Sokol Underground will be seeing a lot of familiar faces this Saturday when a special edition of the dance event GOO takes place there. The venue was once the mecca for indie shows here in Omaha, and while many shows still happen there most of the marquee events have gone over to Slowdown and the Waiting Room. Apocalypse GOO will feature Vito & Druzzi, DJs from popular indie dance band the Rapture. The Faint’s Todd Fink will also be returning to Omaha to DJ the event along with Brent Crampton and others on the GOO crew. The Vito & Druzzi set will be recorded for inclusion on Red Bull Music Academy Radio www.redbullacademyradio.com.

More than 20 bands from Lincoln will be descending upon Benson this coming weekend for the inaugural Lincoln Invasion festival. The concept comes to us from music writer and promoter Jeremy Buckley, the man behind the successful Lincoln Calling festival in his home town. Lincoln Invasion will be held at the Barley Street Tavern, the Waiting Room and the Pizza Shoppe Collective and will only cost $5 per night for access to all three venues. It’s a concept that is long overdue and good way to hear bands from another great music scene that many of us don’t experience very often. Don’t expect to see just the usual faces in the crowd either as some of the bars in Lincoln are sponsoring bus rides to Benson both nights.

So where do the Omaha bands go to play this weekend? Slowdown and O’Leaver’s Pub, it seems. The Slowdown has two excellent local showcases lined up this weekend with Boy Noises, Sweet Pea, AM Revival, and In the Spring on Friday night, and Shiver Shiver, Goodbye Sunday and the Black Squirrels on Saturday. O’Leaver’s Pub has the Stay Awake, Gold, and Anatomy of a Riot on Friday night and Bloodcow and Black Skies on Saturday. O’Leaver’s also has a good local lineup on Thursday (June 18) with Noah’s Ark Is A Spaceship and Honey & Darling playing alongside Portland’s Vanishing Kids.

On Tuesday, June 23, wave goodbye to local Americana rock band Vago before they take off on their summer tour. The band will be playing a show at the Barley Street Tavern with Dereck Higgins as a kick off for their tour that will take them through Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and more. The band has a gig in Austin, Texas, which has me wondering if the band will ever be able to sing their song “The Water” with a straight face again. The opening line of that song states strongly “I have never been to Austin, Texas.”

How good is Bear Country? I saw the band for the second time in a month this past Thursday when they headlined a show at the Waiting Room that also included Darren Keen, Conchance and Capgun Coup. Both times the band put on fantastic sets with gorgeous torch songs and big fun romps along with a level of musicianship and synergy amongst it members that is rarely seen from a band so young.

Frontwoman Susan Sanchez’s stunning vocals conjures up visions of Hope Sandoval, Neko Case and Patsy Cline. It’s a laid back and gorgeous approach that doesn’t try too hard to demand your attention or distract from the other things going on in the band. The guys in the band are no slouches vocally and their turns on the mike, whether it being providing nice harmonies or slinging songs of their own, only added to the experience. This is a band that fans of alt-country or Americana music would love, but also one that people that have no use for that music would dig as well since the band doesn’t seem to solely embrace or live in that genre.