Yes, Beyoncé is coming to Philly. And so are Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, and The Smile guys from Radiohead.
Other artists in town this week (not named Beyoncé) are country singer Kane Brown at the Mann and Bettye LaVette at City Winery.
Beyoncé is coming! Beyoncé is coming!
But wait one second: Before Queen Bey and the Bey Hive arrive at Lincoln Financial Field on Wednesday for the first U.S. stop on the North American leg of her Renaissance tour, there are lots of other big names and worthy shows coming to Philadelphia.
They include a mainstream country star at the Mann Center, the duo at the core of Radiohead at Franklin Music Hall, a neo-soul queen at the Mann, a soul great at City Winery, and a Grammy favorite star at the Wells Fargo Center.
1. Kane Brown
Kane Brown’s career got a jump start in 2015 when a cover of George Strait’s “Check Yes or No” went viral on Facebook. The Georgia- and Tennessee-raised singer scored his first country number one two years later on a duet on “What Ifs” with his high school classmate Lauren Alaina.
Brown’s 2022′s Different Man pledges allegiance to his chosen genre on “Like I Love Country Music,” but also gets frisky with hip-hop and R&B. This date is a hometown show for the Brown family: The country star’s wife, singer Katelyn Brown, is from Philadelphia and their engagement was announced at a show at the Wells Fargo Center in 2017. The two teamed up on last year’s “Thank God,” so don’t be shocked if there’s a surprise duet. Gabby Barrett and Restless Road open.
$50-$199, 8 p.m., July 8, Mann Center, 5201 Parkside Ave., manncenter.org.
2. The Smile
When is a band with Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood not Radiohead? When it’s The Smile, the trio that the longtime songwriting partners formed with drummer Tom Skinner during the COVID-19 lockdown. The band’s intricate, anxious, and often beautiful prog-rock debut album from last year, A Light for Attracting Attention, quite frequently sounds a lot like Yorke and Greenwood’s other celebrated band, which hasn’t released a new album since 2016′s A Moon Shaped Pool.
The Smile played limited dates in the winter but skipped this market. This show marks their Philadelphia debut. Robert Stillman opens.
Sold out, with resale tickets $84-$200, 8 p.m., July 8, Franklin Music Hall, 421 N. Seventh St., bowerypresents.com
3. Bettye LaVette
Betty LaVette’s late career resurgence is one for the ages. Her first hit, “Let Me Down Easy,” dates to 1965. After a long period with little recognition, the soul singer returned to prominence with A Woman Like Me in 2003.
Since then, she’s distinguished herself as a superb song interpreter with imaginative takes on The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia,” among others. In 2018, she released an album of Bob Dylan covers called Things Have Changed.
Her new album, simply titled LaVette! is her third produced by Steve Jordan, the genius drummer who has replaced Charlie Watts in the touring Rolling Stones. Its songs about reckonings at the crossroads of life were all written by Southern songwriter Randall Bramblett, who’s worked with Bonnie Raitt and Gregg Allman. They’re all in LaVette’s wheelhouse, world-weary yet unbowed.
$30-$45, 8 p.m., July 8, City Winery Philadelphia, 990 Filbert St., citywinery.com/philadelphia
4. Erykah Badu
Erykah Badu’s current concert trek is called the “Unfollow Me Tour.” Why would you? The Dallas, Texas, neo-soul queen and rule breaker, who vaulted to stardom with Baduizm in 1997 and sang on the Roots’ biggest hit, “You Got Me” in 1999, is her own kind of iconoclast.
Her opus New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), which came out in 2006, and its 2010 follow-up New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) is a funked-up, psychedelic, brilliantly sung bipartite masterpiece. The charismatic bandleader is touring with Yasiin Bey, the rapper also known as Mos Def.
$15-$202, 7:30 p.m., July 9, Mann Center, 5201 Parkside Ave., manncenter.org
5. Alicia Keys
Beyoncé isn’t the only Grammy-winning pop star playing South Philly next week. Alicia Keys — who’s won 15 golden gramophones — will bring her “Keys to the Summer Tour” to the Wells Fargo Center on Monday. This tour follows her “Alicia + Keys” tour that stopped at the Met Philly last August.
The “Keys to the Summer” show will be presented in the round — a format that’s all the rage right now, with variations being employed in recent shows by Feist, Zach Bryan, the Roots, and Dave Chappelle. Keys promises “a 360 experience” that’s “like nothing you’ve ever seen!”
$49.50-$169.50, 8 p.m., July 10, Wells Fargo Center, 3601 S. Broad St., wellsfargocenterphilly.com