As some poet or hippie probably said, summer is the season of three C’s: Chlamydia, concerts, and, uh, “cmowing” your lawn. Since I don’t have Chlamydia or a lawn mower (it broke down today), I was chosen from the TDI staffers to cover concerts instead, leaving the other two endeavors in abler hands.

But concerts, you say? What concerts? Live 8 is over, poverty is cured! Well, gentle reader, rest assured: there are still plenty of good causes to rock out for. Maybe you can’t take a stand against the callous indifference of the First World to Africa’s plight, but you can still help Mike Jones afford 24” spinners with Playstations built into them, or support the Buy Ozzy a Cruciform Casket Filled with Blood Foundation. So then, here are summer ‘05’s most Dartmouth-proximate concerts (note that I only list the venue closest to Dartmouth if a tour visits multiple places in New England).and their cheapest ticket prices.

Ozzfest
New England Dodge Music Center (formerly Meadows Music)
Hartford, CT
Sunday, July 17, 9:00 AM
Ticket Price: $38
Pros: Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Mudvayne, Rob Zombie, and their minion-bands have been rocking faces off since before the births of the entire lineup of Kelly Clarkson’s band, the members of which, coincidentally, will be single-handedly devoured alive onstage by the Prince of Darkness himself to appease the slaughter-god Baal.
Cons: Listen, whatever I say about Ozzfest isn’t going to matter: when you were twelve years old, you either made that Faustian bargain to chain your soul to Satan’s rock n’ roll and join his unholy legions to worship Sabbath and Judas Priest every summer, or you didn’t—in which case, have a lovely time seeing Dave Matthews.

Kenny Chesney
Gillette Stadium
Foxborough, MA
Saturday, July 23, 3:30pm
Price: $27.50
Pros: “Somewhere in the Sun” tour features Gretchen Wilson, muse behind the sublime “Redneck Woman”; sponsored by TDI favorite Cruzan Rum (maybe to cater to that elusive “college-kid” demographic? Psst—that’s you!); get to mingle with NASCAR fans.
Cons: Kenny Chesney

Kelly Clarkson
Verizon Wireless Arena
Manchester, NH
Thursday, August 4, 7:30pm
Price: $18.50
Pros: “Since U Been Gone”
Cons: “Behind These Hazel Eyes”

Coldplay
Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts
Mansfield, MA
Saturday, August 6, 2005, 7:30 PM
Price: $30.50
Pros: If you are a professional music critic, you were probably already changing your shorts right after I said the name “Coldplay”; poppundit, a self-proclaimed expert in judging things on amazon.com, “cannot wait to hear how these songs [on Coldplay’s newest CD] translate live.”
Cons: “Customers who bought titles by Coldplay also bought titles by these artists: John Mayer, Norah Jones, Dido, and Sarah McLachlan.”

Anger Management Tour 3
Tweeter Center for Performing Arts
Mansfield, MA
Wednesday, August 10, 7:00pm
Price: $56
Pros: Eminem/D-12, 50 Cent/G-Unit, Lil’ Jon/East Side Boyz, Obie Trice/not famous enough to have a backup group, and other alphanumerical rap acts pretty much ensure that if you like mainstream rap and are an upper-middle class Ivy Leaguer with $56 to blow on something like this, you’ll be alright; in a Chicago Sun-Times interview, Lil’ Jon assessed his chances of “getting crunk in the local club after the show” at “99.9%.”
Cons: “Drips” collaboration between Eminem and Obie Trice, a warning of the dangers of contracting STDs from a “big booty bitch,” is the extent of socially-conscious lyrics.

Backstreet Boys
Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts
Mansfield, MA
Sunday, August 14, 7:30 PM
Price: $26
Pros: Nick, Howie, Brian, Kevin, and AJ are “back”. Alright. AJ’s sober now. 12-year-old-girl fanbase of 1999 now 18.
Cons: Still struggling to realize the level of artistic autonomy and cultural relevance of archnemeses 98 Degrees.

Motley Crüe
Verizon Wireless Arena
ManchVegas, NH
Sunday, August 21, 7:00pm
Price: $38.50
Pros: “Red, White, and Crüe” tour to hype new eponymous 37-track, double CD collection, feature film, and reality show where Tommy Lee enrolls in the University of Nebraska (despite being waitlisted at Dartmouth); Vince Neil’s cross-cultural appeal evidenced by touching camaraderie with MC Hammer on “Surreal Life.”
Cons: $38.50? And what if you run into your mom?

The Allman Brothers Band/ moe
New England Dodge Music Center formerly Meadows Music
Hartford, CT
Sunday, August 21, 6:30 PM
Price: $24.50
Pros: Be a part of the historic confluence of every generation of stoned Comp Lit majors/Ultimate Frisbee players as they put aside their differences and pick up their bongs in harmonious unison.
Cons: Most of the band died in the ‘70s.

WWE Presents Smackdown Live
Bangor Auditorium
Bangor, ME
Saturday, July 30, 7:30 PM
Price $22.00
Pros: “Pro” wrestling of course! Haha! But am I laughing at my clever turn of phrase, the association of the moniker “professional” with Macho Man Randy Savage, or the notion that someone pursuing higher education might show his face at a such an event? — right when “Hogan Knows Best” is on, no less!
Cons: Not technically a concert; wayward folding chairs.

So there you have it: the Summer ’05 lineup of Dartmouth-friendly concerts and staged wrestlemania extravaganzae. Pink Floyd, whom you will never get to see in concert ever again, once rhapsodized, “School’s out for summer, school’s out forever!” While that may not be completely true, if you take my advice, nothing will be further from your mind than classes as you are carried away by the mellifluous power-pop riffs exploding from the onstage amps, hearing yourself involuntarily, even instinctively, join the exultant crowd in beseeching Avril: “Freebird! Freebird!”