First up, at noon, tickets go on sale for Andrew Bird at the Music Hall in Portsmouth. The show will take place on Wednesday, October 8 (autumn shows already???), and this pre-sale is for Music Hall members only. General public sales will start on Saturday, July 19.

An Andrew Bird show is difficult to describe, but it’s nothing short of mesmerizing. My wife and I caught him in a club in Providence three years ago and couldn’t stop marveling at it.

Armed with his trusty violin, a guitar, a glockenspiel, and a sampler, this former Squirrel Nut Zipper single-handedly builds layers of sounds by sampling sequences played on each instrument, then sings – and sometimes whistles(!) – over them. His unique compositional approach makes every show a different experience.

On record, his genre-hopping music style, distinct vocals (somewhere between Thom Yorke and Rufus Wainwright), and songwriting prowess put him in a category all his own – in a live setting, even more so. Any of his albums are worth owning, but my personal favorite is an older one – The Swimming Hour, by Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire.

Later on Saturday night, the Fifth of July heats up at the Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry, N.H., with a live show by Shelby Lynne, an alt-country hottie who won the Grammy for Best New Artist – even though she’d been recording for more than 10 years at the time – back in 2000 on the strength of her breakthrough album, I Am Shelby Lynne (definitely worth owning).

Due to her ability to incorporate a whole lot more than country into her sound – blues, soul, and jazz come to mind immediately – Lynne has always been difficult to categorize and has never found the commercial success she deserves. Nevertheless, her releases always please the critics, and I hear her tribute to Dusty Springfield, Just a Little Lovin’, released earlier this year, has some seriously kickass re-arrangements.

No doubt Lynne will put on a great show for those lucky enough to see her in the Tupelo Hall’s intimate setting. Good stuff.