LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM It must be a bitch being Fleetwood Mac svengali Lindsey Buckingham. Like his idol and fellow pop perfectionist Brian Wilson, he must live up to his musical legacy. In Buckingham’s case, he domineeringly directed the Mighty Mac to towering commercial and creative success. At the same time, Buckingham must live down his personal legend — the obsessive coke-blown genius and abusive demon lover to Stevie Nick’s gossamer faerie queen. The evidence suggests the two cannot be separated. After all, Buckingham’s fidgety, Peruvian-powdered fingerprints are all over Mac’s diffuse and difficult masterpiece Tusk. The guitarist seems to have accepted this. He’s on board for Mac’s 2013 tour, while solo he’s mellowed and matured, reflecting a man at peace with his place in the pop firmament. True, his simple, emotionally resonant lyrics have grown more opaque and self-consciously poetic, but his inventively arranged pop 'n’ roll and baroque folk still engage while getting under the skin. It’s the mark of a master that he makes it all look easy. $50. 8:30 p.m. Neighborhood Theatre.

FILTER Sure, they haven’t been relevant in years, but I still can’t bring myself to say anything bad about Filter. There was always this mix between the band’s semi-industrial chug and Richard Patrick’s hard-drinking howls that hooked me as a teenager. With the dominant rock radio model of that era being either lobotomized party jingles (Smash Mouth, Sugar Ray, the baffling swing dance revival) or misogynistic threat-songs (Limp Bizkit, Disturbed), what Filter brought to the table was consistently refreshing. The songs hit hard, yet mine human vulnerability for an essential angst quotient. As far as ’90s survivors go, one could do far worse. I won’t say the same for the headliner, though. With Fuel. $27. 8 p.m. The Fillmore.

ANTISEEN You’ll get your usual blood, guts and gore at this Antiseen-headlined show, but the mayhem will happen before they even hit the stage. Welcome to the inaugural “Rock N’ Rassle Apocalypse,” a wrestling-rock extravaganza that’s a perfect pairing for Destructo rockers — they go with wrestling like Texas Pete goes with anything I eat. (Interestingly, this is only the second time in its 29-year history that the band has performed at a wrestling event.) Matches will feature wrestlers from Raleigh-based Gouge Pro Wrestling, including a headliner pitting the Necro Butcher (featured in “The Wrestler”) against “Beastmaster” Rick Link. Plus, the first 100 attendees get a free copy of Antiseen’s new wrestling CD collection, Falls Count Anywhere. The only beef you could possibly have with this event is that it won’t be available on Pay-for-View for the next month. With Flat Tires and Rory Kelly. $15. 7 p.m. Tremont Music Hall.

ALISON KRAUSS & UNION STATION Alison Krauss has been making gorgeous American music since her debut recording for Rounder, Too Late to Cry, back in 1987. Her sweet voice and fiddle playing are rooted in a bluegrass foundation, but she can turn a phrase with ease in country, folk and even pop. Her recording with rock god Robert Plant could have gone horribly wrong and landed among the rock era’s myriad disparate duo albums that fizzled, but Krauss simply folded her natural voice with Plant’s and further proved her versatility on that fine record, while dabbling in rockabilly and rock. She’s just as warm when she performs with legendary Southern gospel act the Cox Family. Krauss & Union Station’s most recent recording, Paper Airplane, displays, once again, how beautiful music can be without all the flashiness. With Jerry Douglas. $35-$70. 8 p.m. Time Warner Cable Uptown Amphitheatre.

RAINBOW DANGER CLUB FROM SHANGHAI We’re led by some to believe the Chinese will soon be our overlords, and there are 282 billion reasons (that’s the 2011 trade deficit, in case you were wondering) to stoke that xenophobic fire. Unless you’re Rosetta Stone-ing your way through Mandarin or Cantonese, the 21st century will leave you behind — or so goes the (Western) doomsayer’s logic. All that may or may not come to pass, but for now, as China kicks America’s import/export-ratio ass and Westernizes at warp speed, the cultural deficit is still found on the Chinese side. (Not saying that’s a good or bad thing, but how much Canto- and Mando-pop do you have on your iPod?) You can look to these visitors from Shanghai, who play, according to the UK’s Guardian, “riveting, epic melodies that soar and patter along majestically...[and] skirt the line between beauty and ugliness, light and dark, innocence and depravity” as an example. It’s impossible to measure objectively, but the most Chinese element of their proggy dreampop songs are the accompanying Mandarin characters. It’s not bad at all, if a little stiff, but one does wish the cultural exchange rate was more even here. Some day the U.S.’s cultural hegemony will end, as hegemonies must. But even in today’s age of data-byte Internationalism, Western pop music in all its iterations is still the sin qua non of youth culture around much of the developed world. $5 in advance. 10:30 p.m. Evening Muse.

JOSH RITTER It’s no surprise that this spud-fed spawn of Idaho neurosurgeons is both brainy and earthy. But troubadour, raconteur and budding novelist Josh Ritter also knows his way around inventive arrangements and killer hooks. His freshman novel, Bright’s Passage, has been praised for compressed lyricism on par with Ray Bradbury’s, and that same haunting and magical wordplay populates his songs. Lyrics both Dylan- and carnival-esque unfold in delicate, uncluttered compositions that build to majesty. Jaunty humor also joins the fray, particularly on the murder ballad mash-up “Folk Bloodbath,” Ritter’s foray into Nick Cave-ish goth-opera territory. True, Ritter sometimes hews too close to his influences, with arrangements relying too much on “Everybody Must Get Stoned” B-3 organ. It’s also been charged that his songcraft is too perfect and pristine, and that his muse is more intellect than soul. His wide-open Celtic heart recalls The Waterboys, and his surreal folkloric storytelling nods to John Prine, proving that mind and emotion need not be exclusive. Ritter is trawling mythic waters both deep and wide. With David Wax Museum. $25.50-$29.50. 7:30 p.m. Knight Theater.