Green Flag Drops to Open Vintage Grand Prix Weekend; Mayhem Festival with Slayer and Devil Wears Prada (Sat., 7/18/15)

1) Drivers start your engines! Fans lower your tailgates! It’s the start of the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix race weekend in Schenley Park. One of America’s largest vintage race events. Today’s featured events include practice runs (8:15 a.m. – noon); race qualifying heats with over 150 vintage racers (1 – 5 p.m.); car shows featuring international and British cars (9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.). The “Marques of Italy” is the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix’s Marque of the Year 2015. For a $40 charitable donation you can even take a lap around the course as a passenger in a vintage racer through the Vintage Ride Experience (noon – 1 p.m.). Race heats are tomorrow from noon to 5 p.m.. Charities benefiting from race proceeds are the Autism Society of Pittsburgh and the Allegheny Valley School. Free.

Hey metalheads! It’s your time of year again: The Mayhem Festival comes to First Niagara Pavilion. Kick off your loafers and don your steel-toed boots; armor up and get ready to mosh. Headlining this year is Slayer, supported on the main bill by King Diamond, Hellyeah, and The Devil Wears Prada. Slayer’s heavy guitar riffs and intense vocals come to us for a night of serious headbanging. An inspiration to bands like Slipknot, System of a Down, and Lamb of God, Slayer has been rockin’ out since the early ’80s and is considered by many to be a major influence in the death metal subculture. We’re bound to hear some older material like “Seasons in the Abyss” and maybe even “Bloodline,” complemented by new stuff from more than a dozen of the country’s most promising hard rock, heavy metal, and metalcore bands (a full list is on the Festival’s site). Doors open 1 p.m. 665 Rt. 18, Burgettstown.

Nine-time Grammy winner Natalie Cole performs in Washington, PA, as part of The Meadows Summer Concert Series. Cole, daughter of jazz pianist and crooner Nat King Cole, is best known for 1991’s Unforgettable… With Love, an album of standards previously performed by her father, which went seven times platinum and scooped six Grammys. More recently, she’s been collecting awards for her Spanish-language album, Natalie Cole en Español, released in 2013. And, echoing the succesful “Unforgettable,” in which she sang a duet with a recording of her late father, the album features the duet “Acercate Mas,” using a recently discovered recording of  Nat King Cole singing in Cuba in 1956. It’s the 23rd studio album for the singer, who has struggled recently with health problems. Good to see her touring again. 8 p.m. 210 Racetrack Rd., Washington. (HM)

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