Well, I dropped the ball on this one, and am already behind. Hopefully, you already knew that Cold was in Columbus at The King of Clubs last Saturday night. If not, my bad. The Jacksonville outfit also visited Cleveland two nights prior but won’t be back in Ohio for the remainder of the tour. They will visit nearby Indianapolis, Lexington, KY and Covington, KY to end the jaunt on May 30th through June 1st if you want to make the trek to see them.

If you are in the Cincinnati area, southern rock legends ZZ Top are rolling into the Queen City TONIGHT at the Andrew Brady Music Center. Plenty of tickets remain available and range from $46 to $165. They can be purchased here. I’ve been fortunate enough to see ZZ Top twice and they were stellar both times. This is the Houston trio’s only announced visit to the Buckeye State this year.

Classic era Queensryche vocalist Geoff Tate is on tour and visiting each of the three big C’s of Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus. On April 12th he’ll be playing at the Taft Theatre in Cincy. On the 15th he’ll play TempleLive Cleveland and on the 16th he will visit TempleLive Columbus. The tour is featured as the final time that Tate will play Queensryche’s famous Operation Mindcrime album in its entirety. Tickets are still available for all three shows through Ticketmaster. If you dig 80’s era metal, this is a show worth looking into. My buddy Dan and I met Geoff Tate several years ago as part of an after show meet and greet from a Queensryche gig. The show was fantastic.

Thursday, April 17th, folk rock legend Bob Dylan stops in Toledo at the Stranahan Theater. This show is sold out. Two nights later the music icon stops in Youngstown at the Powers Auditorium. At the time that I am writing this, there are three total tickets still available. Dylan, who will turn 84 in May, is one of the most influential songwriters of all time.

April 19th brings options to people in Columbus. Icons like Bob Dylan? No. However, rock favorites from nearby Point Pleasant, West Virginia that have adopted Columbus as a second home, Bobaflex will be playing a rare live show at The Newport Music Hall. The band has largely been quiet for the better part of a decade as some members have moved on to a quieter life and others have soldiered on with a new project: The Lonely Ones. Occasionally, though, the McCoy brothers convene the Bobaflex band to do these one off shows at The Newport. General admission tickets are still available for $20 and can be purchased here. They aren’t all that active these days, but Bobaflex used to play anywhere and everywhere in the Buckeye State. They’ve played its biggest festival, the former Rock on the Range, but I’ve also seen them three times in Marion and another time in Mount Vernon. They aren’t in it for the stardom, they just want to play live shows…and they’ll probably party with you afterwards.

Across town, at the same time, at A&R Music Bar will be New York rockers Wheatus. Admittedly, I don’t know anything about them outside of their absolute banger; “Teenage Dirtbag”. Tickets are available here for only $17-22. At that price point, you really can’t go wrong. At the bare minimum, you’re going to get live music and get to sing along to one of the most iconic rock songs of the early 2000’s. It’s kind of hard to not have a good time under those circumstances. If you’re closer to the Cleveland area, they will be in Lakewood the night before at Mahall’s.

Wrapping up April will be arena rock legends Journey. They are coming to Cleveland for a private concert for season ticket holders of the Cleveland Browns on April 24th. The concert will be a Draft Day party and will feature a full headlining set at Huntington Bank Field, the home stadium of the Browns. Tickets are free for Browns season ticket holders. As of now, they are available for purchase from Ticketmaster as resell tickets. The current range is $20-$182. I expect these prices to steadily drop. Ohio weather in April is unpredictable and a band like Journey is not going to want to play to an empty stadium. If you know a Browns season ticket holder, reach out to them for their tickets if they aren’t going to go. Journey has been a great performance each of the several times that I have seen them over the years; albeit with three different singers. Few bands have a catalog of tracks that everyone knows every word to. Journey is one of them. This one should be a good time as long as the band members keep their egos in check and leave their drama in San Francisco.

That wraps it up for April. Go try to see some live music! If April doesn’t do it for ya, don’t worry, we’ve got the big boys coming up in May.