Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, Vanyaland‘s guide to help you sort out your weekend entertainment with curated selections and recommendations across our three pillars of Music, Comedy, and Film/TV. It’s what you should know about, where you need to be, and where you’ll be going, with us riding shotgun along the way.
Music: Grub, Sweat, and Beers at O’Brien’s Pub
Every summer Allston gets hot, heavy, and sweaty. And it’s usually the fault of Grub, Sweat and Beers. The annual rock and metal fest with an appetite for consumption returns to O’Brien’s Pub this weekend (July 28 and 29) for another splatter platter of heaviness, this time armed with nearly 20 bands across the deeper spectrum of aggression and enough food and booze to feed a small army. The Friday night lineup welcomes Groaning Wretch, Waelmist, Bonginator, and Bacterial Husk to Harvard Avenue, while the all-day Saturday slate stacks the deck as high as the grill, with Industrial Grade Chemical Cleaner, Cannabis Crypt, Deprogrammer Cult, Crowfeeder, Brain Famine, Luci Dead Limb, Rue, Swamphead, Circus Trees, Problem With Dragons, The Lousy, Morgued, Death Strider, Torn In Half, and Face First. Stuff your mouth and your ear holes.
GRUB, SWEAT AND BEERS 7, Friday, July 28 and Saturday, July 29 at O’Brien’s Pub, 3 Harvard Ave. in Allston, MA :: Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m., 21-plus, $15 to $25 :: Info and advance tickets
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Comedy: Ali Wong at MGM Music Hall at Fenway
From stand-up special Baby Cobra to black comedy Beef and everything in between, Ali Wong has become a force on the screen circuit over the past few years. Now the San Francisco native posts up in Boston for two nights at MGM Music Hall in Fenway this weekend (July 28 and 29). Mic’d Up has the good word: “As she continues to check off progressively bigger rooms around the city, Ali Wong returns to Boston to conquer the hottest spot in town for two full nights of her latest hour that, falling in line with her past hours, refuses to chill. Through all the twists, turns and detours around her mind, Wong continues to kill on stage, and we’re here for all of it — and you should be too.”
ALI WONG :: Friday, July 28 and Saturday, July 29 at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, 2 Lansdowne St. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., $46.75 to $247 :: Advance Tickets
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Film/TV: ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ at Christopher Columbus Park
Last weekend we all piled into the theater to celebrate Barbenheimer, but now we’re ready to get back outside (in between massive thunderstorms, whenever possible). So we’ll head out to Christopher Columbus Park in Boston’s North End for a Sunday (July 30) screening of The Secret Life of Bees, the 2008 drama film starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, and Alicia Keys. The film is part of the family-friendly Summer Sunday Movies series, which continues through August with Ghost (August 6); Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (August 13); Glass Onion, a Knives Out Mystery (August 20). Bring a blanket or some chairs and extend the summer weekend vibe for as long as possible.
‘THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES’ :: Sunday, July 30 at Christopher Columbus Park, 110 Atlantic Ave. in Boston, MA :: 8 p.m., all ages, free admission :: Event info