Orville Peck, Drive-By Truckers, Fontaines D.C. are all headed to Philly. And a bunch of Philly Film Fest music films.
If you want to take a break from concerts, watch music flicks on Devo, Luther Vandross, Robbie Williams, Pavement, and more.
This week in Philly music boasts plenty of high-profile shows, with an enticing weekend featuring Orville Peck on Friday at the Met, Drive-By Truckers on Saturday at the TLA, and Fontaines D.C. on Sunday at the Fillmore.
But there’s also an added bonus of music movies the Philadelphia Film Festival, which runs from Oct. 17 to 27, is showing as part of its Sight & Soundtrack series at screens around town.
So let’s go to the movies.
For starters, the most Philadelphia-centric music film is The Philly Sound … Heard Round the World. Bill Nicoletti’s documentary focuses on Joe Tarsia’s Sigma Sound Studios as the place where Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell helped create the Sound of Philadelphia. It screens Oct. 23 and 25.
There are six more music movies in the Sight & Sound series. Devo is a loving portrait of the art-rock tricksters led by Mark Mothersbaugh known for wearing matching jumpsuits and flower pots on their heads. It screens Oct. 19 and 25.
Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird is Nicolas Jack Davies’ doc about At The Drive In, the El Paso punk band led by Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López. It screens Oct. 19 and 21.
Diane Warren: Relentless is a portrait of the songwriter who has written power ballads for Beyoncé, Cher, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, and many others and has been Oscar nominated 15 times. It screens Oct. 20 and 25.
The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracy tells the story of huge-in-Britain and not so well-known in the U.S. pop star Robbie Williams in Better Man, which screens Oct. 23.
Luther: Never Too Much, directed by Dawn Porter (John Lewis: Good Trouble), is a doc about velvety voiced R&B singer Luther Vandross, who in addition to an illustrious solo career, was a David Bowie backup singer when Young Americans was recorded in Philly at (see above) Sigma Sound Studios. It’s screening Oct. 27.
Pavements is another music movie with a Philly connection. It’s a meta biopic/documentary hybrid written and directed by Philly native Alex Ross Perry that features Stephen Malkmus and his fellow members of the band Pavement, and actors portraying them in scripted segments. It’s also showing on Oct. 27.
For theater locations and PFF details go to filmadelphia.org.
Back to live music: Things get cooking Thursday with Air. The French ambient-electronic duo of Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin play their 1998 classic Moon Safari in its entirety at the Met Philly.
Illuminati Hotties — the band led by Los Angeles recording engineer and songwriter Sarah Tudzin play First Unitarian Church, also on Thursday. Virginia singer-songwriter //till hereKate Bollinger and the Beak Trio is at the Ukie Club.
Oteil Burbridge, the longtime All Brothers Band bass player and current member of Dead & Co., plays Ardmore Music Hall as Oteil & Friends on Thursday and Friday. And Wilco guitarist Nels Cline continues his residency at Solar Myth, joined by his wife, Yuka C. Honda, on Thursday and Wilco bandmate Glenn Kotche on Saturday.
Orville Peck has been taking on country music gatekeepers since 2019, when he came out with his queer country debut Pony. The masked man, whose identity has been revealed to be South African singer Daniel Pitout, keeps it up on Stampede, his new album of duets with partners like Willie Nelson, Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Diplo, and Margo Price, who unfortunately will not be with him at the Met on Friday.
Drive-By Truckers, the Athens, Ga., band led by songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, first demonstrated the scope of their ambition on the 2001 double album Southern Rock Opera. On their “Southern Rock Opera Revisited” tour at the TLA on Saturday, they’ll play the album in its entirety, plus other fan favorites, while also celebrating the release of the deluxe edition of their 2016 politically minded album American Band.
Richard Thompson — who was dazzling in an WXPN-FM Free at Noon earlier this month — plays a full band show at the Dennis Flyer Theater in Blackwood on Saturday in a show moved from the not-yet-opened Lansdowne Theatre.
At the Ruba Club on Saturday, Mocky Horror celebrates of the 1975 musical comedy midnight movie horror classic, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, featuring an all-star cast of Philly musicians and singers, including Dave Cope, Sarah Biemuller, Don McCloskey, and Hannah Taylor. Also on Saturday, Josh Ritter plays World Cafe Live.
On Sunday, one of the world’s most electrifying live bands — Irish post-punk quintet Fontaines D.C. — shows how much they’ve progressed on their arty but still emphatic new album Romance at the Fillmore Philly.
On Monday, avant guitarist Marc Ribot plays the film score to the 1924 Soviet silent sci-fi film Aelita, Queen of Mars at Underground Arts. California rapper Vince Staples brings his “Black in America” tour to the Franklin Music Hall. And the weeklong Philly Music Fest kicks off with a show headlined by Slaughter Beach, Dog at Ardmore Music Hall.