FRIDAY:
Dear organizers of tonight’s Cryfest — Cure vs. Smiths Dance Party on the Black Cat mainstage: Did we go to the same high school? Because, really, I thought I was the only one who spent several nights a week as an awkward teenager perfecting the disaffected side-to-side shuffle that is the only kind of actual “dancing” one can do to this music. Meet me there tonight, OK? I’ll be the one in the raccoon eye make-up, smoking a clove cigarette. You be the guy with the black fingernails and the sun allergy. Featuring DJ Steve EP, Melli Mel, and Killa K. $9
SATURDAY:
>> Cake has brought its Unlimited Sunshine Tour back around for the first time in three years, but considering 2004’s Pressure Chief was kinda terrible, we can only guess that this show has sold out for a mixture of nostalgia for what Cake once was and an excessively strong line-up of supporting acts — and heavy on the latter. I’ve seen Gogol Bordello twice in the last year, and both times I was moved to dance until I got a stitch in my side (note to moshing fans: stand up front for your chance to get lassoed by a gypsy punk life preserver). Not to mention Canadian cuties and indie pop darlings Tegan & Sara, along with New York’s jack-of-all trades comedian Eugene Mirman. At the 9:30 Club. Doors at 8 p.m. Try Craig for tickets.
>> Were you stuck working behind the bar on New Year’s Eve instead living it up on the other side? Or maybe you just spent the night doing something (or someone) you regret and wish you had a do-over. Well, the folks at Clarendon Ballroom have put together a Slacker’s New Year’s Eve Party featuring Kristen and the Noise for only $10.
>> Hardcore fans of darkly comic playwright Neil Labute no doubt already have their tickets for Studio Theater’s A Day in Labuteville for next weekend, when the man himself is scheduled to be in attendance — but those performances quickly sold out. For the rest of us, tickets are still available for this weekend’s Labute extravaganza, which includes a 2 p.m. matinee of Fat Pig (read DCist’s review here), a 5 p.m. performance of Seconds of Pleasure, a reading of Labute’s latest prose work, followed by a gourmet box dinner, and concluding with a performance of Autobahn. Total cost for the entire evening: $100 — which may sound like a lot, but for three shows and a meal, it’s really a steal. Saturday and Sunday.
SUNDAY:
>> Nights in Cabiria is the film Federico Fellini made just before his masterpiece La Dolce Vita, and you get a real sense from it of the themes that the master auteur was grappling with at this time in his life. Indeed, Fellini would eventually flesh out these early-appearing themes of the loneliness of the end of youth and the impossibility of love in the modern world in Dolce. The film stars Giulietta Masina, Fellini’s real-life wife, as an unlucky-in-love Roman prostitute, and will be followed next weekend by La Strada, the couple’s other well-known collaboration. At the AFI Silver Theatre, 1:20 p.m.
>> Fabulous emo orchestral rockers and Boston College alums Aberdeen City are at Warehouse Nextdoor, with Criteria and ADHD. 8:30 p.m.
