Club PuSh will open its 2013 program on January 16 with a three-night performance of The God That Comes, a hybrid rock and theatre piece worked up by Hawksley Workman and the 2b theatre company out of Halifax. It’s only one of the musical highlights coming to the “more informal” part of the PuSh Festival, now in its ninth year, taking place at Performance Works.

“It’s not like his show at the Rio,” Club PuSh publicist Emma Lancaster told the Straight, referring to Workman’s concert on November 7. “This is different. The way it’s been described to me is like a concept album, but live. They’re dramaturging it, and there’s a little bit of storytelling involved, but it is mostly music.”

As the festival program has it, Workman’s piece, based on Euripides’ The Bacchae, “fuses the chaotic revelry of a rock concert with the intimacy of theatrical storytelling.”

There’s also a rare chance to see the mighty Herald Nix on January 19, when the Salmon Arm–based bluesman hosts an evening with Barbara Adler’s Proud Animal and Twin River—a band that Lancaster described as Nix’s “spiritual children”.

There’s also a “straight-up music” component with Late Night at Club PuSh on Friday and Saturday nights during the festival’s duration. Acts are still being confirmed, but Lancaster said Jef Leppard has been booked for January 18 and E.S.L. for February 1. “Ten p.m., the music starts on Fridays and Saturdays,” Lancaster continued. “You can pays your money at the door, come and have a beer, see the band, and away you go!”

Best part? It’s only 10 bucks. More info at the PuSh Festival website.