If you’re just arriving back from summer vacation, you’re right on time because the fall concert season is about to heat up. This will also be the first fall / winter in many years that most of New Orleans’ historical theatres will finally be re-open and hosting full programs of music and more: big shows announced for the Saenger, Civic and Joy theatres. Here’s a few of our picks for upcoming shows, though plenty more should be added in weeks to come.

To a certain sect of hyperemotional tweens around the turn of the 21st century, Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba was a god of rock. The pop-emo heartthrob continued producing music under the Dashboard moniker throughout the last decade, but recently he’s turned his attention to other projects, including the folk-rock four-piece Twin Forks, who will perform at Gasa Gasa on October 11. Formed in 2011, Twin Forks plays the type of rollicking neo-folk jams that led one wag to dub them “Dashboard and Sons.” In other words, Twin Forks is in lockstep with a much larger trend in today’s pop music, and if they can get their album to the masses before the whole “bearded guys with banjos” fad wears off, they will probably be hugely successful. This makes the chance to see them in an intimate spot like Gasa Gasa all the more exciting.

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, whose Tedeschi Trucks Band will perform at the Joy Theater on October 19, are the latest in a long line of legendary musical couples whose romantic bonds have led to some great music. A current member of the Allman Brothers Band, Trucks is a first-class slide guitarist whose  blues-meets-raga-meets-rock guitar style is brilliantly soulful. Tedeschi’s voice shows traces of Aretha and Bonnie Raitt, but has a gruffness that lends authenticity to the band’s road-worn lyrics. The duo’s 9-piece backing band features a full horn section, two drummers, and the band’s secret weapon, organist and flutist Kofi Burbridge, a veteran of the Georgia music scene and a member of The Derek Trucks Band.  This show will mark a homecoming of sorts for the couple, who first met each other in New Orleans in 1999 when Tedeschi opened for The Allman Brothers at the Saenger Theater. The young musicians hit it off, a romance bloomed, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The reopened Saenger Theater has a full slate of shows coming up throughout the fall, but we’re most excited about the appearance of a true legend, Diana Ross on October 30; who we’ve long since forgiven for the pseudo-Supremes reunion tour (without the real ones) in the ‘90s. Her current tour has been getting strong reviews since its launch in April; and features something from every stage of her career including a Billie Holiday number from Lady Sings the Blues, a few of the tunes that fueled her disco comeback, and of course, lots of Supremes.

Chelsea Light Moving is the new band fronted by Thurston Moore, whose regular band Sonic Youth ended an impeccable run in 2011 following the end of his and bassist/singer Kim Gordon’s marriage. Moore as usual has a foot in both experimental music and almost-straight ahead pop; the Beck-produced 2011 solo album Demolished Thoughts found him at his most melodic, while a 2012 collaboration with Gordon and Yoko Ono went further out. The new band, with drums, double guitars and violin, rocks with abstraction; like Sonic Youth but different.  November 4 at One-Eyed Jack’s.

Bonnie Raitt qualifies as an honorary New Orleanian by now, from her early versions of Allen Toussaint songs to a long spell with Jon Cleary in her band. She’s still touring the Slipstream album, one of her rockier efforts and an album that features her oft-overlooked mastery of slide guitar. She returns to town at the Saenger Theater on December 7—the last night of lengthy a tour that began around the time of her Jazz Fest 2012 appearance, one of the most crowded the Gentilly Stage has seen and one of that year’s best.

Looking toward winter, the ever-smooth Aaron Neville will bring his Christmas show to the Civic Theater on December 15. Neville has made two separate Christmas albums, Soulful Christmas in ’93 and Christmas Prayer in ’05; both are weighted toward sacred carols but the former includes a version of Charles Brown’s “Please Come Home for Christmas” that will steal your heart (especially if you only know the Eagles version). Expect to hear a mix of seasonal tunes with those other songs that you wouldn’t dream of leaving an Aaron Neville concert without hearing.

*For OffBeat‘s complete concert listings in New Orleans, updated weekly, please visit the event listings page here.