Best bets: Nitty Gritty, DSSO opener and 'Baskerville'

Gettin' down the Nitty Gritty

If it feels like the song "Fishin' in the Dark" has always existed in your life soundtrack, that's because it probably has. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the artists behind one of the Top 5 ways to spend a summer night, are fresh from a 50th anniversary tour and now coming to the NorShor Theatre.

The country-ish band has won a few Grammy and CMA Awards and top tunes were mostly born in the 1980s - including "Long Hard Road," "Modern Day Romance," "I've Been Lookin," and "Baby's Got a Hold On Me."

An Evening With the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band plays at 7 p.m. Oct. 4 at NorShor Theatre, 211 E. Superior St. Tickets: $54 at the NorShor box office, jadepresents.com or by calling (800) 300-8300.

Bad Bad Hats return

Bad Bad Hats, a Minneapolis-based indie pop rock band that released the album "Lightning Round" in August, returns to the Red Herring Lounge. The band, fronted by Kerry Alexander, has a collection of catchy through-the-car-window songs and Rolling Stone recently credited her as having a "sharp lyrical perspective."

Bad Bad Hats last played Duluth this past summer as part of the lineup that included Trampled By Turtles at Bayfront Festival Park.

Bad Bad Hats play at 9 p.m. Oct. 6 at The Red Herring Lounge, 208 E. First St. Tickets: $7.

DSSO season opener features local percussionist

The Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra opens its season with "Sailing North," a concert that includes "soniChroma," a percussion concerto by Gene Koshinski, an award winning percussionist and professor of percussion at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

"SoniChroma," or sound color, is a three-movement composition and, completed in in 2016 and is written for two percussionists - Koshinski and Tim Broscious are the soloists - and an orchestra.

"Throughout the world I wanted to reflect the diverse performance demands of the 21st century percussionist," Koshinski said on his website.

The program also includes Leonard Bernstein's Three Dance Episodes from "On the Town," Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 1.

DSSO's "Sailing North" concert is at 7 p.m. Oct. 6 at Symphony Hall. Tickets: Start at $10, available at dsso.com or Ticketmaster outlets including the DECC box office

Martian attack, or not

You want fake news, here's your fake news: A cylinder has dropped from the sky and is now in Grover's Miller, New Jersey, and here come the martians and uh-oh. Some people listening to the radio play in 1938, reportedly, went deep into panic mode.

Wise Fool Theater is celebrating the 80th anniversary of the original radio broadcast with a production of "The War of the Worlds" by Howard E. Koch, adapted from H.G. Wells' novel.

Wise Fool Theater's production of "The War of the Worlds" plays at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays Oct. 5-14 at Lincoln Park Middle School auditorium, 3215 W. Third St. Tickets: Start at $17 adults, $14 seniors and students, $10 children 12 and younger. Matinees are pay what you can. Call (218) 269-4953 or go to wisefootheater.com.

Beware, Baskervilles

"Baskerville," a take on Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles," is a comedic Sherlock Holmes murder mystery. All of the male Baskervilles are dying, and Holmes and Watson must figure out who is behind the family curse, in this madcap adaptation by Ken Ludwig ("Lend Me a Tenor"). Expect: clues, accents, disguises and the moors of Devonshire.

"Baskerville" is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday Oct. 4-13 at The Underground, 506 W. Michigan St. Tickets: $20 at duluthplayhouse.org.

Murphy squared

"Murphy & Murphy" is an exhibition of paintings and sculptures by, respectively, Scott Murphy and Robin Murphy.

He is known for his whimsical pieces - which includes the mural at the Duluth Depot and in the plaza at the Duluth Public Library - and she is a sculpture artist who creates figural pieces, including animals with a human likeness.

Exhibition runs through Nov. 16.

"Murphy & Murphy" opening reception is 5-8 p.m. Oct. 4 at Lizards Art Gallery & Framing, 11 W. Superior St. Free, open to the public.

(Pictured: Scott Murphy's "Runaway Circus Bear." Image courtesy of Lizzard's Art Gallery & Framing)