Whether you’re tailgating before the show or rocking out inside the venue, summer concerts are a ready-made soundtrack that is just awaiting your participation to build memories. Here are the biggest and best bets for your concert dollar.

Hot 97 Summer Jam
While we usually use this space to lightly make fun of a concert bill, there’s just so many great acts on here that we need to use all of the space to tell you who’s playing: Wu-Tang Clan, Chris Brown, Kendrick Lamar, 2 Chainz, Miguel, Wale, Fabolous, A$AP Rocky, French Monatana and Joe Budden!
June 2, MetLife Stadium

Paul McCartney
Ellen DeGeneres once introduced Sir Paul at the Grammys by saying, “The next performer needs no introduction.” True to her word, she left the stage and let it be for one of the last living Beatles. We’d like to do the newspaper equivalent.
June 8 and 10, Barclays Center

One Direction
If seeing the New Kids/98 Degrees/Boyz II Men show bummed you out, go see a boy band that includes actual boys.
June 28 and 29, Nikon at Jones Beach

Bruno Mars
Bruno Mars has turned his “Unorthodox Jukebox” into a 1980s time machine, which works out just fine for his opening act, Fitz and the Tantrums, who have also set the dial for the 1980s with their brand new “More Than Just a Dream.” Wear your neon jams and join them.
June 29, Barclays Center

Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z: 20/20 World Tour
Arguably the biggest tour of the summer, it remains to be seen how Jay-Z and JT will split the stage on The 20/20 World Tour. We can only hope that there are 20 songs from each artist, rather than a staged recreation of the best moments of ABC’s most popular investigative journalism TV show. That said, it would be awesome if they did that for the first few shows and then switched it up by the time they got here.
July 19 and 20, Yankee Stadium

Americanarama Festival of Music
For a genre that takes itself a little too seriously when at its worst, these three giants of Americana prove that a sense of humor is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff. By calling their tour Americanarama, Bob Dylan, Wilco and My Morning Jacket are having a good ole time.
July 27, Nikon at Jones Beach

Justin Bieber
Who would have thought at this time last year that the Justin Bieber tour would become the equivalent of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 tour in terms of rumored debauchery? We can only hope he’s still around for his own 50 and Counting tour in 2060.
Aug. 2, Barclays Center

Beyonce
Beyonce was going to release a new album this year. Remember that? Seems like she might not have remembered either, as Mrs. Carter sets out on the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour before her new songs have even hit the market. It’s kind of like when it’s the end of the school year, and absolutely all of your friends are psyched to be done with exams, but you’ve still got one left that you totally forgot to study for. But in this case, Beyonce can just say, “I’m Beyonce, I don’t have to take the final.”
Aug. 3, 4, 5, Barclays Center

Under the Influence of Music Tour
Wiz Khalifa, A$AP Rocky, B.o.B. and Trinidad James are a stellar lineup, but we have to wonder: Now that marijuana is pretty much totally legal, when are musicians going to stop giving their tours titles with little winking references to weed?
Aug. 6, Nikon at Jones Beach

Kenny Chesney
One thing that has not changed in America for the past 100 years: Cowboys are still really good at herding large groups of mammals into confined open-air structures. Eric Church, Eli Young Band and Kacey Musgraves round out this rootin’-tootin’ bill.
Aug. 10, MetLife Stadium

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With My Morning Jacket taking a brief break, the prolific Jim James is trying something different with his recent solo album. “Regions of Light and Sound of God,” released last month, seems and sounds as though divine intervention has led the songwriter to new sonic soil.

Playing almost all of the instruments on the record, this isn’t your traditional stripped-down solo journey, but instead an epic musical onslaught that sounds as though a dozen people contributed to the final product.

Taking his new tunes on the road, James has built a quartet comprised of fellow Louisvillians to help rebuild the audio architecture of the solo record in a live setting. After catching his first few shows in NYC last month, my skepticism quickly turned to satisfaction as the new band delivered some magical moments that not only gave life to the album, but took the songs to another level.

Focusing primarily on electronics, James’ band fills the instrumental backdrop while he mans the mic, taking on the role of the traditional frontman, and occasionally picking up random and often unlikely instruments.

While My Morning Jacket are no strangers to SXSW, James makes his first appearance at the festival this week as a solo act. MMJ’s first trip to the Austin came early in their career and James is quick to note the benefits of playing the festival back then.

“The year was 1914,” James says in jest. “The first settlers had just come onto the Austin shore. Alongside other explorers like us who had heard about the legend of gold in them rolling hills and mountain ranges of downtown Austin, we rolled into town just before dawn on March 13 of that year and took up shop at the Pecan Street Ale House … or was it Urban Outfitters … or was it Yard Dog? It’s hard to say, the memory starts to slip with time and age and you have to brush those cobwebs away.”

All jokes aside, the venues and day of the month are real, but the year was 2002 and SXSW became one of the band’s first shows outside of Europe and Kentucky.

“It’s all strange and wonderful,” says James. “I mean, we’ve worked our asses to the bone over the years and it feels good when you chase a dream and see some progress on that front. It’s very exciting and we are very grateful to the universe to have been allowed to make some progress on our dreams.”

‘True destiny’ on the line
Since their SXSW debut, My Morning Jacket has only played the festival one other time — in 2008. They went from being unknown hopefuls in 2002, to being one of the SXSW’s main attractions six years later while previewing their album, “Evil Urges.”

So what is Jim looking forward to seeing this year?

“My true destiny,” he says.

— Jim James plays three shows at SXSW and participates in a panel discussion and a non-SXSW-affiliated benefit show at Willie Nelson’s Ranch

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