Tonight's Show Suggestions

Devotchka live at Coachella

Widower, Final Spins, Sammy Barrett, Tractor Tavern, 9 p.m., $6

If for some reason you find yourself out the night before New Year's Eve, don't blow your load on some party-in-a-can DJ or punk show that will leave you wilted for the following evening. Instead, mosey on down to the Tractor and enjoy the wholesome Americana that is Widower, a charming little septet that doesn't shy away from their love of steel guitar or banjos and bears more than a passing resemblance to Wilco with a dash of Beachwood Sparks. Rounding out the ticket are the Final Spins, a solid outfit who deliver their simple, raw lyrics with a chorus of male backing vocals and rambling, guitar-driven sound. At the end of the night, your musical cravings will be sated without leaving your body exhausted - save it for New Years, kids! RAECHEL SIMS

Devotchka, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band at Showbox at the Market, 8 p.m., $25

FYI: tomorrow night's New Year's Eve show is SOLD OUT, so if you want to see the band and don't have tickets yet, you're gonna have to go tonight. 

Denver quartet DeVotchKa - led by frontman Nick Urata - has been at the forefront of this decade's neo-Balkan movement, what with all of their accordions, sousaphones, bouzoukis and Gypsy melodies. Still, the band has cross-pollinated that with some other sounds; Urata's suave, melancholy croon sometimes has his group sounding like Morrissey or Bryan Ferry on a tour of Hungarian villages. And on this year's A Mad & Faithful Telling, the band's fifth album, DeVotchka incorporates sounds from the hills of Spain, the banks of the Seine, and wedding halls in Tel Aviv. It's rousing and appealing, for sure, regardless of whether you find it exotic or, as my favorite (and mostly positive) DeVotchKa review put it, "perfect background music for a haunted Olive Garden." MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG