This week brings a couple of very fine show announcements. First up is Bon Iver, the group led by former Raleigh resident Justin Vernon, who will play the Downtown Raleigh Amphitheater with Rosebuds on July 29 -- a bill you could call Friends of Megafaun. Vernon used to play with the three members of Megafaun in DeYarmond Edison (and he was in on their Sounds of the South project last fall); and Megafaun's Brad Cook is a sometime member of Rosebuds as bassist. Tickets go on sale Friday.

Over at Durham Performing Arts Center, meanwhile, Steve Earle has been announced for Sept. 17. Earle played solo and mostly did Townes Van Zandt songs on his last Triangle show. But this time, he'll bring in a band featuring his wife, Allison Moorer. Tickets go on sale June 3.

Ubur-diva Diana Ross was in the Triangle Friday night to hold forth in Durham, and the show was pretty much everything you'd expect at this point (with all that such a phrase implies). Click through to see the review.

Since it opened a bit more than two years ago, the Durham Performing Arts Center has had a near-monopoly on touring Broadway shows such as "Wicked." Now whether you go for that or not, Broadway is still an important piece of the bottom line for DPAC -- and a lack that similar facilities in Raleigh are still grappling with. DPAC just announced its 2011-12 theatrical season, and details are in this story in Friday's paper.

The Durham Performing Arts Center finished 2010 with 59 of its 151 performances being sellouts.

The events drew a total of 307,000 guests to the center, which finished its second year in operation.

DPAC begins its 2011 schedule on Tuesday with Disney's The Lion King, which will run through Jan. 30.

DPAC's 2010 sellouts included: Vince Gill, Harry Connick Jr., Hairspray, Moody Blues, Wilco, Experience Hendrix, David Gray, Wicked, Chicago, Beauty & the Beast, Ringo Starr, Norah Jones, Lyle Lovett, Lewis Black, Vince Gill/Amy Grant, Cedric the Entertainer and the Moscow Ballet.

When I interviewed Chris "Critter" Eldridge last month, he made the observation, "It's funny that all comedians seem to be banjo players, too." He was mostly referring to Steve Martin, the renaissance funnyman who Eldridge's Punch Brothers have played with quite a bit this year. And Martin is bringing his banjo (and his sense of humor) to the Triangle next spring.

Martin will play Durham Performing Arts Center on March 21 May 21, sharing a bill with Steep Canyon Rangers. The show will probably take the same form as the ones Eldridge saw when Martin was touring with Punch Brothers.

"It was pretty inspiring to watch his show, which was equal parts music and humor," Eldridge said. "It was really well-executed bluegrass-based music, and then comedy time between songs. He was hilarious, really funny. I can't even describe it. But his wit was brilliant."

The "official" on-sale date is Dec. 10, with various pre-sales going on before that.

(UPDATE: DPAC released the incorrect date this morning. For the record, the show happens on May 21).

Wow - Carol Burnett is coming to the DPAC!

Burnett won't be doing characters from her legendary "Carol Burnett Show," so no Eunice or Scarlett O'Hara or Mrs. Wiggins. Instead she'll take questions from and interact with the audience.

"Laughter and Reflection with Carol Burnett" doesn't happen until April 2, 2011, but tickets go on sale this Friday.

For more information, visit the DPAC site.

Ringo Starr was in town Sunday night, and it was a pretty swell time (even if the set list had some surprising omissions). Click through for the review, and also check the photo gallery.

The Beatles are long gone, but both surviving members will play (separately) in North Carolina next month. A July 28 date at Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena has been announced for Paul McCartney, recent recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Tickets go on sale June 12.

As for the other living Beatle, Ringo Starr will bring his All-Starr Band to the Durham Performing Arts Center on July 11.

New to the concert schedule for Durham Performing Arts Center: Natalie Merchant, former frontwoman for 10,000 Maniacs, touring behind her first new album in close to a decade. She'll play DPAC on Aug. 30. Tickets are $28 with an "official" on-sale date of May 21.

Also going on sale that day is Lyle Lovett's Aug. 18 DPAC show. His tickets are more expensive, $37. Then again, Lovett does carry around a Large Band (although, at eight members strong, Merchant's band ain't exactly small, either).

For years, V. Dianne Pledger has spent the weeks leading up to each September's Bull Durham Blues Festival sweating the weather and worrying about rain -- or hurricanes. But this year will be different. After 22 years in the Durham Bulls' baseball stadiums, the Bull Durham Blues Festival is moving indoors to the Durham Performing Arts Center.

"We hope this will give us the opportunity to grow the festival into other performance spaces, restaurants, clubs and venues throughout the Triangle," says Pledger, the festival's executive producer.

The 23rd edition of the festival will feature blues-rock guitar great Buddy Guy as main headliner at a Sept. 11 show at DPAC. There will also be a smaller program on Sept. 10 at St. Joseph's Performance Hall at Hayti Heritage Center. More acts will be named later.

While this year's festival will be a strictly indoor affair, that may not be the case for future festivals.

"We hope to get back outdoors in 2011," Pledger says. "Something free where you can feel grass on your toes. Maybe at American Tobacco Amphitheatre. We'll see."

At least one festival regular will miss its old outdoor incarnation this year.

"I like the old ballpark, I've been going to the blues festival there since I was in college," says Tim Duffy, executive director of Hillsborough's Music Maker Relief Foundation. "But I like DPAC, too. I hope it works. It doesn't seem very funky, though, does it?"