The second Concerts in the Park show of this year was held amidst another record breaking attendance crowd at Cesar Chavez Plaza. Three bands performed on stage while DJ Whores was featured. Once Horseneck took the stage they gave a preview of what music would be like for the evening. Raw, energetic rock was delivered and the audience loved it. Their Facebook page states their influence as being “alcohol and other awesome sh*t” and if that was the case on Friday they showcased some amazing influence. One of my favorite Sacramento bands is Lite Brite and they were at Cesar Chavez Park once again to deliver some basic hard core rock Lite Brite are like transformers on stage. The def

No discussion on alternative rock circa 2000 would be complete without mention of Papa Roach and their radio-ready hit single “Last Resort,” especially if you were in high school or college during that time. The Vacaville band (also known for singles “Scars,” “Forever” and “Lifeline”) broke out of Sacramento and went on to sell more than 10 million albums worldwide. They return this weekend for a two-night stand at the recently opened venue Ace of Spades, touring behind their seventh album, "Time for Annihilation." More alternative rock than nu-metal now, the band can probably still be counted on to deliver a high-energy rock show filled with heavy guitars, sharp hooks and “guy liner.”

Here are some of the concerts and music events happening in the Sacramento area this coming week. Dine Downtown continues through Sunday, January 16th, so get out and enjoy dinner and a music event! For detailed information on these events and many more go to www.eMusiConnect.com Concerts, Music Events, and The Sacramento Music Scene This Week: Through February 20th: Sacramento Theatre Company presents The Musical of Musicals at Wells Fargo Pavilion Pollock Stage on 1419 H Street in Sacramento. WED-SUN Show times Vary. Tickets are $15.00 - $38.00. Rush tickets half off admission 1/2 hour prior to show times and are subject to availability. Saturday, January 15th: Coming To America with

Before we get into this week’s happenings, a quick observation from this weekend’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco: Jackie Greene just continues to get better and better. It really doesn’t seem like that long ago that the wiry young singer in his early twenties was our “next big thing” here in Sacramento, when he was playing regular gigs at Harlow’s and the Torch Club – but doesn’t every town have their own soon-to-fade “next big thing” going at pretty much all times. But now, here he is, playing a main-stage closing spot at a festival that drew an estimated 600,000 people. We tried to tag him as “the next Dylan” or stuff him into the bluesman category, but give Jack

News flash from the local music scene: Middle Class Rut is looking to make “New Low” the first single from their new record. Um, wait a second. Haven’t we been down this road before? “It’s kind of a funny situation, because no one outside of Sacramento got the same treatment with that song,” said Sean Stockham, the man who pumps the wailing lead vocals on “New Low” into his drive-thru headset of a microphone while mashing the drum kit. “For Sac, we feel it’s sort of weird to do the push with ‘New Low,’” he said. “It’s like, ‘weren’t we just ambushed and barraged with this every day?’ “But it tells us that the song has the potential to do something, so we’re doing it in hopes that what

"Exhilarating, like running naked through a bee storm," said music magazine NME of Middle Class Rut, or MC Rut for short. The duo headlines Friday's Concert in the Park in which Lite Brite, Consider The Thief and Early States will also play (click links for MySpace pages). MC Rut's style has been compared to Jane's Addiction and Rage Against the Machine, but the duo evokes a simpler feel than the The White Stripes, a band with similar instrumentation. Even so, the two-piece packs a fury of sound that never lets up. They recently released an eight-song EP entitled 25 Years and completed a tour of the United Kingdom. Lite Brite is a rock and roll trio that exudes a punk attitude, but can