Madonna’s rare Seattle concert leads top shows for February, March

Staff Picks

Gen X’s pop icon has her first Seattle show in over a decade and a Pearl Jam member’s Paramount Theatre blowout are among the top upcoming concerts.

Big gigs

Madonna

Decades before artists like Lil Nas X, a reinvented Sam Smith and Kim Petras had pearl-clutchers rabble-rousing about sexualized imagery, Madonna was pushing the envelope from pop music’s center. The risqué queen of dance pop was poised to make Seattle the first American date on her Celebration Tour last summer, before the Material Girl was hospitalized with a bacterial infection. After rescheduling the legacy-fêting run, Madonna’s set for a two-nighter at Climate Pledge Arena that marks Seattle’s first big-ticket pop shows of the new year.

Feb. 17-18; Climate Pledge Arena, 334 First Ave. N., Seattle; remaining tickets start at $75.50; climatepledgearena.com

Arlo Parks

Britain’s dreamiest indie-pop export has come along since making her highly anticipated Seattle debut at Chop Suey 2 ½ years ago. The Mercury Prize-winning singer-songwriter has traversed this side of the pond a few times to increasingly large crowds, and earned a best new artist nod at the 2022 Grammys. Next month, Arlo Parks returns to the Emerald City for the first time since unleashing her sun shower of a sophomore album “My Soft Machine.” Never have trust issues sounded so sweet. Chloe George opens.

8 p.m. March 8; Showbox SoDo, 1700 First Ave. S., Seattle; demand-priced tickets start at $50; showboxpresents.com

Bad Bunny

The Puerto Rican prince of reggaeton threw the biggest party a still-young Climate Pledge Arena had ever experienced when his 2022 El Último Tour del Mundo hit Seattle like the Mack truck stage he brought with him. Since then, Bad Bunny’s star has only grown. After becoming the first Latin artist to headline Coachella in 2023, the global superstar returned from a supposed break to drop off his 22-track album “nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana” (translation: “nobody knows what is going to happen tomorrow”) last fall without breaking a sweat. Bad Bunny is supporting the trap-heavy album, which also finds the real-life Benito Martinez dabbling in Jersey club sounds, with 2024’s Most Wanted Tour.

8 p.m. March 9; Climate Pledge Arena, 334 First Ave. N., Seattle; remaining tickets start at $207.45; climatepledgearena.com

Nicki Minaj

Before the book closed on 2023, Nicki Minaj dropped off her first new studio album in five years, “Pink Friday 2,” which made her the first female rapper to notch three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart. For her follow-up act, Minaj is embarking on a rare world tour that will include her first headlining Seattle show since a 2012 Paramount Theatre date.

8 p.m. March 10; Climate Pledge Arena, 334 First Ave. N., Seattle; remaining tickets start at $79.50; climatepledgearena.com

Cat Power

While Taylor Swift has been busy rerecording her own back catalog, Cat Power’s Chan Marshall has devoted her latest musical chapter to re-creating a fabled Bob Dylan concert. Divided into acoustic and electric sets, Dylan’s 1966 Royal Albert Hall show — which actually took place at a different venue before the tapes were mislabeled — lived in bootleg infamy for years as a document of a pivotal time in the folk great’s career. After recording her own live album (at the actual Royal Albert Hall in London) in 2022, Marshall’s taking her faithful rendering on the road.

7:30 p.m. March 13; Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Ave., Seattle; tickets start at $46; stgpresents.org

Seattle Sounds

206 Zulu 20th anniversary

The local hip-hop nonprofit toasts to 20 years of celebrating and preserving Seattle hip-hop culture with five nights of music, break dancing and more. The party starts with a Thursday kickoff party at Capitol Hill hangout Havana Social Club, featuring Seattle mainstay Supreme La Rock and Lady Love spinning tunes.

Feb. 15-19; times and locations vary; 206zulu.org

Sonic Guild Grant Celebration

Amid rising costs of everything, talk of building a sustainable music scene has been at the fore for years now. Led by Seattle music vet Ben London, local nonprofit Sonic Guild Seattle has been doing its part, distributing annual artist grants local musicians can put toward advancing their careers. This month Sonic Guild celebrates its latest round of 10 $10,000 grant recipients, including Black Belt Eagle Scout, indie rock singer-songwriter Byland (who’s gearing up for the release of her sophomore album next month) and electro-charged genre-buster TeZATalks. Grant recipients past and present are slated to perform, with proceeds helping fund next year’s grants.

7:30 p.m. Feb. 17; Triple Door, 216 Union St., Seattle; $100; thetripledoor.net

MoPOP Sound Off!

For more than 20 years, the museum formerly known as EMP has thrown this annual best new bands showcase, serving as an onramp to the Seattle scene for artists 21 and younger, while giving local music lovers an early look at future club favorites. Playing over three consecutive Saturdays, this year’s sonically diverse slate ranges from nu-metal-indebted rockers (The Rat Utopia Experiment) to precocious chamber music composers (Brannon Warn-Johnston) and folky multi-instrumentalists (Rae).

8 p.m. Feb. 17 and 24, March 2; MoPOP Sky Church, 325 Fifth Ave. N., Seattle; $5-$15; mopop.org

Blackstar Symphony: The Music of David Bowie

David Bowie’s brilliant swan song is getting the full-blown orchestra treatment when members of his “Blackstar” band lead the Seattle Symphony through the rock icon’s final album, re-imagined for a 65-piece orchestra. Esteemed sax man and bandleader Donny McCaslin serves as the tour’s artistic director and will be accompanied by keyboardist Jason Lindner and bassist Tim Lefebvre, who each played on the jazzy art-rock masterpiece. Bowie’s late career band member Gail Ann Dorsey is also on board.

8 p.m. Feb. 23; Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle; $60-$145; seattlesymphony.org

Loosegroove Revue

Since rebooting their Loosegroove label four years ago, Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard and his Brad mate Regan Hagar have been pouring an increasing amount of gas on the fire. This hometown bash, led by Painted Shield — a mostly Seattle all-star band led by Gossard and Minneapolis singer-songwriter Mason Jennings — doubly serves as a label showcase and album release show for the wildly talented Brittany Davis, who also plays in Painted Shield. “Image Issues,” the debut album from the blind singer-songwriter, is a genre-weaving kaleidoscope establishing Davis as one of the most interesting artists in Seattle. (Davis plays two other release gigs the night before at Easy Street Records and The Rabbit Box.) Jennings and fellow Loosegroovers Jonny Polonsky and new Seattle signee Zoser also perform.

8 p.m. March 2; Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St., Seattle; $20.50; stgpresents.org

Freakout Weekender

The Freakout Festival crew’s annual spring fling returns to the Crocodile and Belltown Yacht Club, spreading 24 bands across two nights and four stages, headlined by Bay Area garage rocker Ty Segall’s Fuzz and Chicago indie rockers Dehd. Gnarled Sub Pop punks Pissed Jeans start the pre-party at Madame Lou’s a day early (March 1), the same night the Pennsylvania noise mongers unleash their sixth album, “Half Divorced.”

5 p.m. March 2-3; locations vary, 21-and-older; single-day tickets start at $57.50, two-day passes $115; the-freakout.com