Concert Previews

You've got to have "Faith," I suppose, to believe that George Michael, the 1980s and early '90s British dance-pop megastar turned cheeky, self-mocking, ironic celebrity, still has the drawing power to pack a building as big as the Wachovia Center. But that's where Michael, born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, plays on Saturday. In recent years, Michael's been in the news more for driving-while-drugging in his native England and turning up in the TV series

Eli Stone

than for his music. He does have his share of dearly beloved hits, however, going back to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" with Wham! and "Father Figure" and "Jesus to a Child," all of which appear on the best-of collection

TwentyFive

, released in America in April.

- Dan DeLuca

Jenny Scheinman is well-established as a violinist in the New York jazz scene, both for her own albums and her work with Bill Frisell, Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux. This year, she released another typically excellent and eclectic instrumental album,

Crossing the Field

, as well as a surprising and impressive vocal one, self-titled, that reveals her to be a languid behind-the-beat singer, with hints of Gillian Welch and Laura Cantrell in her unvarnished lilt. She's also an adept interpreter-of old-time country blues and folk, as well as of Lucinda Williams and Tom Waits - and a skilled writer of storytelling originals. On Monday, for a performance focusing on her vocal side, she'll be accompanied by a pair of guitarists, and then the three of them will back the great Texas warbler Jimmie Dale Gilmore.

- Steve Klinge

Justin Vernon must still be in shock from the massive worldwide love that's been showered over his cabin-recorded debut

For Emma, Forever Ago

as Bon Iver. Almost overnight, he's gone from fronting the no-name band DeYarmond Edison to opening for Wilco and touring Europe. Such swooning is understandable, considering the album's intimate, surreal charms. Vernon often chirps in falsetto and treats his acoustic guitar like another instrument altogether, coaxing atmospheric and almost incidental sounds from it with the help of effects pedals. If there's sometimes a sense that he's hiding behind these things, Vernon wears his heart completely on his sleeve on the bluesy "Skinny Love" and gospel-tinged "The Wolves (Act I And II)."

- Doug Wallen