{"id":2005,"date":"2025-10-14T09:57:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2005\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T09:57:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:57:14","slug":"best-south-florida-pop-concerts-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2005\/","title":{"rendered":"Best South Florida pop concerts this season"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of our 2025 Guide to the Arts in PRIME Magazine, entertainment writer Ben Crandell offers his Critic\u2019s Picks for the best in pop shows coming up in South Florida. Want to see the full issue? Go to\u00a0SunSentinel.com\/prime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jon Batiste<\/p>\n

Oct. 9 at Broward Center, Fort Lauderdale. BrowardCenter.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Oscar-winning cultural avatar comes to South Florida on a 33-city tour supporting his acclaimed new album, \u201cBig Money,\u201d a beautiful and deeply personal statement, told in the Louisiana native\u2019s signature synthesis of R&B, Americana, soul, jazz, country and gospel music. In an Instagram post<\/a>, Jon Batiste explained the title: \u201cMoney is valuable because we collectively have decided it to be so. But the things that are eternally valuable and enduring last forever even when the currency changes. That\u2019s where the BIG money is.\u201d In a statement about the tour, he described these shows as a \u201ccreative church,\u201d meant to uplift the spirit. \u201cWe\u2019re living in a complicated time, and music has this incredible ability to reframe what we\u2019re feeling, to help us keep going,\u201d Batiste said. \u201cThese shows are meant to be healing, liberating and unforgettable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Billie Eilish<\/p>\n

Oct. 9 and Oct. 11-12 at Kaseya Center, Miami. Conventional tickets are sold out, but get updates at KaseyaCenter.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been more than five years since Billie Eilish last performed in South Florida \u2014 she opened The Where Do We Go? World Tour in the former AmericanAirlines Arena on March 9, 2020, and ended it days later when COVID-19 hit \u2014 so three nights of sellouts in Miami are no surprise. The captivating singer and songwriter has been on the road for a year with music from her brilliant album, \u201cHit Me Hard and Soft\u201d (somehow shut out at the Grammys this year despite seven nominations), a tour that has encouraged rapturous praise for its authenticity, intimacy and moments of cinematic grandeur. A Billboard magazine review<\/a> lauded the tour\u2019s opening night at Madison Square Garden as a display of her \u201cremarkable growth as a musician, vocalist, and performer, as well as her almost singular ability to cultivate intimacy in spaces that are diametrically opposed to that feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Billie<\/p>\n

Chris Pizzello\/Chris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP<\/p>\n

Billie Eilish has not performed in South Florida since 2020, when she opened her tour in Miami days before the COVID-19 pandemic ended it. (Chris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP)
\nThe Magnetic Fields<\/p>\n

Nov. 1-2 at Arsht Center, Miami; ArshtCenter.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Magnetic Fields and creative majordomo Stephin Merritt are on the road celebrating the 25th anniversary of the gloriously eclectic and influential double album \u201c69 Love Songs,\u201d a 1999 release that prompted even the prickly arbiters of cool at Pitchfork to bend a knee<\/a>: \u201cThere\u2019s only one question that really needs to be asked of \u201869 Love Songs\u2019: Is it a brilliant masterpiece or merely very, very good?\u201d The band will bring the show \u2014 performances of the album in the entirety of its three hours of music over two nights at the venue \u2014 to South Florida, tucked between
several European dates. Who says we\u2019re not cool?\u00a0 For more on the tour, visit HouseOfTomorrow.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Singer-songwriterSinger-songwriter David Byrne will play two shows at The Fillmore Miami Beach in December. (Shervin Lainez\/Courtesy)
\nDavid Byrne<\/p>\n

Dec. 5-6 at The Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater. Ticketmaster.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The enigmatic Talking Heads frontman announced his 2025 tour with the release of \u201cEverybody Laughs<\/a>,\u201d a single from his Kid Harpoon-produced album \u201cWho Is the Sky?\u201d As a tone-setter for the tour, the song is a subversive balm \u2014 Byrne in celebration of our shared experience, the relentlessness of the human spirit, with his uncanny ability to distill the joys, sorrows and idiosyncrasies of day-to-day existence into a danceable musical elixir. The concept of his fall tour is \u201cunlike anything I\u2019ve done before,\u201d he says on Instagram<\/a>. \u201cYou\u2019ll just have to come and experience what that involves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BringingBringing their tour to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 7, Bill Murray & His Blood Brothers are, from left, Mike Zito, Bill Murray, Jimmy Vivino and South Florida guitarist Albert Castiglia. (Broward Center for the Performing Arts\/Courtesy)
\nBill Murray & His Blood Brothers<\/p>\n

Dec. 7, Broward Center, Fort Lauderdale. BrowardCenter.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The band is a mashup of actor Bill Murray, also a vocalist of wide-ranging musical interests (he has performed with John Prine and famed cellist Jan Vogler); Canned Heat icon Jimmy Vivino (also once Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s musical director); and Blood Brothers, the award-winning collaboration between Wilton Manors-based guitarist Albert Castiglia and acclaimed bluesman Mike Zito. Blood Brothers\u2019 self-titled debut album won the award for Blues Rock Album of the Year at the 2024 Blues Music Awards. But what to expect? Along with a sprinkling of Blood Brothers songs, sets have featured covers of The Kinks\u2019 \u201cTired of Waiting for You,\u201d Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cLike a Rolling Stone,\u201d blues standards such as Howlin\u2019 Wolf\u2019s \u201cGoin\u2019 Down Slow,\u201d Wilson Pickett\u2019s soul classic \u201cIn the Midnight Hour\u201d and random modern tracks including Prince\u2019s \u201cLittle Red Corvette\u201d and Radiohead\u2019s \u201cCreep.\u201d If you follow Castiglia on social media<\/a>, you know that a tour with Bill Murray is as much fun as you\u2019d expect. Cult-y \u201990s Gainesville jammers Big Sky will open.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 8, 2025 at 8:00 AM EDT<\/p>\n