BEST BETS Thursday 10/5

LAGUNA BEACH

6pm

Film Festival

At Oscar time, do you ever wonder who actually sees the films nominated in the short film and short documentary categories? This weekend at the Laguna Beach Film Festival, you can get a belated look at some of the winners and nominees from past years, including 1999’s Best Animated Short Film, “The Old Man and the Sea”--a retelling of Ernest Hemingway’s novel using painted images on glass. In addition, this four-day festival contains the latest works by aspiring foreign and local filmmakers, as well as the first-ever juried Student Film Competition.

* Fourth annual Laguna Beach Film Festival, Forum Theatre, Festival of Arts Grounds, 650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Locals-only opening night for south Orange County residents, 6 p.m. $15. Continues Friday with Children’s Fest, 4-8 p.m.; Saturday with Student Film Competition, 9-11:30 a.m.; Filmmakers Forum, 1-8:45 p.m.; Sunday with documentaries, shorts and three features, noon-8:30 p.m. $8 for all films and seminars. Gala opening celebration Friday, 6 p.m. $65. Closing awards reception Sunday at the Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach. 8 p.m. $35. (949) 494-1313 or https://www.lagunafilmfestival.org

COSTA MESA

8pm

Music

French pianist Jean-Philippe Collard will make his debut with the Pacific Symphony playing Rachmaninoff’s popular Concerto No. 2. The program, which opens the 11th season led by music director Carl St.Clair, will include John Adams’ “Short Ride on a Fast Machine” and a suite from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

* Pacific Symphony, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. $19 to $88. ($12 student/senior rush tickets). (714) 755-5799.

IRVINE

7pm

Pop Music

Phish’s latest album, “Farmhouse,” may say more about its influences (the Band, the Allman Brothers, Santana) than it does about the group’s vision, but it won’t matter a whit at the Vermont-based jam band’s tour stop in Irvine. It’s sympathetic instrumental interplay that’s characterized Phish’s music for the last decade and which has attracted much of the Grateful Dead’s old audience to the group’s shows.

* Phish, Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. 7 p.m. $24. (949) 855-6111.

ANAHEIM

8:30pm

Pop Music

A stellar double bill in Anaheim teams the hottest bluegrass band in the land, the Del McCoury Band, with Junior Brown, quite possibly the hottest guitar picker on the planet. McCoury’s band does concerts like old-time radio broadcasts, all members huddled around a single microphone and soloists taking turns stepping up for his turn in the spotlight. Brown plays his guit-steel (a double necked guitar-steel guitar of his own invention) like nobody’s business and has a deep, rich baritone that harks back to the golden days of country with which he sings peerless originals like “My Wife Thinks You’re Dead” and choice covers including Elvis’ “Rock-a-Hula Baby.”

* Junior Brown, Del McCoury, Sun Theatre, 2200 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. 8:30 p.m. $27.50 to $35. (714) 712-2700. Also Friday, Humphrey’s By the Bay, 2241 Shelter Island Drive, San Diego. 7:30 p.m. $30 to $68.50. (619) 224-3577. Junior Brown also plays Saturday at the Roxy, 9009 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 8 p.m. $21.50. (310) 276-2222.