Jody Stephens is the last surviving original member of seminal indie pioneers Big Star. It took years for the band to gain an audience after much tragedy, which is documented in the profoundly heartbreaking and beautiful documentary Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me. And now that there is an audience, Stephens is giving them what they want: an all-star tribute to the band’s album Third.
The concert will be held April 27 at The Alex Theatre in Glendale, Calif., and artists Jeff Tweedy and Pat Sansone of Wilco, Mike Mills of R.E.M., Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, Jessica Pratt, Kronos Quartet, and Robyn Hitchcock will join Stephens in performing the album. Other artists scheduled include Skylar Gudasz, Semisonic’s Dan Wilson, the dB’s’ Chris Stamey, Let’s Active’s Mitch Easter, Brett Harris, Django Haskins, and late-era Big Star members Ken Stringellow and Jon Auer, as Consequence of Sound points out.
Conductor Carl Marsh, who wrote the original orchestration for Third, will conduct a full orchestra. The musicians will also perform Big Star fan favorites not on Third. The performance will be recorded for a DVD and CD release slated for spring 2017 and on May 13, Stephens will release the debut album from his band Those Pretty Wrongs.
In the meantime, go bawl your eyes out to Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (it’s streaming now on Netflix).