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GWEN STEFANI Given all the American Idol ham and cheese glutting the Top 40, perdurable pop princess Gwen Stefani is a welcome relief. Though she’s superficial to the point of noxiousness and obsessed with amassing cultural cache, her ridiculous affectations make up for it. Her worst ideas are her most interesting: releasing a single with a yodeling chorus, hiring Harajuku girls as her posse, passing off sports bras as haute couture. The whole “I have feelings and those feelings are sad” routine she pulled on last year’s The Sweet Escape (Interscope) was as terrible as anything she’s ever done, but true to form, it only made her shtick more fascinating. In her CD-booklet photos she looks like a made-up mannequin, staring into the distance as one crystalline tear courses down her expressionless face. Akon and Lady Sovereign open. a 8 PM, First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, I-80 & Harlem, Tinley Park, 708-614-1616 or 312-559-1212, $25-$69.50. A –Jessica Hopper
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Gang Gang Dance headlines and Ocrilim plays second; Teith, a side project of Pelican guitarist Trevor de Brauw, opens. a 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $10.
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cFRED ANDERSON & HAMID DRAKE See Tuesday. This is a record-release party; Jeff Parker, Harrison Bankhead, and Josh Abrams round out the lineup. a 9 PM, Velvet Lounge, 67 E. Cermak, 312-791-9050, $15.
c chicago symphony orchestra and chorus Verdi’s Requiem was inspired by the deaths of two of Italy’s beacons of culture and identity: Rossini and Manzoni. The seed of the work–the concluding “Libera Me”–was Verdi’s contribution to a failed attempt at honoring Rossini with a requiem written jointly by 13 leading Italian composers. In late operas like Aida and Otello, Verdi’s music seeps into the libretto’s cracks, perfectly matching the shifting moods and events. Similarly, his Requiem illuminates the Latin texts with writing so highly charged that his contemporary, the conductor Hans von Bulow, famously referred to the mass as “opera in ecclesiastical robes.” Verdi’s range of expression–from hushed solemnity to aching tenderness to frightful fury–is breathtaking. David Zinman leads the CSO and chorus with soloists Sondra Radvanovsky (soprano), Yvonne Naef (mezzo-soprano), Giuseppe Sabbatini (tenor), and Ildar Abdrazakov (bass), all of whom have powerful operatic voices. CSO Chorus director Duain Wolfe gives a preconcert lecture at 7 PM. a 8 PM, Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan, 312-294-3000 or 800-223-7114, $22-$199. Also Fri 6/15 and Sat 6/16, 8 PM. –Steve Langendorf
