Welcome to Hell: it's been that hot, and there are that many metal bands lurking underfoot. Locobazooka began as a local hick-town (Worcester) celebration of Iroc-ing new metal. Now that such previous participants as Limp Bizkit, Staind, and Godsmack rule the universe, it's become a franchised traveling festival with an ingenious premise: grab as many second-rate metal bands as you can and play the secondary (better yet, tertiary) markets most better bands ignore. Sevendust, Filter, Nonpoint, Mushroomhead, Gravity Kills, Reveille, and more say hello to the Cumberland County Civic Center (207-775-3458) in Augusta on Friday and to Singer Park (603-628-3597) in Manchester on Saturday. (Details on the home-town gig are nonexistent, except that it'll be in September.)

Sharon has once again booked her huggable bat-chomping paterfamilias into back-to-back gigs without a night off, and you know what that means: Ozzy wobbler. (If you're playing the drinking game at home, that's a pint, mate.) Biggest disappointment about OzzFest this year? Say it with me: No Kelly?! System of a Down, P.O.D., Andrew W.K., Down, local heroes Hatebreed, and Korn's singer's little brother's band hit Meadows Music (203-265-1501) in Hartford on Saturday and the Tweeter Center (617-931-2000) in Mansfield on Tuesday and Wednesday. (All further Sharon jokes are hereby suspended until she recovers from cancer treatment. Happy now?) And as if that weren't enough, the Halford-less Judas Priest are at the Palladium (800-477-6849) in Worcester on Wednesday with kick-ass death-metal Egyptologists Nile.

Ja Rule and Ashanti live it up at the Cumberland County Civic Center on Saturday. Phil Lesh and Friends, plus the rest of the un-Dead entourage -- Mickey Hart and Bembe Orisha, and Robert Hunter -- find solace in the company of one another and 12,000 frisbee-toting Volvo owners on Saturday at the Tweeter Center and next Thursday, July 18, at Meadows Music. Vince Gill plays The Today Show on Friday morning and then sprints north to resume his tour with Trisha Yearwood at Meadowbrook Farm (603-293-4700) in Gilford, New Hampshire; they're also at FleetBoston Pavilion (617-931-2000) on Saturday.

Former Hüsker Dü dude Grant Hart is at T.T. the Bear's Place (617-492-BEAR) in Cambridge tonight (Thursday, July 11) and at the Skinny (207-871-8983) in Portland on Wednesday. The same cast responsible for the post-Mark Sandman Orchestra Morphine ensemble convene in their respective outfits on Friday at the Middle East (617-864-EAST): singer Christian McNeill's Hybrasil, Dana Colley & Billy Conway's new Twinemen, and frequent collaborator Jimmy Ryan (the latter two are releasing new CDs). Hybrasil also play a free show at Newburyport's Waterfront Park (978-374-4733) with former Maverick Raul Malo on Saturday. Singer-songwriter Josh Rouse headlines a bill at the Paradise (617-423-NEXT) in Boston on Saturday with former Sea and Cake main man Archer Prewitt, whose touring line-up features members of the Coctails, Seam, and Poi Dog Pondering. Rouse is also at the Iron Horse (413-584-0610) in Northampton on Sunday.