When: 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 17
Where: Jaqua Concert Hall, The Shedd Institute, 868 High Street, Eugene
Details: Big Head Todd & The Monsters make their first stop at The Shedd’s Jaqua Concert Hall, the 5th night in their intense winter/spring tour, which culminates at Red Rocks 2019 in early June. Having played together for nearly three decades, Big Head Todd and The Monsters are putting their energy into promotion and touring around their 11th studio album New World Arisin’ which makes good on its forward-facing title with what might be the brashest rock and roll of their career. The album explores various subgenres, from the funky “Trip” to punk inspired “Detonator” to raging country-rock “Damaged One,” to the expansive storytelling in the Van Morrison/Springsteen mode of “Wipeout Turn,” a Jimi Hendrix cover “Room Full of Mirrors,” and, in the title track, “New World Arisin” a Charley Patton-inspired tune that ended up with a heavy metal/gospel feel. But if there’s a dominant musical motif to New World Arisin’, it’s “straight-up rock-pop,” says lead guitarist/singer Todd Mohr. That contemporary approach might come as a slight surprise to hardcore fans that saw the Monsters take a seriously rootsy turn in the last 10 years. With this album the blues take a back seat to the unapologetically mainstream instincts that had Big Head Todd going platinum in the mid-’90s with the album Sister Sweetly, which spawned the rock radio hits “Broken Hearted Savior,” “Bittersweet,” and “Circle.”
Tickets: $39 (group & package discounts available)
Information: theshedd.org, theshedd.org/BigHeadTodd, 541-434-7000 (Shedd Ticket Office)
