Freebie of the week: One of the Bay Area’s best and most popular spots for concerts — free concerts — is back in business. We’re talking about the Golden Gate Park Bandshell, which hosts close to 200 free concerts a year, drawing some 300,000 fans to the site that has been carrying on its musical tradition for 144 years. There has been a bandshell in Golden Gate Park’s Main Concourse since 1882. The current bandshell, aka the Spreckels Temple of Music (named for sugar magnate Claus Spreckels, who gifted it to the city) has been on site since 1900.
This year’s free concert series, created and managed by the San Francisco nonprofit Illuminate Live, offers shows three nights a week: Singer-Songwriter Wednesdays (4-7 p.m.), Friday Happy Hour (4:30-7:30 p.m.) and Crucial Reggae Sundays (4:20-7:30 p.m.)
On Friday, it’s the Ariel Marin Band, fronted by the Bay Area singer known for her powerful pipes and for tackling everything from pop and rock to soul, R&B, jazz and even metal; her Sade tribute show has been a big hit locally. Sunday’s reggae show features a quartet of talented spinners headed by DJ Goddess Nette.
Other upcoming performers include singer-songwriter Frankie West (March 11); a St. Patrick’s Day celebration featuring a double-bill of Caledonia and Shana Morrison (March 13); and DJ Guid8nce, DJ Sep and others on March 15. The series runs through mid-November.
Find the schedule and more information at illuminate.org. Meanwhile, the Golden Gate Park Band, whose high-spirited shows tackle a variety of genres, performs some 25 free concerts at the bandshell April 10-Sept. 27; for details, visit goldengateparkband.org.
Musical Mormons: It’s been 25 years since “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone unleashed their seriously button-pushing brand of humor on the theater world, with the help of songwriter Robert Lopez, whose “Avenue Q” was a huge hit with button-pushing humor of its own. The result of their collaboration was “The Book of Mormon,” which was a monster hit as well as what a Vogue reviewer called “the filthiest, most offensive, and — surprise — sweetest thing you’ll see on Broadway this year.” “Book of Mormon” went on to win nine Tony Awards, including for best musical, and has grossed some $800 million, making it one of the most successful musicals of all time. It’s also won a Grammy Award and been honored by the Drama Desk Awards, the NY Drama Critics Circle, the Drama League and the Outer Critics Circle. Not bad for a musical about Mormon missionaries trying to convert the residents of a remote Ugandan village – an idea that, let’s face it, sounds ripe for disaster.
This weekend, a touring production comes to the Center for the Performing Arts in San Jose, presented by Broadway San Jose. The three-day run features performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $99 to $365, subject to change. Go to broadwaysanjose.com
The big 100: Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater turns 100 this week! In 1926, the Reid Brothers’ design for the movie palace was completed for West Coast Theaters, Inc., and March 6, 1926 marked the grand opening of the Vaudeville Show and Silent Movie House. In 1928, West Coast Theaters became part of the Fox Theater Chain, and soon after, vaudeville shows ended with the rising popularity of talking pictures.
In 1980, Allen Michaan, owner of Renaissance Rialto, Inc., purchased the ground lease, opening a single screen movie house and beginning a series of renovations and upgrades that continue. The first major expansion in 1981 transformed main balcony seating into a second auditorium, which holds 450 patrons with stadium seating.
In a second large expansion in 1985, storefronts along Grand Avenue were transformed into small, themed auditoriums that were connected to the main theater by enclosing an exterior alleyway.
Theater three was designed in an Egyptian style and theater four as a Moorish palace.
The Grand Lake, designated among the top 10 vintage theaters in the nation, routinely tops the East Bay Express Reader Poll as “Best Movie Theater,” and, with $6 tickets on Tuesdays, offers some of the lowest moviegoing prices in the Bay Area.
To celebrate the big anniversary, tours are being offered this weekend, at 2, 2:30 and 3 p.m. on Friday, and at 10:30 and 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Visit renaissancerialto.com.
Snark reigns supreme: If anyone can summon an air of sneering superiority more convincingly than John Malkovich, we don’t know who that could be. The award-winning actor (at his insufferable best in “Dangerous Liaisons,” perhaps) pairs with his frequent collaborator, composer-conductor-violinist Aleksey Igudesman, Friday night in San Francisco’s Davies Hall for a comedy-cum-music show called “The Music Critic.”
In the program, Malkovich steps into the personas of writers from history who have lambasted the works of composers as revered today as Beethoven, Debussy, Mozart, Bach and Dvořák, unleashing their most scathing critiques as Igudesman (who conceived, researched and wrote the show) and the San Francisco Symphony perform. Malkovich may even pick up a tuba at some point in the performance. If you’re thinking it might be entertaining to guffaw along as Beethoven’s Fifth is excoriated, pick up a ticket for the 7:30 p.m. concert, $75-$275, at www.sfsymphony.org.
A meaningful trio: Symphony San Jose, with Grant Llewelyn conducting and important support from the Symphony Chorale, soprano Maria Valdes and baritone John Brancy, performs works with an important place in the Western cultural landscape this weekend. They lead off with George Frideric Handel’s “Zadok the Priest,” an anthem commissioned for the coronation of King George II that has been sung at every single British coronation since (the Brits do revere their traditions).
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Dona Nobis Pacem,” quoting from the Latin Mass, is a fervent plea for peace set to poems by Walt Whitman (“Beat! Beat! Drums,” “Reconciliation” and “Dirge for Two Veterans”) composed in 1936 when Europe was on the near edge of war.
The final work on the program is Edward Elgar’s famed 1899 “Enigma Variations.” Its hidden “enigma” musical theme creates portraits of some of the composer’s closest friends and family members, each marked with initials, some of which have kept listeners guessing for ages about the identities of those portrayed. Performance times are 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose. Tickets, $35-$115, are available at symphonysanjose.org.
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