Jan. 31
MUSIC/BENEFIT
Save Darfur Tour
Songs have been influenced by it, MTV campaigned for it, and Angelina Jolie has done everything short of another adoption to publicize it. “Save Darfur” may have become a popular catchphrase, but very few actually understand the current conflict in this region of western Sudan, which has already taken 400,000 lives and displaced 2.5 million. The Save Darfur Tour hopes to not only spotlight this grave calamity through performances by underground hip-hop artists the Visionaries and members of the Arsonists but also demand action that is long overdue. (Joshua Rotter)
With Alexipharmic, Visionaries, Grayskul, Sleep, Freestyle, and Sweatshop Union
9 p.m., $10 donation
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
(415) 552-7788
www.elbo.com
MUSIC
Paco de Lucía
Though guitarist Paco de Lucía is best known as a flamenco player, the 1980 live album Friday Night in San Francisco (Sony), the first of several collaborations with Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin, helped establish his reputation as a genre-bending virtuoso whose facility with modern jazz is equaled by his nuanced interpretations of the musical traditions of Moorish Spain. (Nathan Baker)
Also Thurs/1
8 p.m., $24–$48
Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley
Lower Sproul (near Bancroft and Telegraph), Berk.
(510) 642-9988
www.calperfs.berkeley.edu