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" What&amp;#039;s that? You say you like summer concert festivals? Outside, in the heat, with a field packed full of dead grass and strangers in various stages of undress? You want to make a pilgrimage to the men&amp;#039;s room, which isn&amp;#039;t really a room, and lacks plumbing? The festival where you wait through eight acts to get to your favorite? That&amp;#039;s your game, is it?  Try this instead: Go to a club. A small one. Get close to a good band and enjoy it. Buy yourself a beer. If I&amp;#039;m there, I&amp;#039;ll buy you another. Seeing a band in an intimate club is elemental, and perfect summer. Everybody at the show is there for the same reason, to see the same band. And it does make a difference. A festival is like a long tasting menu at a fancy restaurant: It&amp;#039;s very expensive, there are a lot of courses you didn&amp;#039;t order and water is expensive.  Here&amp;#039;s a handful of summer shows from around the country that will get you to the right, visceral state of mind with no chance of getting sunburn.  Os Mutantes: Maxwell&amp;#039;s, Hoboken, New Jersey, June 28 Yo La Tengo&amp;#039;s favorite club for good reason is closing later this year. It&amp;#039;s tragic news and a perfect reason to make a pilgrimage. We just saw We Were Promised Jetpacks last weekend and it was terrific: visceral and propulsive. Any show is worthwhile \u2014 many are sold out. But Brazil psychedelic rockers Os Mutantes should be a wild ride. Get your last licks in while you can.  Son Volt: The 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, June 20 Jay Farrar, formerly of Uncle Tupelo, explores classic Americana in carefully wrought songs. Son Volt is supporting their new record, Honky Tonk, and it should be an evening of bittersweet pleasures and lessons learned. The bourbon will go down easy.  Weekend: The Independent, San Francisco, July 26 Weekend understands the season \u2014 the opening song on their debut record is called &amp;quot;Coma Summer.&amp;quot; Influenced by Ride, My Bloody Valentine, and other misanthropic shoegazers, this band thrives with a mix of swirling guitars, distorted vocals, and bass lines that move. Jinx, their second album, comes out in July. Exhilarating. Cracker + Camper Van Beethoven: Mohawk, Austin, July 26 This is technically on the small outdoor stage of the venerable Austin club, but you make an exception when you get a chance to see a double bill of David Lowery&amp;#039;s bands. Cracker has a more overt country influence, and while Lowery&amp;#039;s voice has grown wiser and more wistful with age, Camper Van Beethoven still makes mischief of the best kind.  Best Coast: First Avenue, Minneapolis, July 31 This is the club that Prince made famous (though the stage has been blessed by everyone from James Brown to R.E.M.). Best Coast, the LA lo-fi duo, is a band that was made to be seen in summer. Their new record, The Only Place, is a tribute to Los Angeles: sunny, infectious, laced with nostalgia. --David Coggins is a writer living in New York. Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a23123/best-summer-music-shows-2013/>