Godsmack, Breaking Benjamin

SPAC is back, and kicking off with Godsmack. Yep, Godsmack, who took their name from a song off Alice in Chains’ heroin-saturated album Dirt, will perform the first concert of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center pop-music season on Sunday. The Boston-based alt-metal group were first noticed when their independently released debut got them signed, in ’98, to Universal, which rereleased the album with a different name (the band’s) and some additional tracks, and they were immediately embroiled in the mandatory-music-rating controversy due to some cussing (Wal-Mart and Kmart pulled the record from their racks toot sweet). The attention helped Godsmack sell more than 4 million copies of the disc.

It’s five years later, and the lads who brought us the hits “Whatever” and “Keep Away”—not to mention “Vampires,” from their sophomore effort, the double-platinum seller Awake, and “I Stand Alone, from the movie The Scorpion King—are touring behind their third long-player, Faceless. The record finds the band returning to their roots: rock. “That’s something the kids have been deprived of for a while,” frontman-singer Sully Erna told VH-1. “This record is a real rock record.” Alt-metal band Breaking Benjamin will open the show—a pavilion-only event—on Sunday (May 25) at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $35, $37 day of the show, and can be purchased from Ticketmaster outlets or by calling 476-1000.

You can check out the rest of SPAC’s musical offerings in the upcoming section of our Clubs and Concerts listings [page 40] or online at www.saratogaconcerts.com.

Close Encounters With Music

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Close Encounters With Music invites you to savor this and many more samples of the Bard’s sonnets and soliloquies in a program of musical exploration, Measure for Measure: Shakespeare in Music, taking place Saturday at Tanglewood. Music inspired by Shakespearean themes will be presented side-by-side with the relevant original texts. There will be a diverse selection of works by Berlioz, Schubert, Strauss (Richard), Vaughn Williams, Korngold, Haydn and Mendelssohn, plus the premiere of . . . When Music Play’st Upon That Blessed Wood by Kenji Bunch. Explaining the concept behind the program, CEWM artistic director Yehuda Hanani noted that “drawn by the emotional power and range of Shakespeare, composers have found in him a muse to address the most profound human experiences through the medium of music.”

Joining a stellar lineup of musicians—Jennifer Aylmer, soprano, William Sharp, baritone, Hanani, cello, and Eliran Avni, piano—will be an actress you may have heard of, Sigourney Weaver. In addition to her various cinematic battles with acid-drooling space creatures and giant marshmallow men, Weaver has played in numerous productions of Shakespeare on stage.

Measure for Measure: Shakespeare in Music will be presented Saturday (May 24) at 6 PM at Ozawa Hall (Tanglewood, Lenox, Mass.). Tickets are $30 and $25. Preferred seating and a patron’s reception are available for $100. For reservations and information, call (800) 843-0778.

Charles Myers

Abstract painter Charles Myers utilizes a technique for creating depth, dimension and solidity in his paintings that may be novel to many viewers: The New York City-born artist—who until recently was a professor of studio art and art history at the City University of New York—is a practitioner of “encaustic” painting, in which pigment is combined with melted beeswax and resin and allows the painter to create images of very high relief. It’s a technique that was used by the ancient Greeks, but modern artists such as Diego Rivera and Jasper Johns have been attracted to this durable, versatile medium as well.

For Myers, the ability to “build out” with his paintings, rather than just apply paint to a flat surface, enhances his “inside way of conversing with himself through paint.”

Beginning on Saturday (May 24) and running through June 21, Myers’ encaustic works will be exhibited at the Hudson Opera House (327 Warren St., Hudson). An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 PM on Saturday. For more information, call 822-1438.