The power couple is expecting their third child, the rapper A$AP Rocky revealed.

“It feels amazing, you know,” gala co-chair A$AP Rocky told reporters who congratulated him Monday after outlets reported the couple was expecting their third child. “It’s time that we show the people what we was cooking up. And I’m glad everybody’s happy for us ’cause we definitely happy, you know.”

TMZ reported earlier Monday that Rihanna and the rapper were expecting their third child.

A representative for Rihanna didn’t immediately return The Associated Press’ request for comment.

Photos taken of the singer Monday walking in New York showed her with what appeared to be a baby bump.

Rihanna hasn’t yet walked the Met Gala carpet.

“Honestly, it’s a blessing nonetheless,” Rocky told the AP. “Because you know how like some people in other situations at times can be envious of other people. But we’ve been seeing love for the most part. And we real receptive to that and appreciate that, you know what I mean? That’s love. Love is love.”

The couple announced their last pregnancy in a similarly starry way: At the 2023 Super Bowl, Rihanna emerged on stage for her halftime performance with baby bump on full display. Their son Riot Rose was born later that year.

The couple’s first child, RZA, was born in May 2022.

Rocky is one of the 2025 Met Gala co-chairs of the menswear-theme event tied to the museum’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. ” But his attendance at this year’s Met Gala wasn’t always a sure bet. That announcement came a couple months before the opening of his trial on firearms charges in Los Angeles. Rocky was ultimately found not guilty in mid-February.

At his trial, he showed his eye for fashion. He sported tailored suits and luxury labels throughout the proceedings. Yves Saint Laurent even put out press releases directing attention to his high-fashion court attire. He was clad in a pinstripe Saint Laurent suit for the verdict.

He’s collaborated with several designers and brands on shoes, sunglasses and clothing collections. In December, he was honored with the Cultural Innovator Award at the British Fashion Council’s Fashion Awards.

AP journalists Gary Gerard Hamilton, Maria Sherman and Mallika Sen contributed to this report.

Several dozen prospective jurors got a brief description of the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against Combs from the judge, Arun Subramanian, who reminded them that Combs had pleaded not guilty and was presumed innocent.

As the judge spoke, Combs sat with his lawyers. He wore a sweater over a white collared shirt and gray slacks, which the judge had allowed rather than jail clothing. Combs, 55, has been held in a grim federal lockup in Brooklyn since his arrest last September. His hair and goatee were almost fully gray because dye isn’t allowed in jail.

Unlike other recent high-profile celebrity trials, Combs’ court case won’t be broadcast live because federal courtrooms don’t allow electronic recordings inside — meaning courtroom sketch artists serve as the public’s eyes in the courtroom.

The trial is expected to take at least eight weeks. If convicted, he faces the possibility of decades in prison.

Several prospective jurors indicated they had seen news reports featuring a key piece of evidence in the case: a video of the hip-hop mogul hitting and kicking one of his accusers in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. One prospective juror described a still image she saw from the video as “damning evidence.” That woman was rejected from consideration.

After another juror was dismissed, Combs asked for a bathroom break, telling the judge, “I’m sorry your honor I’m a little nervous today.”

The 17-page indictment against Combs — which reads like a charging document filed against a Mafia leader or the head of a drug gang — alleges that Combs engaged in a two-decade pattern of abusive behavior against women and others, with the help of people in his entourage and employees from his network of businesses.

Combs and his lawyers say he’s innocent and any group sex was consensual. They say there was no effort to coerce people into things they didn’t want to do, and nothing that happened amounted to a criminal racket.

Prosecutors say women were manipulated into drug-fueled sexual performances with male sex workers that Combs called “Freak Offs.” To keep women in line, prosecutors say Combs used a mix of influence and violence: He offered to boost their entertainment careers if they did what he asked — or cut them off if they didn’t.

And when he wasn’t getting what he wanted, the indictment says Combs and his associates resorted to violent acts including beatings, kidnapping and arson. Once, the indictment alleges, he even dangled someone from a balcony.

Combs has acknowledged one episode of violence that is likely to be featured in the trial. In 2016, a security camera recorded him beating up his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel. Cassie filed a lawsuit in late 2023 saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, did.

Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo, has said Combs was “not a perfect person” and that there had been drug use and toxic relationships, but said all sexual activity between Combs, Cassie and other people was consensual.

The trial is the most serious in a long string of legal problems for Combs.

In 1999 he was charged with bursting into the offices of an Interscope Records executive with his bodyguards and beating him with a champagne bottle and a chair. The executive, Steve Stoute, later asked prosecutors to go easy on Combs, who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and took an anger management class.

Later that same year, Combs was stopped by police after he and his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, fled a nightclub where three people were wounded by gunfire. Combs was acquitted of all charges related to the episode at a 2001 trial, but a rapper in his entourage, Jamal “Shyne” Barrow, was convicted in the shooting and served nearly nine years in prison.

Then in 2015, Combs was charged with assaulting someone with a weight-room kettlebell at the University of California, Los Angeles, where one of his sons played football. Combs said he was defending himself and prosecutors dropped the case.

The mega group (comprised of band members Blau, Hasani Cannon, Rahila Coats, Scott Daniel, Carmani Edwards, Willfred Farquharson, Alejandro Gallardo, Aliyah Jones, Max Lazarus, Jonah Lazarus, Zach Lazarus and Clarence Young) should probably be a little bit more amorphous. But the group’s distinct point of view and commitment to each other make their extra-large experiment both unique and successful. The fruits of their labor can be heard on their debut EP “Did you tell the bees?” out May 9. On May 10, the group will play a release show at Constellation.

During our conversation on an unseasonably warm recent Sunday, Family Junket mentioned inspirational touchstones like Sly and the Family Stone, Sault and Stevie Wonder. They also take inspiration from each other.

“In many musical spaces, where you have to make a lot of adjustments with your character, your personality, even your values, sometimes it’s very painful,” added Blau. “So the fact that I have been able to be a part of this family, this mishpacha, has been almost one of the easiest things. It’s seamless.”

Max Lazarus and Coats cited an Adrienne Maree Brown quote, “We move at the speed of trust,” as a foundation for the group.

“I do feel like in that process, when we feel something that is good collectively, we’re usually on one accord about it,” said Edwards.

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel added. “Ideas that I’m maybe not 100% on, I’ve learned to trust that if other people in the room are really stoked, then that energy will kind of carry and that’s fertile enough ground for the idea to grow.”

That trust in each other helps fuel a trust within themselves individually. Music is their passion, but the members all lead different lives outside of the group, from jobs in academia to engineering to farming and teaching. But when it comes to the band, it is their choice to lean into each other’s instincts (as well as their lack of egos) that has led to a collection of sonic triumphs. This is music as it should be made and creativity in its purest, brightest form.

Many of the tracks from “Did you tell the bees?” were created over the course of more than two years. During that time, band member and mixing engineer Max Lazarus encouraged the others to keep playing. New members joined the group, allowing more room for growth and development with older songs.

The eight-song collection is a rich project rooted in the heart of the late ’90s and early 2000s neo-soul movement, but it is not a cheap retread. Songs brush against other moments in time as well, like the early murmurings of the psychedelic soul of the late ’60s or the funk-laden R&B of the mid-to-late ’70s.

I immediately thought of Rotary Connection, one of the most underrated Chicago-born groups from that time — not only because of their multicultural past, but also because of their openness to experiment and challenge notions of what they should be making as a group.

“It’s really important that we capture the energy in the room and all of the things that we’re talking about, like the love that we share for each other and the comfort, but also the rage and the anger,” said Max. “Life is full of so (many) rich experiences.”

They are not focused on the past. Lyrics touch on the lived realities of today, both the strife and the joy. Vocalist Coats said “Time is What I Need” was written in the emotional aftermath of 2020 activism and examines feelings of grief, sorrow, and rage as the world moves through such moments without time to pause.

“What do I do if I know the system is broken? What am I going to do about it?” Coats asked. “We were all grasping for time and a moment to just breathe, but the train keeps chugging along. That is exhausting, and it’s going to leave people behind.” It is the sort of music that lulls you in, then wallops you over the head with its profound truths.

Yet, not all of their music is so heavy. One track, “Buzz,” is about the experience of flying on a malfunctioning bee. “It reminds me of funk music like Parliament in the ways that they can tap into the deep belly of pain, but then pull it up with joy and color,” said Coats.

Some music fans in Chicago have heard their music at live performances at spaces like the jazz-forward cocktail club Lemon, but this will be a first time for songs off of an album.

“A lot of the music feels so close to home and feels connected to our histories,” Coats said. “It will feel really special to have people listen to it.”

Britt Julious is a freelance critic.

Family Junket and Akenya is 8:30 p.m. May 10 at Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave.; tickets $15 at constellation-chicago.com

The Rio event on Saturday was the biggest show of the pop star’s career that sent more than 2 million fans flooding Copacabana Beach.

Rio de Janeiro’s state police and Brazil’s Justice Ministry presented the bare outlines of a plot that they said involved a group that promoted hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community, among others, and planned to detonate homemade explosive devices at the event.

“The plan was treated as a ‘collective challenge’ with the aim of gaining notoriety on social media,” the police said. The group, it added, disseminated violent content to teenagers online as “a form of belonging.”

Authorities arrested two people in connection with the alleged plot — a man described as the group’s leader in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul on illegal weapons possession charges, and a teenager in Rio on child pornography charges. Police did not elaborate on their exact roles in the plot or on how the group came to target Lady Gaga’s beach concert.

“Those involved were recruiting participants, including teenagers, to carry out integrated attacks using improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails,” police said.

The Justice Ministry said that it determined the group posed a “risk to public order.” It said the group falsely presented themselves online as “Little Monsters” — Lady Gaga’s nickname for her fans — in order to reach teenagers and lure them into “networks with violent and self-destructive content.”

During a series of raids on the homes of 15 suspects across several Brazilian states, authorities confiscated phones and other electronic devices. Even as police said they believed homemade bombs were intended for use in the planned attack, there was no mention of the raids turning up any weapons or explosive material.

Lady Gaga’s publicists and concert promoters did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Police said they carried out the raids quietly Saturday in the hours leading up to the concert while “avoiding panic or distortion of information among the population.”

The ministry said there was no impact on those attending the free concert.

“We know it will be a long line, yeah?” he said to the violins.  As he said it, the young conductor assumed the stance of an explorer, shielding his eyes and pointing to an imagined horizon.

Reflecting on Mäkelä’s appearances on April 24 and May 1, I returned again and again to this directive.  Both concerts evinced the infectious energy and sonic dazzle that inspired the CSO to hire him in the first place.  But they also probed ensemble areas which require investment and attention — that “long line,” so to speak, made even longer by the fact that Mäkelä doesn’t fully assume the CSO post until 2027.

Last week, he returned to Gustav Mahler, the composer whose symphony sealed Mäkelä’s partnership with the CSO and who will be the subject of an upcoming orchestral summit in Amsterdam, another home-base-to-be for the Finnish conductor.  His choice of repertoire was characteristically ambitious: Mahler’s Third Symphony, the longest in the standard repertoire at about 100 minutes long.

This time around, Mäkelä didn’t relay the same end-to-end momentum and delicious abandon as 2023’s Fifth — still a high bar for Mahlers at Orchestra Hall, under any baton.  Instead, Mäkelä’s Third dwelt on the CSO’s impassioned ensemble sound.  He had much to love: After a sleepy couple of months at Orchestra Hall, hearing the CSO give their all under Mäkelä was like a blast of fresh alpine air.  (The orchestra was similarly energized under conductor Jaap van Zweden, which bodes well for their forthcoming tour to Amsterdam’s Mahler Festival together.)

The first movement is pocked with all-orchestra rests, which tend to give the music an air-clearing effect.  Under Mäkelä, the silences themselves sung, articulating the music’s bleakness rather than offering a respite from it.  If a symphony must embrace everything, as Mahler’s old saw goes, it must, too, embrace silence.  After a mostly moment-by-moment first movement, a reverent sixth and final movement hit that point home, its spaciousness calling back to the symphony’s introduction with far-sighted acuity.

Last week’s Mahler 3 also marked Mäkelä’s first CSO appearance with singers. Based on Thursday’s performance, vocalists — both solo and ensemble — seem to be in good hands.  Contralto Wiebke Lehmkuhl sang her fourth-movement solo with elemental authority, her phrasing thoughtful and vowels warmly rounded.  In the fifth movement, the treble voices of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and Uniting Voices Chicago (formerly Chicago Children’s Choir) melded, handsomely, into one ringing body.  It helped that Mäkelä cloaked the orchestra’s sound ever so slightly for the benefit of the soloist and singers, just as he did for last year’s Shostakovich cello concerto.  Even Lehmkuhl’s low-middle range landed squarely for listeners in the lower balcony.

Against the Mahler, Mäkelä’s Dvořák 7 (continuing through this weekend) came away as a more cohesive musical statement.  In performance, Mäkelä maintained that “long line” through the entire piece:  Returning motives varied slightly but effortlessly, as though being sung in real time.  The string hiccup beginning the Scherzo theme was whistle-clean; rather than beating through busy sections, Mäkelä resurrected his favored move of pointing at instruments with moving lines, or, occasionally, mouthing along to them.

The third movement melted into the fourth with ease, making natural bedfellows of two very different movements.  The performance seemed to just flow as though coasting across the score, rather than the Mahler’s burrowing.

The ride was bumpier on the rest of the May 1 program.  Programming Pierre Boulez’s “Initiale,” a brass septet, was a great idea in theory: The late conductor-composer’s centenary has been mostly overlooked at Orchestra Hall, and at four minutes long, the piece is plenty audience-friendly, not to mention a showcase for the storied CSO brass.  Instead, the performance was dispiritingly coarse, only gaining confidence and clarity as it went on — which, for a piece that short, is too little, too late.

Pianist and artist-in-residence Daniil Trifonov’s appearance with the orchestra, playing Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, also improved as it went along.  The fearsomely talented pianist tends to follow his own whims behind the keyboard — a guarantee of fresh and sometimes idiosyncratic performances, like Thursday’s.  (Mäkelä again impressed in his solo support role here, catching Trifonov’s fluctuations with eagle-eyed precision.)  All the Trifonov hallmarks were there: rubbery, supple hands that glide across the keyboard, and an unabashed interiority that gives the sense, at times, that Trifonov is playing for an audience of one.  Trifonov carried that spirit forward into the final Allegretto grazioso movement, its first notes beginning with the same awed hush as the end of the Andante.

More uncharacteristically, the typically impeccable pianist tripped a couple times in Thursday’s performance: a note flub in the first movement, a brief brain freeze in an exposed moment in the second.  One wonders if that, on top of the concerto’s immense bulk, played into the exacting Trifonov’s decision to leave audiences with just a whiff of an encore: Chopin’s Prelude No. 10, all of 30 seconds long.

CSO musicians delivered on the concerto’s big solo moments, mostly. Principal cellist John Sharp sang above the haze of the Andante with a noble tone and tender phrasing.  So did horn Daniel Gingrich, his sound willowy and fluid.  Less so for his colleague, principal horn Mark Almond, whose opening horn call kicks off the concerto.  Almond has seen a few strong performances in recent months, including a poised turn in Jaap van Zweden’s Mahler 7 last month. But his features in Mäkela’s concert weeks — in Mahler 3 and the Brahms — sounded tentative in the extreme.

Mahler 3 likewise saw some good nights for principals and troubled nights for others.  Principal trumpet Esteban Batallán returned for these concerts with a post horn solo to remember, wistfully sounding from Orchestra Hall’s rafters. (Mahler’s score directs the soloist to emulate the effect of a horn call moving closer; in these performances, Batallán actually did so, playing his first solo from the fifth floor corridor, his second from the entrance to the hall’s ceiling, and his final solo directly above the stage, on a catwalk.)  Concertmaster Robert Chen, settling back into the orchestra after a pinched nerve, saw opposite fortunes in the first movement, with stoic solos that often trotted ahead of his colleagues and Mäkelä’s beat.

Ups and downs in various principal seats only made trombonist Timothy Higgins’ contributions, leading that section, all the more commendable.  After winning the CSO’s principal trombone audition last month, Higgins, of the San Francisco Symphony, has joined the orchestra for some trial weeks, starting with van Zweden’s Mahler 7.  But it was Mahler 3, and the first movement’s many trombone solos, that were his true testing ground.  Over the course of the movement, brawny eloquence gave way to vulnerability, as though he was curling inwards — a unified statement across the movement’s sprawl.  A week later, Higgins was MVP again as an anchor in the rough tides of the Boulez.

If the deal gets sealed, Higgins will be Mäkelä’s second hire to the orchestra after violinist Gabriela Lara — also a standout player. The last three weeks would indicate he’s passed, colors a-flying.

Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.

The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism helps fund our classical music coverage. The Chicago Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.

Update: This story has been changed to correct the role of musician Daniel Gingrich.

Program repeats 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and again 3 p.m. on Sun., May 4; tickets $75-$399 at cso.org.

Also worth noting

The arts calendar has gotten fuller in recent weeks. Chicago Opera Theater announced its coming season, with Chicago premieres of works by Kurt Weill and Antonio Salieri, while the Grant Park Music Festival and CSO have grown theirs slightly.  Grant Park adds a performance by violinist Joshua Bell on Aug. 6, and the CSO tacks on concerts of John Williams’ film music (June 23, 2026), the Ravi Shankar Ensemble (March 22, 2026) and ranchera star Aída Cuevas (Sept. 26).

Symphony Center’s jazz series also announced its 2025-26 season programming this week, and with it a new guest curator model. Kate Dumbleton, director of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, and Mike Reed, drummer, venue owner and festival programmer, are each tasked with curating a concert in the spring. The full SCP Jazz lineup is as follows; tickets are on sale Aug. 6 at cso.org:

• Bassist Christian McBride and pianist Brad Mehldau playing duo, 8 p.m. Oct. 10; tickets $39-$119.
• Herbie Hancock (note Sunday date), 8 p.m. Oct. 26; tickets $55-$199.
• Joshua Redman Quartet feat. singer Gabrielle Cavassa, playing selections from 2023’s “where we are” and the forthcoming “Words Fall Short,” 8 p.m. Nov. 7; tickets $39-$119.
• 50th anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” with singers José James and Lizz Wright, 8 p.m. Feb. 6, 2026; tickets $39-$119.
• Double-bill of saxophonist Nubya Garcia and singer Somi, curated by Kate Dumbleton, 8 p.m. March 13, 2026; tickets $29-$119.
• Miles Davis centenary tributes by pianists Gonzalo Rubalcaba and John Beasley, 8 p.m. March 27, 2026; tickets $39-$119.
• Drummer and curator Mike Reed explores his “Chicago Inspirations,” including a tribute to bassist Fred Hopkins and a suite of compositions written by Chicagoans between 1980 and 2010. 8 p.m. May 1, 2026; tickets $29-$119.
• Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, 8 p.m. June 2, 2026; tickets $55-$199.

An old soul who admitted she’s been old since she was born, Dacus spent the last day of her 20s — she celebrates a birthday on Friday — chronicling relationship issues that seemed extremely personal and making them relatable to strangers who held their collective breath for quiet moments. They enjoyed plenty of opportunities. Polite to a fault, the 90-minute concert rarely saw Dacus take risks or depart from a charted course.

Backed by an adequate five-piece band, Dacus primarily adhered to the mild, rounded sonic profile of her new “Forever Is a Feeling” LP. Tracks from the album comprised the majority of the 19-song set. That the Boygenius member seldom increased the temperature and opted for tame approaches to tunes that burned with poetic passion felt like a missed opportunity to spark material that, on record, suffers from the same odd disconnect.

For all her low-key charm and aw-shucks modesty, Dacus didn’t do herself any favors sitting down at several junctures, or when instrumentalists in her group followed suit. During a stripped-down segment, Dacus sipped tea and got comfortable on furniture that resembled theater props in a play set in a royal palace. Keeping body language to a minimum, she mainly remained stationary. And while Dacus engaged in small talk and offered gratitude, anyone hoping for insight into her romance with fellow Boygenius bandmate Julien Baker left empty-handed.

Coincidentally, Dacus’ Christian upbringing and origins as a professional musician share similarities to Baker’s background. Growing up as an adopted child in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, Dacus attended church camp and found herself surrounded by religious songs. Her religious faith ultimately evolved. Dacus came out as queer at the age of 19, around the time she dropped out of college.

Dacus worked at a photo lab and continued to write songs, a habit that started more than a decade earlier. A friend asked her to record some for part of his school project. Less than 24 hours of work at a Nashville studio with an ad-hoc band resulted in her 2016 debut “No Burden.” It received rave reviews and attracted a feeding frenzy of labels.

After signing with Matador Records, Dacus experienced a whirlwind ascension. Her second album, “Historian” (2018), enjoyed considerable acclaim. A few months later, Boygenius issued its debut EP. Dacus kept gigging and creating, releasing an EP of holiday-themed fare in 2019 and a third celebrated full-length (“Home Video”) in 2021.

That building momentum, coupled with that generated by Baker and Phoebe Bridgers’ solo careers, culminated in the success of Boygenius’ “The Record” (2023). Nominated for seven Grammys, it affirmed the trio’s mainstream status and influential standing amid a culture reverting back to conservative ideas of women’s place in society. Having assumed prior positions in favor of abortion and transgender rights, Dacus upped the protest ante on Boygenius’ tour by performing in drag and calling President Obama a “war criminal” on Twitter.

Controversies aside, she could’ve used more bite and tension on Thursday. Or at least some rough edges to tear at the fabric of formal, delicate arrangements underpinned by washed-out keyboards, restrained guitars and violins. A hushed stillness and atmospheric glaze floated atop a host of light, leisurely paced songs. The inquisitive “Modigliani” evaporated into thin air. A sorrowful “Big Deal” never dared to rise above a whisper. The maudlin “Best Guess” ambled its way into easy-listening territory. Chamber-pop flourishes on “Ankles” — which referenced sexual desires without resorting to cheap, explicit language — suffocated Dacus’ understated vocals.

Warm, transparent, soft, controlled, a touch smoky: Dacus’ medium-low vocal register emerged as a continual strength. Whether crooning, sighing, pleading or apologizing, she treated phrases as personal disclosures that deserved close inspection. Escaping to a private world for the piano ballad “Limerence,” Dacus expressed uneasy thoughts while seated on a small riser. She looked as if she had fled the commotion of a house party, made her way to the roof and bared her soul to the moon. Amid the country jangle and radiant hooks of “Most Wanted Man,” Dacus navigated the disbelief of her good fortune and delivered the equivalent of an engagement proposal with disarming sincerity.

The acoustic-based portion further highlighted Dacus’ interpretive skills. She scaled “I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore” back to an acoustic foundation and layered her deceptively casual vocals over a rubbery riff. On a gently strummed “For Keeps,” she sang the final couplet with measured slowness and lethal finality. When a microphone wielded by special guest Julia Steiner (singer for the Chicago indie-rock group Ratboys) failed to operate on a duet of “Bullseye,” Dacus shared hers and picked up the slack.

Having displayed visual signs on certain songs (“Talk,” “VBS”) of wanting to rock only to be thwarted by muted distortion and one-and-done sequences, Dacus’ quintet finally broke through on the coda to “Lost Time.” Punchy and emphatic, the layered section illustrated the dynamics and liveliness missing from much of the other material. Relatedly, during the encore, a rendition of Boygenius’ “True Blue” burst with welcome textures and toughness. Along with the amplified spasms of the closing “Night Shift,” it drew by far the most enthusiastic reaction of the evening.

A high-note exit to an otherwise moderate performance, and an indication that next time through, Dacus needs to inject more hot blood into the heavy memories.

Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.

Setlist at the Chicago Theatre May 1:
“Hot & Heavy”
“Ankles”
“Modigliani”
“Limerence”
“Big Deal”
“First Time”
“VBS”
“Talk”
“Nonbeliever”
“Best Guess”
“For Keeps”
“Partner in Crime”
“I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore”
“Bullseye”
“Most Wanted Man”
“Lost Time”
“Forever Is a Feeling”

Encore
“True Blue” (Boygenius cover)
“Night Shift”

Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong had just used “Front to Back” — a song from Hauldren’s electronic music group, Levity — as his walk-up music in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“I was like ‘What? Like, no way,’” Hauldren recalled. “I, like, had to do my research for myself.”

Sure enough, it was true. Hauldren confirmed the authenticity of the moment through a tangential connection to the emerging star.

Crow-Armstrong’s girlfriend has a cousin who is friends with the girlfriend of PJ Carberry, another member of Levity.

“My girlfriend, her cousin and her sister actually all just went to go watch them in Arizona,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I had already been talking about making one of their songs my walkout, so I just decided to do it.”

Crow-Armstrong, a 23-year-old Southern California native, also uses Larry June’s “Still Boomin” for his walk-up song. He said he isn’t a big fan of dubstep — the subset of electronic dance music where Levity lands most of the time — but he likes Levity’s stuff.

Music is a prominent part of Crow-Armstrong’s daily routine, and he enjoys the process of picking a walk-up song.

“Music’s the best thing ever. I mean, literally, universally, it is the best thing ever,” he said.

Hauldren, 26, has a similar opinion when it comes to Crow-Armstrong’s baseball team. Hauldren is the youngest of four siblings in a White Sox family from suburban Chicago. He grew up going to White Sox games on the South Side.

But he was always a Cubs fan.

“It just kind of stuck, and a lot of my friends were Cubs fans, too,” he said. “So thankfully my dad would suck up his pride or whatever you would call it and take me to a Cubs game every once in a while.”

The beginning of Levity goes back to Hauldren and Carberry connecting at the University of Iowa in 2017. They met Josh Tarum through mutual friends, and they started making music together.

Hauldren and Carberry live in Chicago, and Hauldren worked on much of “Front to Back” at their place in Bucktown — not far from Wrigley Field.

“My window is the skyline of Chicago and stuff,” Hauldren said. “And so seeing that song get played at Wrigley Field when it was made watching the skyline of Chicago and being very close to Wrigley Field was just insane to me.”

After Crow-Armstrong used the song as his walk-up music, Hauldren posted on Instagram about how much it meant to him. He tagged Crow-Armstrong in the post, and the two talked. They are hoping to meet up at some point.

Levity played Coachella this year, and it is going to Lollapalooza this summer in Chicago’s Grant Park. But Hauldren said his connection with Crow-Armstrong ranks right up there when it comes to his most memorable experiences with his group.

“I’m just very happy that if someone ever plays a walkout song for us, that it was the Cubs,” he said. “Like I couldn’t be happier that, you know, of all the teams that it was my team.”

It has taken a very long time and the cards will tell you that she is a musician and singer of various genres, among them “folk/rock,” “Irish traditional,” and “Americana,” and is available to do so in various places, such as “senior homes,” “private parties” and “restaurants and bars.” And so, there she was, one late February Saturday night, playing her guitar and singing in the crowded bar of a wonderful Beverly restaurant named Ken’s on Western with people sitting and standing, drinking and dancing.

In the adjoining dining room, also jammed, people could hear the music as they drank and ate dinner and listened. Some of these people were Ward’s friends. Debbie and Dennis Furlong, Katie and Jack Hughes, and Kathy Hession. All three of the women had known Ward since high school at Mother McAuley High School, class of 1990.

Also there was Ward’s companion of nearly five years. Rob Kennedy is a bearded, lively and worldly man, a longtime local and ever-busy plumber.

“When we first started dating, when he was courting me, he was in the crowd wherever I performed,” she says. “Now, not so often, and that’s OK. We are in this for keeps, ready to enjoy life’s back nine together.”

Ward is a talented singer and guitarist, a charming and exciting performer.

“I love music and love what I do,” she says.

She does not aspire to stardom. She is not looking to be famous or rich. She is satisfied and creatively rewarded doing what she does, comfortable in her South Side realm. She’s part of a vanishing breed who perform apart from the spotlight’s glare. I remember when these people were more common: Judy Roberts a glorious five-nights-a-week fixture in the lobby of the Hotel Inter-Continental; Bob Djahanguiri having live performers in his Yvette, Toulouse and Yvette Wintergarden restaurants; and Buddy Charles behind the piano at the Drake Hotel’s Coq D’Or, who once explained to me the appeal of hearing music in saloons, telling me, “What makes it work is that people are inherently eager for intimacy.”

These sorts of performers (and owners) began to vanish some time ago, and COVID has erased more, so consider yourself lucky if you still have such an oasis and such a performer. They are still out there.

It may seem to some members of the cultural elite that such environments are inappropriate for experiencing art. Nonsense. This city has a rich and lengthy tradition of restaurants and saloons catering to most of our entertainment and cultural needs. It can be traced to early settler Marc Beaubien, who would often enliven his Sauganash Inn with fine fiddle-playing and balladeering in the 1830s.

In the 1940s, New Yorker writer A.J. Liebling observed, “A thing about Chicago that impressed me from the hour I got there was the saloon. New York bars operate on the principle that you want a drink or you wouldn’t be there. … Chicago bars assume that nobody likes liquor, and that to induce the customers to purchase even a minute quantity, they have to provide a show.”

Ward tells me that she has loved music since childhood, the youngest of five kids growing up in Oak Lawn, “singing songs on the porch to my family, having them pay me with tree leaves in place of money.” At McAuley, she participated in theater and after graduating went to work at the Chicago Board of Trade. A boyfriend at the time bought her a guitar and she began taking group classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music. She formed a band called the 45s.

“I suppose there was some thought of us going really professional, heading to Nashville, hitting the road,” she says. “But I just didn’t have that drive.”

The guitar went into a closet. She married and had two children and settled into family life. As her kids got older (daughter Drew is now 20 and a student at Western Michigan University, 17-year-old son Roman attends Brother Rice High School), and the marriage ended, she found herself drawn back to music.

In 2015, she joined with a couple of longtime friends to form a band (called WEL, for the first initials of their last names). They performed here and there.

“One night my bandmates were both busy and they convinced me to take the gig we already had booked, and play alone,” she says. “I did, reluctantly, but it went really well and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I can do this.’”

And so she began playing solo and over the last decade has found steady work at places such as Ridge Country Club, street festivals, Fox’s, Franklins Public House in Palos Heights, farmer’s markets and Krapil’s in Worth. She appears once a month at Ken’s (next on May 25; more at www.kensonwestern.com), which is a great restaurant and tavern, in business for more than 50 welcoming years.

“Ken’s is the Mecca for South Side characters who still can cocktail with the best of them,” says Mike Houilhan, writer, filmmaker and area booster. “Ken was the uncle of my old pal and childhood friend, the one and only Jackie Casto, who owned the joint for many years. He died a few years back but his spirit lives on in the booths and bar stools, where stories are told and re-told again over scrumptious feasts amidst the clinking of glasses, laughter, music and the occasional tear shed for the memory of many friends. I haven’t been lucky enough to hear Shannon Ward yet, but if she plays at Ken’s she must be pure class.”

That she is, and busy too. In addition to her working as a professional caretaker, she plays as often as possible. She does not have a web site, relying on her Facebook page to keep her increasing crowd of fans up to date.

Taking a break at her Ken’s performance, she spent some time talking and laughing with her former classmates, grabbing a bite to eat with Kennedy. Some strangers came up to her table to offer praise. Some of them asked for one of her new cards.

“When did you get business cards?” asked one of them.

Ward smiled, hugged Kennedy and got back to the lovely business of playing and singing.

Update: This story has been changed to correct the name of Mother McAuley High School.

rkogan@chicagotribune.com

Sound & Gravity, created by Mike Reed, will be Sept. 10-14 at Constellation, Hungry Brain, Judson & Moore, Beat Kitchen, Guild Row and Rockwell on the River, with an avant-garde, experimental music and jazz-heavy lineup of some 48 acts in all over five days, including an opening night event.

Headliners and boldface names include Bill Callahan, Mdou Moctar, Helado Negro, Mary Lattimore, Irreversible Entanglements, Jeff Parker Expansion Trio, ganavya, Tarbaby, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, Julianna Barwick, Mary Halvorson, William Tyler, Elias Rønnenfelt, Third Coast Percussion and Glenn Kotche, as well as sets created by Electric Audio, the Chicago studio founded by the late Steve Albini.

An announcement of the festival on Wednesday said it hoped to present “a diverse range of musical genres which reflect the eclectic programming ethos of Constellation Performing Arts.”

Reed is also known for co-founding the now-shuttered Pitchfork Music Festival, which ran more or less annually in Union Park from 2006 to 2024. The event will also serve as a fundraiser for Constellation Performing Arts.

Tickets go on sale at 11 a.m. Wednesday (five-day passes $240, single-day passes $95, opening night event $45, Sunday Constellation tickets $25, all with additional fees); wl.seetickets.us

And so it was. The esteemed singer-songwriter teamed with his longtime backing band the Bad Seeds, complete with a four-piece choir, to deliver engaging variations on gospel. Cave gave new meaning to the laying on of hands as he reached into the sold-out crowd to grasp outstretched arms, and at several points, a few hands volunteered as temporary receptacles when the vocalist sought a place to put his microphone as he mopped sweat from his brow.

For 150 unhurried minutes, Cave channeled spirits and spirituals. Touring in support of the recent “Wild God” album, the 67-year-old Australian native embraced proven storytelling concepts such as exuberance, wonder, grandiosity, exaggeration and imagination. Cave tapped a deep well of Old Testament mythology and metaphorical language, and with his clear tenor and adaptable ensemble, brought the right tools to create soundscapes that matched his vivid imagery.

No matter how bloody and horrific things got — unrepentant prisoners, trigger-happy madmen, lustful murderers and wicked schemers all figured into his songs — Cave kept returning to love, mercy and redemption. Yes, the singer —adorned in his typical black suit and polished black dress shoes — plays the roles of dapper villain and charlatan evangelist as well as anyone in rock ‘n’ roll. But the transformation of Cave into a mellower, comforting presence that began a little more than a decade ago continued to take shape here.

Nearly eight years have passed since Cave last hit town with the renowned Bad Seeds. Not that the group’s leader has been a stranger to the area. Cave treated fans to two rare solo shows in fall 2023 at the Auditorium Theatre, where he and bassist Colin Greenwood distilled songs to a skeletal form. A year earlier at the same venue, he paired with veteran Bad Seed Warren Ellis — his creative foil on more than a dozen soundtracks and one original studio record — for their first tour as a duo.

Perhaps coincidentally, Cave’s output during the 2010s didn’t require the full-on force of the Bad Seeds. Pursuing directions hinted at on “Push the Sky Away” (2013), and adopted on the ambient-leaning “Skeleton Tree” (2016) and meandering “Ghosteen” (2019), he pursued quieter, intimate fare that prized synthesized lushness and modular architecture. The most pronounced detours followed the death of his 15-year-old son, Arthur, and served as solemn meditations on unspeakable anguish.

Grief and doubt — Cave lost another son in 2022 — informed portions of the 22-song set. Threatening to shatter with every word, his threadbare voice captured the unremitting pain that accompanies desperate uncertainty on a remarkable solo rendition of “I Need You.” The melancholic beauty of “O Children” functioned as a simultaneous confession and call to action, though Cave’s recurrent command to rejoice remained mired in hopelessness.

Those efforts stood in contrast to the tidal swell and hymn-like uplift of Cave’s newest fare. Structural similarities aside, the emotional tugs toward reassuring optimism and courageous adventure on “Wild God,” “Frogs” and “Conversion” proved as sincere as the melodies that washed over arrangements like a purifying balm. Drawing on church traditions — call-and-response exchanges, layered harmonies, the female members’ robed attire — the backing vocalists helped mold the shimmering moods and material.

Not every moment gave a positive impression. The soupy “Cinnamon Horses” took too long to burst out of the gate. “Song of the Lake” too closely recycled the patterns of other atmospheric, late-era Cave tunes. The singer’s incessant “yeah, yeah, yeah” interjections grew stale. He also briefly lost his place amid the stalking “Red Right Hand” and, shockingly, confused Chicago with Detroit when he mentioned the latter city while interacting with the audience. Apologizing, an embarrassed Cave stated he and his band’s faculties often hung by a thread. Understandable.

A famously physical performer, Cave divided time between sitting at a piano and prowling a stage-width walkway that brought him face to face with his fervent congregation. Hopping, bounding, conducting, clapping, pointing, punching, dropping to his knees: He moved as if electrical currents surged through his wiry frame, his pipe-cleaner arms darting out from his torso in opposite directions, his quick-draw feet operating in concert with his swiveling hips to dance an impromptu tango.

Cave is no longer the full-time outlaw who once presided over stages with an endless reserve of savage chaos and manic intensity, yet he can still flip that switch. As the Bad Seeds conjured the violent sounds of turbulent thunderstorms, shredded metal and snapped limbs, he chronicled the disastrous flood of “Tupelo” with a frightening discharge of howls, barks, shouts and screams. The coda of an extended “Jubilee Street” witnessed a frantic Cave casually flip his microphone and let it fall to the ground as he rushed to the piano to pound boogie-woogie lines before he indulged one final delirious vocal purge.

Content to operate in the shadows, drummer Larry Mullins, percussionist Jim Sclavunos and Greenwood (of Radiohead lore) anchored sophisticated rhythmic footings that involved specialized devices ranging from the marimba and xylophone to suspended chimes, mallets and cymbals. Squirreled away in his own little area, surrounded by an armada of amplifiers and pedals, Ellis preferred an extroverted, animated approach.

The only person to compete with Cave on the showmanship front, the hirsute multi-instrumentalist conjured the freewheeling disposition of a snickering prankster and the innocuous nature of an old barfly who adores attention. He precariously stood on a curved chair, bent into L-shaped positions to add backup vocals and slouched, cross-legged, into his seat during brief pauses. Ellis was a hoot, and his violin and electric guitar playing, as well as his wordless vocal cries, warranted praise.

Cave offered as much, calling his friend’s contributions “beautiful.” It’s a description the singer used on multiple occasions, most notably on his spoken introduction to “Skeleton Tree.” Cave talked of rediscovering the ballad and putting an end to its cursed status. As he ushered the subdued song to its conclusion, the reclamation came full circle.

“And it’s all right now,” Cave repeated in soothing tones. Even if only for that instant, no matter what the outside world suggested, you had no logical choice but to believe him. Gospel, and the good news, at its finest.

Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.

Setlist from Salt Shed on April 28:

“Frogs”
“Wild God”
“Song of the Lake”
“O Children”
“Jubilee Street”
“From Her to Eternity”
“Long Dark Night”
“Cinnamon Horses”
“Tupelo”
“Conversion”
“Bright Horses”
“Joy”
“I Need You”
“Carnage”
“Final Rescue Attempt”
“Red Right Hand”
“The Mercy Seat”
“White Elephant”

Encore
“Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry”
“The Weeping Song”
“Skeleton Tree”
“Into My Arms”