*If you haven’t tired of American Idol, then you may be interested in this: Brookfield resident Julia DeMato will join other American Idol contenders for a two-month summer tour that will visit Hartford Civic Center on Friday, July 18. Showtime is 7:30.

Tickets will be going on sale this weekend – priced at $26.75, $36.75 and $46.75 – through TicketMaster vendors. Don’t bother trying to get to the civic center’s box office for first dibs on tickets; it won’t be open on Saturday. Tickets will be going through in-store outlets, online, or over the phone (744-8100, 860-525-4500 or 203-624-0033) only. The on-sale time is 10 am.

The Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts presents American Idols Live! will feature performances by DeMato along with Clay Aiken, Kimberly Caldwell, Joshua Gracin, Charles Grigsby, Kimberley Locke, Carmen Rasmusen, Rickey Smith, Ruben Studdard and Trenyce.

*Quietly going on sale this week (Friday, May 16) are tickets for a July 2 concert by JACKSON BROWNE with Steve Earle & The Dukes and Keb’ Mo’ at the Oakdale in Wallingford. Prices are $35, $45 and $55.

*Tickets for the concert LL COOL J was to have performed last week at Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport will be honored on a hastily rescheduled date, June 28. J’s handlers, according to a story in the May 9 issue of The Connecticut Post, contacted folks at the arena on Thursday morning because the performer’s allergies had escalated into a bit of a head cold. Believe me, I can relate to how miserable allergies can make you feel. It was probably wiser for LL Cool J to postpone the show – as well as one he was to perform the following night in Trenton, N.J. – rather than go out and offer a mediocre performance.

More than 2,500 tickets had been sold by the middle of last week, which means a few thousand still remain for the new date. The concert will be using an end stage set up (as opposed to a center stage, which the arena also has the capability to do), which means “certainly a few thousand seats,” Arena at Harbor Yard executive director Lynn Carlotto said this week.

The other thing that may change (in addition to the show date) are the show’s openers. Originally on Friday’s bill were ToshaMakia, Amerie, Fat Joe, Tony Sunshine and Terror Squad. According to The Post, “the additional artists for the June 29 show won’t be confirmed until closer to the show’s date.”

*Tickets are also available for another Connecticut appearance by Cool J. The prices are a little cheaper and the show is sooner than the Bridgeport makeup date, but the drive will be a little longer: The rapper will be at Foxwoods’ Fox Theatre on Wednesday, June 18. Tickets for that show are $27.50 and $38.50. Call the theater’s box office for details, 800-200-2882.

*Unless she decides to change her itinerary and add one more show, it looks like Connecticut is going to miss out on seeing LISA MARIE PRESLEY this summer. A Pollstar story says Presley will be touring the radio station circuit from May 17 until June 20, and then joining CHRIS ISAAK’s tour from July 11 to August 9 for an amphitheater tour across the country. Unfortunately Isaak will be at Foxwoods’ Fox Theatre on Thursday, July 10 – the night before he is joined on the road by Presley.

I’d honestly like to see Presley’s live show. I’ve seen Isaak before and he and his band are wonderful.

Tickets will be going on sale May 28 for the Isaak stop in Mashantucket. Prices are $38.50 and $49.50 and tickets will be available through the Foxwoods box office, 800-200-2882. Perhaps by then we can also see Ms Presley on the bill too.

*Speaking of Fox Theatre shows, tickets will be going on sale next week for HEART’s return to Connecticut. Ann and Nancy Wilson will be at Fox Theatre on Sunday, July 6, for an 8 pm show. Tickets, at $49.50 and $60.50, are going on sale Friday, May 23, at 8 am. Call the phone number above for tickets (or for additional information before the tickets go on sale).

On-sales coming up next month include June 5 for BENATAR & GIRALDO (as in the rocker Pat and her husband Neil), who will be in Mashantucket on July 7 (tickets are $38.50 and $49.50); a June 19 on-sale for HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS, who will be performing on Saturday, August 2 (tickets are $49.50 and $60.50); a June 26 on-sale for INDIA.ARIE, at the theater on Thursday, August 2 ($27.50 and $38.50) and also for THE DOOBIE BROTHERS on Wednesday, August 13 ($38.50 and $55).

*TicketMaster is listing an on-sale date of June 14 for an August 14 Hartford Civic Center stop by CHRISTINA AGUILERA and JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE Justified & Stripped Tour. No prices are available yet, but there will be an eight-ticket limit per person.

*Pollstar is listing a July 22 IRON MAIDEN concert at the Meadows Music Centre in Hartford, along with details that Motorhead and Ronnie James Dio will have opening sets. The band’s website also has the Hartford date mentioned, which would be the second show in the States for these guys after spending the first half of the year overseas. The Give Me Ed… ‘Til I’m Dead Tour has sold out shows in Finland, Norway, and even Sweden’s 31,000-seat Stockholm Stadium, and hits the US on July 21, which Bruce Dickinson and crew play the Worcester Centrum in Massachusetts.

That Massachusetts show went on sale last weekend, by the way, as did a July 23 show at the Tweeter Center in Philadelphia; I would imagine the Hartford show should become active pretty soon.

Pollstar also added THRONE to its listings for the Meadows, which coincides with the band’s announcement on Monday that it will once again be part of this year’s New Rock Radio 104 Fest on July 4. Tickets for that show are on sale now at $25 for reserved/pavilion seats and $15 for the lawn, and this year’s roster includes STAINED, EVANESCENCE, HOOBASTANK, TRAPT, THIRD EYE BLIND, EVE 6, AUTHORITY ZERO, AUTOPILOT OFF and 2 SKINNEE JS, among plenty of others.

tHrOnE’s next concert, meanwhile, is an all ages event at South Windsor High School in South Windsor on Saturday, May 24. Tickets for this show are $7 each, doors open at 5:30, and tHrOnE is scheduled to be on the stage at 9. Opening sets will be taken care of by Odin, Por Bu Special and Phoenix Down Postal.

The Haddam-based band’s next pre-radio 104 Fest show will then by on Friday, June 27, at The Tiffany Room in Bristol. Doors for the all ages event open at 5, tickets are $10, tHrOnE is supposed to up at 10:15, and Faulter, Look West, Drunkin Beernuts and Base 2 (plus a few others TBA) will all be opening.

Until next week I’ll be seeing you… on the road, where I’ll be celebrating Armed Forces Day on Saturday, and thinking about Visit Your Relatives Day on Sunday (key word: thinking). Also, Monday is Youth and Sports Day in Turkey, Tuesday is Eliza Doolittle Day and the anniversary of Jimmy Stewart’s birthday, Wednesday is the anniversary of the founding of the American Red Cross and National Waitstaff Day, Thursday is the UN International Day for Biological Diversity (and the anniversary of Laurence Olivier’s birth), and Friday is National Day in Morocco and World Turtle Day. If this isn’t enough to celebrate then I don’t know what is!

Questions and comments should be sent to Shannon Hicks c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470, or shannon@thebee.com, or call the office at 426-3141.

Shows listed at club locations are for ages 21 and over unless specified.

UPCOMING CONCERTS

MAY 16 — Hat City Blues Band at The Alexandria Room (Edmond Town Hall), Newtown; Lucinda at Borders Books, Wilton; Center Stage at Tuxedo Junction, Danbury; Sol Dog at The Red Door Café, Watertown; Larry Garner at Black-Eyed Sally’s BBQ & Blues Café, Hartford; Rane at The Webster Theatre, Hartford, Missing Joe, The Goods and Burning Ferns opening;

May 17 —Peter Obre and Alan Johnson at 707 On Main, Monroe; Them Bones at Tuxedo Junction; Larry Garner at Black-Eyed Sally’s; Dennis DeYoung at Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den, Uncasville; Kansas at Palace Theatre, Stamford (rescheduled from March);

May 18 — Sepultura and Voivod at The Webster Theatre;

May 20 — Matchbox Twenty at Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, Sugar Ray opening;

May 21 — Red Shift at Tuxedo Junction, Echo opening (all ages); Lynch Mob at The Webster Theatre;

May 22 — Vince Wellnick at The Webster Theatre, Dreamswell opening;

May 23 — Peter Obre and Alan Johnson at Gail’s Station House, Ridgefield; Center Stage at Tuxedo Junction;

May 24 — Charisma at Jim Barbarie’s, Danbury; tHrOnE at South Windsor High School (all ages); Screaming Broccoli at Tuxedo Junction;

May 25 — Cher at Mohegan Sun Arena; Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen at Towne Crier Café;

May 28 — 2 Skinnee J’s at Tuxedo Junction, Silent Groove opening (all ages).

May 30 — Dick Dale at Toad’s Place; Center Stage at Tuxedo Junction; Eric Sardinas at Black-Eyed Sally’s; Richard Marx at Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den;

May 31 — John Hiatt at UHartford’s Lincoln Theatre; The Gyst at Tuxedo Junction; Sol Dog at The Corner Pocket, Orange; Richard Marx at Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den; Psychedelic Breakfast at The Webster Theatre, RAQ, Turn It Up and Bunji opening.