Critics Picks: Bruce Springsteen and more

The second leg of Springsteen's Magic tour brings the E Street crew back to St. Paul, still riding high on the album's resurrection of classic Jersey Shore thunder and brimstone. The former billowed up out of Magic's monster hooks and the rolling waves of Clarence Clemons's sax, Max Weinberg's drums, and Roy Bittan's piano. The latter flowed from Springsteen's anguished depiction of black magic rotting the national spirit in song after song on the album, an unsettling, adeptly nuanced portrait of a country adrift with lunatics at the helm. With the election season offering renewed promise for routing the bastards, the fall tour under his belt, and Patti Scialfa back for emotional and vocal support, count on Bruce and the boys to be even more fired up than they were in November. $67-$97. 7:30 p.m. 175 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul; 651.726.8240. —Rick Mason

MONDAY 3.17

The Raveonettes

First Avenue

Torn between grungy dissonance and sugary pop conceits, the Danish duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo tilted precipitously toward the latter sound on 2005's Pretty in Black, whose bubbly girl-group confections stirred consternation among those expecting more darkness on the edge of Copenhagen. Their new Lust Lust Lust (Vice) is a major correction, with ominous, brooding gusts of troubled beauty dominating. The music is still marbled with pop affectations, but they're leavened with doses of sheer irony, yielding an unsettling, hallucinatory quality. The opening track, "Aly, Walk with Me," is laced with acid-edged noire guitar lines that slice across a melodramatic hip-hop pulse before erupting in clouds of noisy anguish. Pop giddiness reaches a peak on the catchy but still haunting "You Want the Candy." But all the threads of surf guitar and Ronettes vocals teasingly strewn throughout the album only snipe at its grim, dominant image of love doomed from its first lustful ache. $15. 8 p.m. 701 First Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612.332.1775. —Rick Mason

TUESDAY 3.18

Bon Jovi

Xcel Energy Center

When you set your personal best on that YMCA Stairmaster, Bon Jovi was there. When you made the half-mile drive home from Grumpy's Northeast with a belly full of rail whiskey, Bon Jovi was there. And when you finally stormed out of your deadbeat boyfriend's apartment and into your Ford Taurus resolutely clutching an armful of books and underwear, Bon Jovi was there. "Living on a Prayer." "Bed of Roses." "Blaze of Glory." These are battle hymns of the modern age, and they have survived every breakup, blacked-out karaoke performance, and shower sing-along you've thrown at them. Though the enthusiasm with which you once bellowed the chorus to "Wanted Dead or Alive" may feel foolish now that you're all grown up, remember this when you look back upon your life—the times when you saw only one set of footprints in the sand, it was then that Bon Jovi carried you. $49.50-$131.50. 7:30 p.m. 175 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul; 651.726.8240. Also Wednesday, March 19 —David Hansen