MUSIC | Arcade Fire at the Danforth Music Hall
Word has spread pretty fast about Canadian indie flagbearers Arcade Fire playing a pair of not-so-secret shows today and Saturday at the Danforth Music Hall. The band is about to release their long-awaited third album called the Suburbs, the first two cuts of which indicate they've lightened up considerably since Neon Bible, their dark paean to Bush-era America. I hope you're not working today, cause there are probably already some hardcore fans lined up at the Music Hall's box office. Tickets for each show go on sale each at noon the day of and are first come first serve, one ticket per person.
Danforth Music Hall, 147 Danforth Avenue, $37.50, 7 pm

FESTIVAL | Luminato Festival
The Luminato Festival, Toronto's annual celebration of arts and creativity, begins today. Highlights from the first weekend include the Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer, a play starring John Malkovich about the true life story of Jack Unterweger, an Austrian murderer who was called a literary genius by the intellectual elite for his prison autobiography, only to murder 11 more women on his release. The National Ballet of Canada presents the beloved West Side Story Suite over the next three days, and in Trinity Bellwoods Park you can board a landlocked Chinese junk for the next month as part of the Ship of Fools art installation. Check back at blogTO for full coverage of the festival over the coming days.
Various venues and times, check website for full details

THEATRE | The Trigger Festival
The Trigger Festival celebrates the resilience of marginalized queer communities with two days of performances, speakers and activism this weekend. Taking aim at homophobia, racism, capitalism, misogyny, classism, and just about every other kind of repression you can think of, the festival is deliberately radical and unapologetically outragerous. Featuring performances by politically provocative clown duo the Hobo Homos and local band the Secret Brothers, film screenings of forward-thinking queer movies like Alec Butler's Transcabaret and the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention's Brown Like Me, readings by the likes of Montreal trailblazing author Zoe Whittall, and Saturday workshops on topics like gay parents and queer bashing the G20, Trigger combines art and activism to entertain and inspire. Runs til Saturday.
Raging Spoon, 761 Queen Street West, $7 - $10 each day, Friday 7:30 pm - 2 am, Saturday 11 am - 2 am

FILM | Toronto Irish Film Festival presents The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were an Irish band that played an influential role in the folk revival of the 1960s. Palling around with Bob Dylan in New York's Greenwich Village, the brothers escaped a dreary life in Ireland and became overnight stars when they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1961. The last surviving member of the group Liam Clancy died in 2009, but not before leaving an indelible mark on the music scene on both sides of the Atlantic. The Yellow Bittern tells the story of the charismatic and outspoken Clancy, who Dylan called the greatest ballad singer he'd ever seen. The screening of the film at Innis Town Hall tonight is a fundraiser for the inaugural Toronto International Film Festival, and will be followed by an after-party at nearby pub Molly Bloom's.
Innis Town Hall, 2 Susssex Avenue, $20, 7pm

THEATRE | TTTTg (Triple Trooper Trevor Trumpet Girl
This weekend the Theatre Centre presents a three-night run of TTTTg, a minimalist play by Belgian Tine van Aerschot that will mark the return to the stage of CBC heartthrob Don McKellar. The multi-talented McKellar, who was recently named "Canada's George Clooney" by the Montreal Gazette, will be performing in the two-person play with his longtime partner Tracy Wright (who you might recognize from Me, You and Everyone We Know). The play is little more than a public reading of the diary of a fictional man named Trevor who's mundane interests include the history of the potato and the mechanics of heart transplants. The two actors trade lines from the diary while sitting on swings, taking the audience into the funny and pathetic mind of a recluse. Runs til Sunday.
The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen Street West, $20, 8 pm nightly

PARTY | Partyer Down
The Dirty Weekend Soundcrew might just be the most unpretentious DJs in Toronto. They're so unpretentious in fact that they don't even call themselves DJs, just a trio of dudes who think they can do better than most iPod jockeys in this town. Tonight they throw their first party at Clinton's, promising to play the best electro, indie, and new wave tunes that you won't hear anywhere else. A tall order considering how many indie parties there are in Toronto, but I like their moxy.
Clinton's Tavern, 693 Bloor Street West, $5, 10 pm

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Photo: "Light Stepper" by tomms, member of the blogTO Flickr Pool.