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Striking two legends off the must-see list in one epic night.

Squamish Valley Music Festival

Technically speaking, Squamish isn’t exactly in Vancouver. That’s not going to stop us from dubbing Squamish Valley Music Festival as Vancouver’s premier concert event of the summer. The lineup is headlined by the bongtastic Queens of the Stone Age and Pitchfork pinup boys Vampire Weekend, both of which are enough to make you wish the Royal Hudson was still running to the foot of the majestic Squamish Chief. Add Dan Mangan, Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis, Gogol Bordello, and Band of Horses to the party, and you’ve got an event which should take the sting out of the fact that Coachella, Sasquatch, All Tomorrow’s Parties, and Glastonbury are just four things you won’t be seeing this year.
When and Where: August 8-10 at Hendrickson Fields and Logger Sports Grounds.
Suggested Retail Price: See squamishfestival.com/ for a full breakdown.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: A cabin perched on the lip of the mighty Squamish Chief.
Fan Profile: Stoner rock aficionados, Williamsburg-fixated posthipsters, Dan Mangan disciples, and those who understand Diamond Rings isn’t always just something that you buy at Spence outlets.
Appropriate Attire: Anything from a Macklemore-approved thrift shop, accessorized by a Costco-sized tub of 90-proof sunscreen.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Wondering why the hell every concert can’t be outdoors, preferably in a setting as scenic as the Squamish Valley Music Festival’s.

Burnaby Blues + Roots Festival

Talk about a score. In terms of breakout acts over the past few years, few have been as unlikely as Charles Bradley. After spending a lifetime in poverty, doing the kind of grunt-work jobs that most of us mistakenly consider ourselves too good for, Bradley released his first album, the super-soulful No Time For Dreaming, in 2011. That he was 62 at the time was amazing, but nowhere near as the reaction to the disc; before you could say “James Brown meets Marvin Gaye”, Bradley was suddenly being hailed as a revelation. As much as that alone makes the Burnaby Blues + Roots Festival a can’t miss, you also get Blue Rodeo, homegrown guitar hero David Gogo, the Polaris Prize-nominated Jon and Roy, and the Emmy-nominated John Lee Sanders. More to the point, that’s just the start.
When and Where: August 10 at Deer Lake Park.
Suggested Retail Price: $65 to $75 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: A Daptone recording contract.
Fan Profile: Folks who eat at Memphis Blues five nights a week. For the music, not the food.
Appropriate Attire: Even though you’ll likely die of heat prostration halfway through the day, the getup that made Jake and Elwood famous.
What You’ll Walk Away With: Soaking wet clothes, which is a warning that Charles Bradley isn’t the only one who is going to be crying in Burnaby.

Black Sabbath

Who gives a shit if Ozzy Osbourne seems like he can barely remember his own name these days—he’s still the Prince of Darkness, even if he’s too addled to actually know who the Prince of Darkness is. Compensating for that is Tony Iommi, whose sludgetastic guitar work on Black Sabbath’s latest, the Rick Rubin–produced 13, serves as a timely reminder as to who the real star of the show is.
When and Where: August 22 at Rogers Arena.
Suggested Retail Price: $29 to $139 plus service charges.
What We’d Trade Our Tickets For: The Osbournes complete first season boxed set, the brilliance of it being that reality is truly sometimes far more bizarre than fiction.
Fan Profile: Lifelong suburban burnouts, alt-rockers smart enough to realize where Soundgarden stole everything it knows from, and committed Satanists.
Appropriate Attire: Medieval-style silver crosses, spraypainted black and worn upside down.
What You’ll Walk Away With: The best warning about the dangers of spending decades doing sandboxes full of blow and drinking enough booze to fill Olympic-size swimming pools. As thoroughly confused as your Uncle Melvin might be, next to Ozzy Osbourne he’s a model of lucidity. Don’t do drugs, kids—they not only make you stupid, they also make you prematurely senile. Not to mention more out of it than a shithouse rat.