One of this spring’s hottest tickets not only pairs two of pop’s most consistent and bankable stars, but also puts two of music’s best big-venue performers on the same stage: R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige and hiphop sensation Jay-Z entertain crowds at Madison Square Garden May 2, 6, and 7. While they have shared this stage before, most notably in the 2004 Jay-Z concert documentary “Fade to Black,” these three shows aren’t an artist’s goodbye before his mid-career retirement.

Before these two New York natives take the stage, however, a bevy of mini festivals and not-to-be-missed shows by forward-looking female artists, indie-rock chameleons, and 1990s survivors pulses through the city.

The Bamboozle Festival, which occupies New Jersey’s Meadowlands Sports Complex April 3 and 4, might be the best emo-rock bang for your buck this season. More than 100 bands traipse across 10 different stages from noon into the evening, with Panic at the Disco, Anti-Flag, Less Than Jake, Saves the Day, and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones being the marquee names. Panic at the Disco works overtime at the smaller, though similarly emo-themed Honda Civic Tour, which drives into the Roseland Ballroom April 7 and 8 with Motion City Soundtrack, the Hush Sound, and Phantom Planet. And for a solid night of music with much less sharing of feelings, the heavy-rocking Gigantour lands at the Hammerstein Ballroom April 22. Metal veteran Megadeth and Sweden’s orchestral In Flames headline, but the Finnish act Children of Bodom and Northern California’s boogie-metal trio High on Fire deliver must-see sets.

Canadian First Nations artist Buffy Sainte-Marie is primarily known for her folk-inspired work of the mid-1960s, but since then her music and art have expanded their political awareness and use of contemporary digital media. Her March 28 Highline Ballroom concert is the first in a string of shows from genre-bending and career-redefining female artists passing through the city. Expect restless country veteran Shelby Lynn to focus on the soulful side she exposed on her new Dusty Springfield homage, “Just a Little Lovin’,” during her April 4 performance at Concert Hall. And dance-pop siren Alison Goldfrapp showed a startling gift for moving psychedelic folk on Goldfrapp’s latest album, “Seventh Tree”; it’ll be curious to see how this infamously visually dramatic duo fashions this new material onstage at Madison Square Garden April 29.

San Francisco’s art-rock outfit Xiu Xiu pulled a mini-makeover itself on its new “Women as Lovers,” a surprising turn toward the accessible and melodic without losing any of songwriter Jamie Stewart’s acid-tongued observations. Mr. Stewart and Xiu Xiu share their childhood traumas with the Music Hall of Williamsburg March 23, the first high-drama indie-rock show of the season. Baltimore’s organ-powered duo Beach House drifts like a cloud into the Bowery Ballroom April 2. I’m From Barcelona, Sweden’s 29-member-strong ensemble that is even more uplifting than the Polyphonic Spree, takes over Brooklyn’s Masonic Temple May 1.

England’s Morcheeba never scored the Billboard Top 40 chart success during the 1990s that it earned in its home country, but its seductive mix of triphop and more conventional R&B earned the trio a healthy American fan base. The group heads into Webster Hall March 26 behind its new album “Deep Dive,” the first of a handful of still-together ’90s acts hitting the road. Evan Dando reforms his Lemonheads and plays the group’s 1992 pop breakthrough album “It’s a Shame About Ray” — it’s being re-released by Rhino March 25 — at the Bowery Ballroom March 30. Meanwhile, Urge Overkill, Chicago’s well-dressed alt-rock version of Cheap Trick power-pop, dusts off its velvet jackets for an April 29 date at the Bowery Ballroom.

New York’s Antipop Consortium was the only hip-hop outfit ever angular, intelligent, and just plain weird enough to release albums through England’s avant-garde electronic label Warp, and the reformed group’s two shows at the Knitting Factory March 22 are the first must-see shows of month. The Boredoms’s in-the-round March 30 date at Terminal 5 probably won’t top its mind-blowing, 77 drummer-powered event at Brooklyn’s Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park last summer, but this Japanese quartet inevitably stages a spectacle that brands itself into the ears and retinas. Discover why Israel’s Monotonix is one of the most high-energy live bands in rock at Union Hall April 7.

But the most impossible-to-imagine show of the near future is the Ya Ho Wa 13’s April 8 visit to the Knitting Factory. The Ya Ho Wa 13 was a Southern California spiritual commune turned free-form psychedelic rock band in the 1970s, and continued making its expansive music for a few years even after Father Yod, its spiritual/band leader, died in a hang-gliding accident in 1975. (Not kidding.) The band reunited on the West Coast last fall and played its first shows in 30 years, and that group invades the Leonard Street haunt in April. When a band’s back catalog includes song titles such as “The Great Woe” and “Oh Ya Ho Wa,” the pedestrian quite simply isn’t going to be in the cards.