Full reviews of recent concerts: nytimes.com/music.
AUGUSTANA (Wednesday) This popular California quintet is best known for its mawkish, piano-driven ballad “Boston,” which has been featured in many popular television shows. (It’s typically employed during moments of deep, brow-wrinkling catharsis.) The band’s latest LP, “Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt” (Epic), is packed with earnest, midtempo rock songs in the adult-alternative spirit of Counting Crows and the Wallflowers. With Wild Sweet Orange and David Ford. At 9 p.m., Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111, boweryballroom.com; sold out. (Amanda Petrusich)
BISHOP ALLEN (Friday) Borrowing from the playbook of early Jonathan Richman, this Brooklyn band puts a boyish smile on spunky, angst-ridden guitar-pop, and nurses worries about the slow crawl toward the workaday adult life: “Burn, calendar, burn.” With the War On Drugs and the Silent Years. At 9 p.m., Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 North Sixth Street, Brooklyn, (718) 486-5400, musichallofwilliamsburg.com; $13 in advance, $15 at the door.
★ BLOOD ON THE WALL (Saturday) One of New York City’s most beloved local bands, the Brooklyn trio Blood on the Wall plays belligerent, lo-fi stoner-rock marked by largely unintelligible lyrics and throbbing guitar riffs. Along with the band’s steadfast embrace of feedback, the oscillating boy-girl vocals of siblings Courtney and Brad Shanks recall “Daydream Nation”-era Sonic Youth. With Abigail Warchild, Lights and Cause Co-Motion. At 8:30 p.m., Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 260-4700, mercuryloungenyc.com; $10 in advance; $12 at the door. (Petrusich)
★ GLENN brANCA (Thursday) This avant-garde composer and guitarist transcends mere riffing: acclaimed for his experiments with volume, drone, tuning, microtonality and harmonics, Mr. Branca, a primary player in the No Wave movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, is best known for his 100-guitar symphonies and for his 1981 masterpiece, “The Ascension” (99 Records). With the Paranoid Critical Revolution. At 8 p.m., Issue Project Room, 232 Third Street, at Third Avenue, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, (718) 330-0313, issueprojectroom.org; $10.

nytimes.com