Top 12 Arts Events of Week: Southside Johnny, Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival, more

SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY & THE ASBURY JUKES

Here is a roundup of arts events taking place around the state, through Sept. 9:

MUSIC

• Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes’ postponed Fourth of July week concert at the Stone Pony Summer Stage highlights an exceptionally busy week at the outdoor Asbury Park venue. They will perform Sept. 4 at 5 p.m., with an opening set by the Tangiers Blues Band. Also up this week: Kesha and Betty Who, Sept. 2 at 6:30 p.m.; the “Sad Summer Fest” with All Time Low, The Story So Far, Movements, The Maine, Grayscale, Pinkshift and Yours Truly, Sept. 3 at 2:30 p.m.; and “Stoked for the Summer” with The Bouncing Souls, The Menzingers, Sick Of It All, Suicide Machines and Soul Glo, Sept. 5 at 4:30 p.m.

The Jukes will also be at Exit Zero Ferry Park at the Cape May Ferry Terminal in North Cape May, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m., with the Ocean Avenue Stompers opening.

• After having to skip the summer of 2020 because of the pandemic, New Jersey’s largest bluegrass festival — the annual Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival at Salem County Fairgrounds in Woodstown — returns, Sept. 3-5, with main stage performers including the Del McCoury Band, Rhonda Vincent & the Rage, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Kathy Mattea, Danny Paisley & the Southern Grass, Kenny and Amanda Smith, Sister Sadie and others.

BEN FOLDS

• The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown has been presenting limited capacity shows in recent months but will return to full capacity shows in September, starting with the Pink Floyd tribute act, Brit Floyd (originally formed a decade ago in Liverpool), Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m.; and Ben Folds, Sept. 9 at 8 p.m.

• One of the state’s leading rock clubs, The Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, reopens after its pandemic hiatus, Sept. 4, with a concert by Bayside, Senses Fail, Hawthorne Heights and The Bombpops. Doors open at 6 p.m. Other upcoming headliners will include Sevendust, Sept. 9; Motionless in White, Sept. 11; Pop Evil, Sept. 16; and Skillet, Sept. 18.

• The pioneering progressive rock band King Crimson will perform at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, Sept. 4 at 7:30 p.m., with The Zappa Band — featuring former Frank Zappa collaborators such as singer-guitarist Ray White and guitarist-keyboardist Mike Keneally — opening. Robert Fripp, King Crimson’s founder and leader, is joined in the band’s current lineup by bassist Tony Levin, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jakko Jakszyk, saxophonist and flutist Mel Collins, drummer and keyboardist Jeremy Stacey, and drummers Pat Mastelotto and Gavin Harris.

More Than Q in Lambertville will host 3 Days of Peace & Brisket.

• On Sept. 5, 12 and 19 at 2 p.m., Todd’s Roadhouse at the More Than Q restaurant in Lambertville will present semi-unplugged music brunches featuring drummer Sim Cain (whose credits range from the Rollins Band to the J. Geils Band) and bassist Dave Haneman along with guests including Keith Kenny, Bill Fowler and Keith Hartel. The shows are being presented under the Woodstock-inspired name, 3 Days of Peace & Brisket.

• Bassist Martin Pizzarelli and his quintet will pay tribute to Pizzarelli’s late father, the legendary guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, Sept. 4 at 7 p.m., outdoors at the Morris Museum in Morris Township. The show had been scheduled to take place earlier in the summer but was postponed to Sept. 4 because of inclement weather. Pizzarelli will be joined by Felix Lemerle (guitar), Linus Wyrsch (saxophone, clarinet), Hyuna Park (piano) and Aaron Weinstein (violin).

THEATER

• Cape May Stage will present a production of Neil Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” — a comedy about a married man who tries to have affairs with three different women, without much luck — on Sept. 8, and it will run through Nov. 21. The play ran on Broadway from 1969 to 1971, and was made into a film starring Alan Arkin in 1972.

• Premiere Stages will launch its 17th season by presenting a new play, “Year One,” at the Bauer Boucher Theatre Center at Kean University in Union from Sept. 9 to Sept. 26. According to the Premiere Stages web site, the play is a family’s struggles when “a populist’s rise to power exacerbates mounting political and social divisions” in its country. Written by Erik Gernand, it was a finalist in Premiere Stages’ 2020/2021 Premiere Play Festival, an annual competition for unproduced scripts; Premiere Stages produced Gernand’s “The Beautiful Dark” in 2013.

A detail from Wadsworth Jarrell’s “Revolutionary,” which will be shown at the Zimmerli Art Museum’s “Angela Davis: Seize the Time” exhibition.

VISUAL ARTS

• The Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick will reopen, after closing for the pandemic, on Sept. 1, with some exhibits opening on that day and others opening on Sept. 8. Its featured exhibit for the 2021-22 season, opening Sept. 8 and running through June 15, will be “Angela Davis: Seize the Time,” a collection of art inspired by — and historical documents related to — the controversial ’60s and early ’70s activist. The artists “engage with her as a historical participant, thinker, and activist in a larger narrative that extends into the present,” according to the Zimmerli’s web site.

FILM

• The New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival takes place at The Showboat in Atlantic City, Sept. 3-5, with nonstop screenings, vendors, and appearances by actors including Billy Zane, Kerri Green, Ke Huy Quan, Tom Arnold and John O’Hurley. I’m not exactly a horror-movie fan, but I do recognize some of these names from other places: Billy Zane, for instance, from “Titanic,” John O’Hurley from “Seinfeld,” and Tom Arnold for being Tom Arnold.