National Buffalo Wing Festival

Saturday & Sunday, September 3 & 4

Our city is synonymous with beer, snow, sports, and wings. Buffalonians may fight these clichés or embrace them; either way Buffalo will continue to go down in history as the home of the Buffalo wing. This weekend (Aug 3 and 4) will mark the Buffalo Wing Festival’s 10th celebration of the crispy finger food. Of local festivals that have come and gone the Wing Fest’s staying power is a result of raising approximately $200,000 for local charities and serving almost 3 million chicken wings with 100 sauce varieties to over half a million hungry visitors over the years. Drew Cerza, also known as the “Wing King,” started the Wing Fest as a response to its fictional appearance in the Bill Murray movie Osmosis Jones. Buffalo’s fine dining scene has been growing at a rapid rate, but we continue to remain true to our pub food roots. “There’s a lot of comfort food here such as wings, beef on weck, and fish fry. Our food culture has taken off from regional to white table cloths, but you will still find that Buffalo personality on the menu” Cerza said. On Saturday, Duff Goldman (of Food Network’s Ace of Cakes) will judge a birthday cake contest in celebration of Wing Fest’s 10th birthday. Goldman and his Sand Ox Band will be performing experimental/instrumental rock on Saturday night. Local singer-songwriter Maddie Larkin, who has been recording in Nashville, will be opening the show. Visitors will also enjoy live music, a Kid’s Zone, sauce-offs, eating contests, and more. For a full schedule of events visit buffalowing.com. —jill greenberg

Saturday 12-9pm, Sunday 12-7pm. Coca-Cola Field, 275 Washington St. (buffalowing.com) $5.

Friday, September 2

Sam Roberts Band

Canada has recently become a Mecca for singer/songwriters and indie pop groups, most notably the Sam Roberts Band, led by the Juno Award winning and Quebec born Sam Roberts. This year he released his first record, Collider, under the Sam Roberts Band moniker, featuring guest appearances by fellow Canadian rockers like Elizabeth Powell and Ben Massarella, but the 30-year-old son of South African parents is no newbie to the rock n’ roll scene. In 2000 he released his debut a Brother Down as simply Sam Roberts; followed by a handful of follow up records including his Canadian gold certified 2008 album Love at the End of the World, featuring the upbeat and danceable title track. Worry not though Sam Roberts fans, Collider walks along the same trail as his previous solo work, bouncing from ultra-catchy male/female vocals on “Longitude” to mellow Tragically Hip inspired jams like “Let It In.” The Sam Roberts band will play live this Friday on the mainstage at Artpark. If you can’t wait until Friday for your Roberts fix, then check out the Sam Roberts Salute with the Albrights, the Tins (who were just announced as openers for SRB at Artpark), and Troop 556 on Thursday (tonight!) at Mohawk Place, presented by the Good Neighborhood. Each band will play at least one SRB tune in their set and the crowd will have a chance to win CDs, signed Sam Roberts merch, and tickets to the show at Artpark the next day, for the benefit of the Buffalo City Mission’s Cornerstone Manor. Get your rock n’ roll fix this weekend with the Sam Roberts Band. —cory perla

7pm. Artpark, 450 South 4th St., Lewiston (754-4375 / artpark.net). $30.

Saturday, September 3 through Saturday, September 10

Mercedes-Benz of Buffalo Fashion Week

The 3nd annual Mercedes-Benz of Buffalo Fashion Week provides a full week of events including runway shows, fashion events, and social outings from boutiques, independent designers, and retail outlets from Western New York and Southern Ontario. It makes sense that a city with a flourishing arts community such as ours would host a fashion event of this scale. Fashion and design provides versatile mediums for expression and local creations. The week starts on Saturday (Sept 3) with a runway show featuring H&M, music, giveaways, and more at the Walden Galleria. The notorious public photo shoot in Niagara Square will take place on Tuesday (Sept 6) from 3:30pm to 6:30pm to show a behind the scenes perspective. On Wednesday (Sept 7) Reckless Necklace and Thomas Lee Designs will display their jewelry designs at the Mansion on Delaware. On Thursday (September 8) the Buffalo Museum of Science will present a cocktail hour with Kahindo Mateene of Modahnik, a contemporary designer who uses bold colors, African inspired prints, and western design sensibilities. On Friday (Sept 9) from 7:30pm to 9pm at the Larkin Center of Commerce, VIP ticketholders can attend a designer meet and greet along with a preview of the final runway show. The week ends with the main stage runway event on Saturday (September 10) at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center. Fashions by HVS, Jimmy Lee, Lawrence Pizzi, VW “Uncapped”, Solome, and Zita Pop will be presented. You won’t want to miss this feast of the senses, purchase your tickets at brownpapertickets.com. For a full schedule of events visit fashionweekbuffalo.com. —jill greenberg

Various locations, see fashionweekbuffalo.com.

Saturday, September 3

Hopped Up

When is the golden age? Think really hard about it. Remember Midnight in Paris? Well, now’s your chance to experience it. Come back to the time of Cole Porter, the Charleston, the foxtrot, and the waltz. Experience the Lindy Hop, Swing, and ragtime. Revel in the time machine at Nietzche’s this Saturday (Sept 3) and come ready to jump, jive, and wail. Ladies, get dolled up. Gentlemen bring your dough and act a big six. The Stripteasers, the Beau Fleuzies, and the Zombette’s Sin Deville will deliver their unique style of burlesque entertainment for all. Three local bands: the Irving Klaws, along with the Blue Ribbon Bastards, and the Heavenly Chillbillies will provide live music throughout the event. DJ Bootleg Jenkins hosts thos Swing Dance Party to bring the 1920s back to 2011. So let me level with you here and tell you this: this is this real McCoy! And I promise you; there will be no bum’s rush. After all, Prohibition’s been over for nearly 80 years! Now don’t be a wet blanket. Come and dance your heart out. —michael koh

10pm. Nietzsche’s, 248 Allen St. (886-8539 / nietzsches.com). $5.

Sunday, September 4

Capsized! Boat Cruise featuring DJ Carlo Lio

This isn’t your mother’s three-hour boat tour. MNM Presents is finishing off the summer right with the Capsized Boat Cruise featuring DJ Carlo Lio. Capsized launches their floating dance floor aboard the Miss Buffalo II, a two story, 90 foot long cruise boat, from the Erie Basin Marina on Sunday (Sept 4) for three hours of summer fun and bangin’ beats from 6pm to 9pm. Canadian techno/house DJ Carlo Lio, a force in Toronto’s club culture, will be will be onboard to keep the crowd moving with some raw house originals and grooving remixes, along with local veteran DJs 3PO and Ryan Liddell. The fun doesn’t end when the boat docks though. At 9pm the party starts again on the patio at the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery. The cruise boards at 5:30pm on Sunday so don’t miss the boat! —cory perla

5:30pm. Erie Basin Marina, 79 Marine Dr. $30. (Tickets may be available on site on the day of the cruise.) 21+.

Wednesday, September 7

Class Actress

What happens when you take the Cure’s Robert Smith, give him a sex change (but keep the feminine temperament) and transport him 25 years into the future? You end up with the chic-wave Brooklynites Class Actress. Within the music scene’s current re-creation of the unremembered 1980s, distinguishing one’s self amongst the sea of extraordinary nobodies playing nu-new-wave can be daunting. Class Actress front-woman Elizabeth Harper set out to combat this task when she formed the group in 2005, relying on her intimately toned vocal ability as a marker of differentiation. The intimacy of the band’s sound grows from Harper’s roots in folk music. She began as a solo acoustic act fitting enough for the neighborhood coffeehouse. In Class Actress, Harper branches away from her roots, re-branding her musical talent to create a user-friendlier pop experience for listeners. No, not pop music in the musical-taste-for-the-tasteless mainstream radio sense, but rather the type of pop music you’d hear while in a glow-stick lit club dancing with a pant-less stranger whose name you never caught. If you’ve never had the chance to dance with a pantless stranger to Euro-inspired domestic electro-pop, the opportunity awaits when Class Actress classes up Mohawk Place next Wednesday (Sept 7). —brett perla

8pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk St. (465-2368 / themohawkplace.com). $10.

Wednesday, September 7

Stone Temple Pilots

Towering performers in popular music both past and present, essential alternative rock giants Stone Temple Pilots have lived up to their name. Despite breakups and hardships the band remains as sonically solid as any stone temple and continues to pilot its way through the rock world with style and grace. Though their first album, Core, successfully presented the San Diego crew as a crowd-pleasing era-bound grunge act indebted to the mammoth popularity of forerunners like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots have proved themselves capable of impressive musical complexity and flexibility that justifies their continued appeal. From their 1992 Grammy-award winning song “Plush” to their recent Billboard-topping single “Between the Lines,” Stone Temple Pilots reveal great range and ability alongside strong appealing songwriting. This Wednesday (Sept 7) Scott Weiland (also of Velvet Revolver) fronts his legendary band in a hard rocking show hosted by 103.3 The Edge at Rapids Theatre in Niagara Falls that will be nostalgic for some and invigorating for all. —ryan wolf

6:30pm. Rapids Theatre, 1711 Main Street, Niagara Falls. (205-8925 / rapidstheatre.com). $45 presale, $50 day of show.

Thursday, September 7

Paley & Francis

When a frontman breaks away from his flock for a shot at solo stardom, the results are not often pretty (think Billy Corgan in Zwan.) Black Francis, real name Frank Blank, is a species of that rare breed who’s survived in the wild on his own, maintaining a near two decade solo career and releasing an impressive 17 studio albums, all after the 1993 break up of one of the most influential indie-rock band in American history, the Pixies. Black’s most recent project, a collaboration with veteran singer-songwriter Reid Paley, whom he’s worked closely with in the past, is set to release an album in mid-October, aptly titled Paley and Francis. Written in just two days while Black juggled performances with the Pixies, Paley and Francis seems to be less of a milestone album in either’s career, but more like a pair of friends who bashed brains and recorded the intriguing ooze that spilled out. This release proves timelier than an instant buffet, as Black is currently riding the wake of critical success after 2010’s NonStopErotik, from which he contributed the song “I Heard Ramona Sing,” to the Michael Cera geekcore showcase Scott Pilgram vs. the World. Catch both Francis and Paley perform songs from their upcoming album next Thursday (Sept 8) at Mohawk Place. —brett perla

8pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk St. (465-2368 / themohawkplace.com). $17 advance, $19 day of show.