Music & Nightlife

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Best NYC music & nightlife: Critics' picks

Lower East Side Festival of the Arts

  • Critics choice
  • Free

Poets, playwrights, puppeteers and other performers in and around the Lower East Side will partake in this annual gathering centered at the Theater for the New City.

  1. Theater for the New City 155 First Ave, between 9th and 10th Sts
  2. Fri May 24 - Sun May 26
More info

Governors Island

  • Critics choice
  • Free

The gratis ferry runs to this carless oasis through September, transporting New Yorkers to bike rental, concerts and art events. This year, New-York Historical Society curates the exhibit “WWII &

  1. Governors Island Governors Island
  2. Sat May 25 - Sun Sep 29
More info

The Shins

  • Price band: 3/4
  • Critics choice

The band hitting Terminal 5 this week for a three-night stand shares exactly one member with the group Natalie Portman famously promised would change your life: frontman James Mercer, who followed

  1. Williamsburg Park Kent Ave, at North 12th St
  2. Sun May 26
More info

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

  • Price band: 3/4
  • Critics choice

Few would contend that Tom Petty deserves the rock-bard designation rightly bestowed on Neil Young or Bob Dylan, but then again, Petty has penned more indelible radio hits than the other two

  1. Beacon Theatre 2124 Broadway, at 74th St
  2. Thu May 23 - Sun May 26
More info
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