A/E Highlights

Hard-rocking Canadian woman? Are you sure?

We need a little time to wrap our head around the concept. Bob and Doug McKenzie...Alex Trebek...Paul Shaffer...nope, we can't accept it yet. Give us a minute. Alanis Morissette...Neil Young...Rush...Okay, we've got our willing suspension of disbelief working now. Ebony Tay has been compared to Mick Jagger, Tina Turner and Jimi Hendrix. Presumably they were comparing her to their younger, rawer and more happening days. Surely they didn't mean to say that she had choked to death on her own vomit, because then you couldn't see her (along with Mobb Deep and Soul Liquor) play at 7 p.m. Sunday at the House of Blues. Tickets are $20 to $25. Info: 632-7600.

Rush! Aieeee Rush!

Omifreakingawd! Rush, dude! They're back! New album! Big tour! Dude, we have totally got to see them! Russssshhhhh! RUUUUSSSSSH! Yes, Rush, the band with the dreaded power to turn perfectly normal editors into pudding-brained metal heads, is coming to town. If Schumacher grows the mullet back, we are so out of here. Rush plays at 8 p.m. Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden. Tickets are $40 to $95. Info: 474-4000.

Too close for comfort

Whoa, Sarah, slow down. I mean, we hardly know you and you're singing about that to us. Way too much personal information. Can't we just get drunk and have a shallow but pleasant musical relationship? No? Fine, drag us up the evolutionary ladder with your deep meaning and soulful lyrics, but we don't promise to like walking upright and using tools. Plus, we aren't giving up belching and making under-leg noises. There's only so far we're willing to go. Sarah McLachlan performs at 8 p.m. Saturday at Mandalay Bay Events Center. Tickets are $55 to $65. Info: 632-7580.

Welcome to the faux-tel California

For those who missed the Eagles when they came through town recently, here's another chance...sorta. Hotel California is, as they say, not the real thing, but an incredible simulation, a much less expensive simulation in a more intimate setting. As long as they don't change the song to "Boys of Summerlin," we should be all right. Hmmm..."Out on the course today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a new golf cart." Oh yeah, I smell a hit. They're playing at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Cannery. Tickets are $9.95. Info: 507-5700.

Total hippie conversion

There was a time when Linda Ronstadt fans all wore peasant blouses and tattered bell-bottoms and reeked of low-grade patchouli. Now 30 years have passed and she's singing old standards with a symphony orchestra and her fans have split into two camps: those wearing Armani while bitching about those awful teenagers and their abhorrent fashions, and those wearing stretch denim and wishing they hadn't blown their trust fund on that sand candle shop. Still, she's got a great voice and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra doesn't suck. The show is 8 p.m. Saturday at the Aladdin. Tickets are $36.85 to $78.85. Info 785-5000.