Pop Review

For the last song of the Head and the Heart's set at the Music Box on Thursday, "Rivers and Roads," the band slowed down to a tense build. The acoustic guitars took on a head of stream, the low-tuned drums pounded like a distant, gathering storm. Finally, at the big payoff crescendo, singer-violinist Charity Rose Thielen took the mic and ripped off a Southern-soul shout that seemed to come from a wholly new well of primal, musical joy for the band. The Music Box crowd went ballistic.

There is an element of calm amid the chaos in Travis Barker's dressing room. It's hours before showtime at Blink-182's concert at the Honda Center in Anaheim, and Barker's three kids are running wild, banging on his drum kit, spinning on a skateboard, playing an unplugged electric guitar, happily tumbling and laughing. The drummer watches it all with genuine serenity. Even on tour, he keeps the three children close whenever possible. "My kids were very healing for me," he says. At 35, Barker looks much as he always has, in a backward baseball cap and elaborate tattoos etched across his wiry, muscular body.

"They're a bunch of rockers. They love women. They love whiskey. They love weed. They play amazing music. " Renaud Barret could be talking about the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin in their hedonistic prime. Or maybe N.W.A., when he adds that the musicians in question also had lives as "thugs" and "gangsters. " There is one other thing. "And oh yes, they're disabled. " Indeed they are, they being Staff Benda Bilili, which hails not from London or Compton, but from the Democratic Republic of the Congo capital Kinshasa.

Elbow with Devotchka Where: Greek Theatre, 2700 N. Vermont Ave. When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday Price: $29-$40 Info: http://www.greektheatrela.com

"Have you seen any butterflies?" Not the first words one would expect to come from Elbow founder Guy Garvey's mouth, but Toronto is in the midst of the monarch butterfly's annual migration south, something that has piqued the curiosity of the 37-year-old Brit. Elbow is in the middle of its own kind of travel: touring in support of its most recent album, the Mercury Prize-nominated "Build a Rocket Boys!," its fifth full-length release. The band won the prestigious Mercury — which honors the best British record of the year — for 2007's "The Seldom Seen Kid" but remains a relative cult band in America.

The volume seemed to be turning up: Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings were moving away from acoustic austerity, growing comfortable rocking out. Their last album, "Soul Journey," saw these Nashville alt-folkies jolting their sound with electricity and a backbeat. Rawlings has stepped out as a producer — indie rockers Bright Eyes, the shambling Old Crow Medicine Show — and the duo guested on the Decemberists' breakout, "The King Is Dead. " Could this mid-career acoustic duo — in its first release in eight years — be ready for a similar lunge into the mainstream?

On Friday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Ryan Seacrest made a bold announcement, the same one that peppered many of the ads for the first I Heart Radio music festival. "This is the biggest live music event in radio history," he declared of the two-night extravaganza that brought onto the same stage, among others, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Carrie Underwood, Coldplay, Steven Tyler, Sting, Randy Jackson, Nicki Minaj, Rascal Flatts, Bruno Mars, Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Sting, Kenny Chesney and Lady Gaga.  Seacrest, best known for his work on "American Idol," as host of the long-running "American Top 40" radio program and, for Angelenos, the morning drive-time DJ for KIIS-FM (102.7)

No to caskets, sanitary napkins and rolling papers. Yes to snowboards, skateboards and wine. After closely guarding their music and logos for decades, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead are significantly increasing their merchandising and licensing deals. The pioneering jam band's music has appeared in at least four movies since April, and over the last several months, the number of licensees has increased 20%, including new deals with Burton snowboards, Dregs skateboards and Wines That Rock.

Serge Gainsbourg Tribute Where: Hollywood Bowl When: 7 p.m., Sunday Price: $12-$134 Info: (323) 850-2000; http://www.hollywoodbowl.com