John Mayer Performs at PPG Paints; Rose Royce Plays Hartwood; The Rex Hosts Snail Mail (Sun., 7/28/19)

1) John Mayer went from pop to blues to jam-band. Let’s chart this development. One of his first singles was “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” which won a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 2003. He moved to blues in the mid-aughts by collaborating with legends such as B.B. King, forming the John Mayer Trio, and releasing Continuum in 2006. Cut to a few albums later, and John Mayer became a Deadhead after hearing “Althea” on a Pandora station. He befriended Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir in 2015. The pair and Dead drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann soon formed Dead & Company, which toured in 2015 and every year since then. Dead & Company aren’t coming to Pittsburgh this year, but Mayer is. He will perform his solo work at PPG Paints Arena. Mayer’s latest album is 2017’s The Search for Everything. 7:30 p.m. 1001 Fifth Ave., Uptown. (CM)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH7vLvoS4M8

2) The Rolls-Royce is a big car, and a keeper. Rose Royce is a big R&B band—complete with horns as standard equipment—and they just keep on motoring, too. The L.A.-based musicians got their start in the early 1970s, performing a West Coast variant of the Motown sound. Their big break came when they were chosen to provide the music for the 1976 movie Car Wash. Their Car Wash soundtrack LP won the ’77 Grammy Award for that category. Rose Royce performs free at Hartwood Acres, along with special guests Steeltown Horns, as part of the Allegheny County Summer Concert Series. 7:30 p.m. 4070 Middle Rd., Allison Park. (MV)

3) Snail Mail is the project of Lindsey Jordan. Her debut, Lush, released in 2018, made many publications’ year-end best-of lists, and songs such as “Pristine” echo alt-rock veteran Liz Phair. She and her band will perform at The Rex Theater. Sasami, whose “Morning Comes” music video doubles as a Korean cooking show, opens. 8 p.m. 1602 E. Carson St., South Side. (CM)

The Strip District was crowded with bikes, walkers, and shoppers during OpenStreetsPGH. (photo: Heather McCracken)

4) OpenStreetsPGH is a fun event during which neighborhood streets are closed to auto traffic in certain parts of the city, so people can roll on through, whether biking, walking, or skateboarding. For the today’s OpenStreetsPGH, participants will roll through parts of Downtown, Uptown, and the South Side. There will be plenty of fun activities in each neighborhood. For more info, check out the OpenStreetsPGH website. 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

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