The 2011 Outside Lands Festival takes place this weekend, entering its fourth year in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and features a performance by The Black Keys as well as one by label mate Sara Watkins with the Decemberists. The Black Keys perform the penultimate set on Saturday, while Watkins and the Decemberists take the stage on Sunday, the last day of the festival. Tune in to live coverage of the event throughout the weekend from Live 105.3 FM at live105.radio.com.

The Keys have been favorites of the music festivals they have played so far this summer. According to Tom Dalton of the Kansas City Examiner, their day-two set at last weekend's Kanrocksas Music Festival was the day's best.

"Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach, playing with three additional musicians on part of their set, came out and rocked their way through a set heavy on last year's Brothers," writes Dalton. "The Black Keys set was straightforward, focusing just on the music and churning out song after song. People were rocking out and when their set ended chanted for an encore for over five minutes."

Kiernan Maletsky of the Riverfront Times agrees, going so far as to call the band "something to believe in." Says Maletsky: "It might not be lunacy to start calling it the latest in a proud, overblown tradition: The Saviors of Rock & Roll."

Before their festival set on Sunday, Sara Watkins and the Decemberists play at the renowned Greek Theater in Los Angeles tonight.

---

Shawn Colvin has a full weekend ahead with three performances in the South: tonight at Ruth Eckerd Hall's Capitol Theatre in Clearwater, Florida; Saturday, at Chastain Park Amphitheater in Atlanta, where she joins fellow singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter; and Sunday, at Ziggy's in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"The Capitol Theatre provides the perfect setting for a Colvin concert," says the Tampa Bay Newpapers. "This singer-songwriter is at heart a storyteller, and the intimate and comfortable theater offers a suitable atmosphere in which her lyrics can truly resonate."

---

Following the BBC Proms earlier this week that featured a performance by Steve Reich in an all-Reich program, to which the Independent gave a perfect five stars, the Proms continue with a performance in London's Royal Albert Hall tonight showcasing popular film music performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra under conductor Keith Lockhart. Included in the program is a suite of music from composer and Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood's score for the film Norwegian Wood. The BBC Concert Orchestra performs Greenwood's score on the film's soundtrack, which was released on Nonesuch earlier this year. Tonight's performance will be broadcasted live on BBC Radio 3, which can be heard worldwide at bbc.co.uk, and on television in the UK on BBC Four.

---

As noted earlier this week in the Nonesuch Journal, Wanda Jackson has joined Adele for her North American tour, which kicked off Monday night in Vancouver and continues on the West Coast this weekend with two sold-out shows. They perform at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle tonight and at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The Vancouver Sun's Francois Marchand, reviewing Monday's tour-opening show, called several of her songs "pure retro gems." The combination of Jackson and Adele proved magical: "Two queens ... tipping their hats to both the past and the future with superb displays of raw talent."

---

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang perform tonight at the Oregon Zoo Amphitheatre in Portland, Oregon, with The Secret Sisters opening. On Saturday, lang and her band head back to her homeland for a set at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby, British Columbia, as a part of the Burnaby Blues + Roots Festival.

"The woman knows how to put on a show, sure enough," raves Seattle Times reviewer Misha Berson of lang and the band's recent performance at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo raves:Over the years her unique voice has retained its silkiness, and that pure, elastic expressiveness and unstrained potency."

Reviewing lang and the band's set last weekend at the Regina Folk Festival, the Regina Leader-Post's Erin Harde raves: "From the first notes of 'I Confess'"—the lead track off her recent Nonesuch release, Sing it Loud—"lang lit up the night with her incredible voice and magnetism."

lang spoke with the Vancouver Sun about the new album in a preview of Saturday's show available at vancouversun.com.

---

The Low Anthem is in Europe this weekend for two festival performances, beginning with a show Saturday at Rees-Haldern in Germany as a part of the sold out Haldern Pop Festival. The band then heads to the UK for a set at Cornbury Park in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, as a part of the Wilderness Festival, and will also join Daniel Johnston, the festival's artist-in-residence. This is the first of The Low Anthem's six UK performances over the next two weeks. The band returns to the States at the end of the month to perform at LouFest in St. Louis.

---

Jessica Lea Mayfield, who launched her late-summer US tour yesterday, has three shows this weekend, starting at Delilah's Lounge in Ithaca, New York, tonight. She plays a set at Waterfront Park in Burlington, Vermont, for the Grand Point North Festival on Saturday before heading to her home state of Ohio to perform at Lovin' Cup in Rochester on Sunday.

---

Allen Toussaint headlines the UK's Brecon Jazz Festival in Brecon, Wales, on Saturday. The next day, he travels to Belgium for a set at the Park den Brant as a part of Jazz Middelheim, a four-day jazz festival taking place in Antwerp.

The Daily Telegraph's David Gritten says: "New Orleans born and bred, Toussaint is arguably the most influential figure on its music scene in the past 50 years." Gritten goes on to call Toussaint an artist who "fully deserves his legendary status."