Earth, Wind & Fire

From the tight-songwriting-and-flashy-pants black hole of old Seventies space-junk, Earth, Wind & Fire rises, touring every year with such predictability you could set your calendar by it. Last famously recognized during the apex of a medley in the kid-flick Happy Feet ("Boogie Wonderland"), EWF has bestowed upon the planet classics such as "Shining Star," "After the Love Is Gone," and "Spread Your Love." Happy Feet isn't the only movie to feature the legendary group's music, and in fact several of its more recent hits were directly commissioned by Hollywood, for films including Roll Bounce ("Love Together"), Robots ("Love's Dance"), and Hitch ("This Is How I Feel").

Meanwhile, the band itself is a spectacle, not just a funk-R&B-rock-pop-whatever amalgam of epoxy tuneage, even if the breadth of that spectacle has changed with the times. Gone are the days of lightsaber battles and holy-crap-it's-a-real-spaceship flip-outs, but fans can always count on enough wizardry and choreography to make the trip worthwhile.