The Virgins Belly Up Tavern May 22 9 p.m. $14
The Virgins’ debut album cover is painted in a rainbow of amorphous, gummy blobs ‘mdash; a metaphor, no doubt, for their raunchy instapop: sticky pleasure bombs that lose most of their flavor by the third play. Lead singer/songwriter Donald Cumming grew up in a SoHo liquor store, and fast became a club kid snorting ’80s new wave; the same giddiness infects their punkish tribute to Velvet and Strokes, peaking prematurely on songs like ‘She’s Expensive’ but providing a sweet sugar rush to drown out your pre-finals angst. (SM)’ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘
Manchester Orchestra House of Blues May 22 7 p.m. $12
Though their name might suggest a Mandeville nooner, we’d be hard-pressed if Manchester Orchestra knew Stravinsky from Scarlatti. That doesn’t mean the Atlanta-based indie kids are any less prodigious ‘mdash; last month’s sophomore opus Mean Everything to Nothing wielded existential loathing and quarter-life crisis, breaking into howls that could shatter the thickest stained glass: ‘I felt the Lord begin/ To peel off all my skin.’ Hark the angels. (SM)
Jo Whaley: Theater of Insects Museum of Photographic Arts, Balboa Park Through Sept. 27
Layering Annie Leibovitz’s penchant for portrait backdrops with National Geographic’s love of arthropods, Jo Whaley’s exhibit is a mixture of insects and aesthetics. By interspacing 40 staged photos among a collection of the actual bugs entombed in glass cases, the Museum of Photographic Arts is bringing all of Balboa Park into one room ‘mdash; making natural history art with a tribute to the world’s most distinct and diverse creatures. (EG)