America Plays The Palace; Roxian Hosts Hippo Campus (Fri., 3/11/22)

1) Did you know that all three members of America grew up in England? The trio met in high school in London in the ’60s, all three the sons of British mothers and American military fathers. They took on the moniker “America” as a rather on-the-nose way of signaling their preferred national identities while playing clubs across the pond. The group will long be remembered for the iconic “A Horse with No Name,” and other songs like “Ventura Highway” and “You Can Do Magic.” Those  hits represents only a tiny fraction of the group’s musical library, which spans over 30 albums and five decades. The band’s last studio album was 2015’s Lost & Found.  7:30 p.m. Palace Theatre, 21 W. Otterman St., Greensburg. (E.C., R.H.)

2) Pittsburgh has gotten to watch the rise of a great indie-rock band, Hippo Campus. The group gave a landmark performance at the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival in 2017 and later that year played Mr. Smalls. On this trip they will be in concert at the Roxian Theatre. Their music combines Animal Collective-esque harmonies with Vampire Weekend’s world-music rhythms. What’s even more impressive is how fully formed the group sounds despite the members’ relative youth. The Animal Collective parallels are sure to persist, for like their noise-rock forebears, all the members used to perform under the eccentric stage names: Turntan, Stitches, Espo, and Beans. Their latest album release is LP3 which dropped in February. Jelani Aryeh opens. 7 p.m. 425 Chartiers Ave., McKees Rocks (C.M., R.H.)

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