Cruising along on Coachella echoes

If you attended this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, you’ve already previewed some of the summer’s most promising shows, notably Coldplay, the Arcade Fire and Bright Eyes.

One of the hardest things in pop is to make music that is consistently lovely, and Coldplay’s Coachella set showed the British quartet does it as well as anyone. The band returns Aug. 20 to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.

The Arcade Fire, whose high-energy, multi-textured music owes considerable debt to the Talking Heads, was spectacular at Coachella. They’ll open, fittingly, for Talking Heads co-founder David Byrne on June 26 at the Hollywood Bowl.

Bright Eyes, the band name singer-songwriter Conor Oberst uses on stage and on record, featured tunes from the group’s alt-rock-minded “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn” album at Coachella, and the material didn’t have the evocative thrust of the gentler folk tunes from Bright Eyes’ “I’m Wide Awake -- It’s Morning.” But Oberst, a splendid writer, isn’t to be missed, and maybe things will work better in a more intimate setting. Catch him at the Grove of Anaheim (June 12) and the Grand Olympic Auditorium (June 14).

Elsewhere, Eminem’s pairing with rapper 50 Cent makes the “Anger Management Tour” a must for anyone interested in hip-hop culture. The show is July 23 at the Hyundai Pavilion.

Also noteworthy: Beck (Gibson Amphitheatre, July 22-23), Billy Corgan (Henry Fonda Theatre, July 12-13), Al Green (Greek Theatre, Aug. 19), Kasabian (Fonda Theatre, June 7; Galaxy, June 11), Femi Kuti with Mos Def (Hollywood Bowl, July 24), Alanis Morissette (Disney Hall, July 13; Orange County Performing Arts Center, July 17), Randy Travis (Canyon Club, July 17) and Rufus Wainwright (Wiltern LG, Aug. 18-19).