Live Music: Big Daddy Kane, Dead Can Dance

This week's top Bay Area concert picks

Dead Can Dance (Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry) stops at Berkeley's Greek Theatre on August 10, one day after the release of Live Happenings, the band's first album in 16 years. Since the duo always had a mastery of crossing genre boundaries with its dream pop songs, the show is sure to attract a curious mix of gothic and world music fans that might alone be worth the price of admission.

Concord's Sleep Train Pavilion plays host to a talented bill of classic soulful performers on August 10. Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, which got its start in San Francisco in the early Seventies, headlines a multi-generational bill of legends that also includes Patti LaBelle, the O'Jays, Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, and Tank.

Big Daddy Kane, hip-hop's original smooth operator, performs a rare and intimate show in the lounge at Yoshi's in San Francisco on August 11. Where a typical rap concert features little more than a microphone and a DJ, a Big Daddy Kane show promises non-stop dancing in the tradition of James Brown. It's a guarantee he's going to work harder than anyone in the place, though there should be no shortage of sweaty, moving bodies.

Scalper alert: The massive Outside Lands festival, held August 10-12 in Golden Gate Park, is now officially sold out, but the creative and/or resourceful can probably still find a way to find a pass, or at least time a nice bike ride or walk outside the festival grounds but still inside the park and within earshot. With headliners including Metallica and Stevie Wonder, it's an activity that might just be worth considering.

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