Pop concerts: Okkervil River, Real Estate, Cam'ron

Will Sheff, songwriter of Okkervil River, gravitates toward broad themes and concepts, but the ideas never overshadow the songs. Okkervil River's lyrics are dense with words and intertextual connections without feeling busy or forced. An old song by Tim Hardin inspired 2005's Black Sheep Boy; 2007's The Stage Names and 2008's The Stand Ins were full of self-reflexive songs about striving pop singers. Last fall's The Silver Gymnasium used Sheff's memories of growing up in a small New Hampshire town in the 1980s as a road map. Okkervil River songs bristle with emotion - desperate longing, irrepressible joy, bitter frustration. But the music is life-affirming. Anchored in Americana guitar-rock, it can veer into a Motown bounce, a Dylan-esque roadhouse blues, or, as on The Silver Gymnasium, slightly ironic new wave keyboard pop. Friday night at Union Transfer, Okkervil River tops a strong bill that includes Typhoon and Lady Lamb the Beekeeper. - Steve Klinge

"I cannot come back to this neighborhood without feeling my own age," Martin Courtney of Real Estate sings on "Past Lives," a track from Atlas, the band's pretty, superbly crafted, melancholy third album. A trip back to Ridgewood, N.J., the band's hometown, sends Real Estate into a wistful swoon. It doesn't take much for Courtney to start feeling that I'm-an-adult-now dread. "I don't wanna die, lonely and uptight," he sings, getting straight to the point in "Crime." Thankfully, Atlas continues to refine the band's subtle jangle and languorous chime. Even when these songs are shot through with fear, they sound sweetly comforting.

- Dan DeLuca

- A.D. Amorosi