Apparently, not even Bruce Springsteen thinks that Bruce Springsteen is worth $5000 a head, but after some behind-the-scenes tumult and an exchange of bitchy press releases, the Springsteen camp announced that the Boss will indeed be playing two ultra-rare solo shows this week at the Somerville [MA] Theatre (617-931-2000) to benefit the artsy-fartsy highbrow magazine Double Take, whose offices are upstairs from the Somerville. Tickets for the two shows, which take place Wednesday and next Thursday, sold out in a couple of hours for $100, $500, and $1000; at press time, they were going for as much as $3500 on eBay. By comparison, two tickets to paradise -- or, we should say, two tickets to see country megastar Vince Gill play the Paradise in Boston (617-423-NEXT) on Valentine's Day -- were going for a measly $200. Officially, though, that one's sold out, too.

If your sweetie loves indie rock, we guarantee that a pair of tickets to see Sleater-Kinney on Valentine's Day at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence will have him or her singing "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" to you and only you. Rhode Island math-rock gals V for Vendetta open up, and then travel to the Milky Way (617-524-3740) in Jamaica Plain, MA on Sunday for a bill with a pair of electronics-addled outfits from the Teenbeat label: the Versus offshoot +/- and former Unrest frontman Mark Robinson's Flin Flon. Flin Flon are also at the Iron Horse (413-584-0610) in Northampton, MA on Monday. In the weird bill of the week, on Friday AS220 (401-831-9327) in Providence matches the new wave/performance-art video band Tracy + the Plastics with LP, a David Lowry-produced singer-songwriter who sounds like a slightly more southern-rock version of Sheryl Crow.

Meanwhile, Of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes has taken to the road with A Pollinair Rave, which he's described as a "very loose" modern musical interpretation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, incorporating live tunes, dialogue, recorded backing tracks, and a slide show. As bait, he'll debut a few songs that'll appear on the next Of Montreal album. See it at Flywheel (413-527-9800) in Easthampton on Monday and at the Kendall Café in Cambridge, MA (617-661-0993) on Tuesday.

It wouldn't be Valentine's Day without someone putting on a "Death to Valentine's Day" gig, and this year the honor goes to the western Pennsylvania death metal outfit Incantation, who play with Mass thrash-revival standouts Beyond the Embrace at Chantilly's (603-621-0330) in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday and at Lupo's on Saturday. If your heart isn't blackened by Sunday, haul ass out to Springfield, MA, where hometown metal-core heroes Shadows Fall are shooting a video for "Destroyer of Senses" from their The Art of Balance (Century Media) at the Fat Cat (413-734-9576).