March 21

Monday

Calendar’s Spring Break ended on highest of low notes-literally. The fuselage on our private charter flight home from Kingston burst into flames just as we stepped off our ride onto American soil, and with it, enough high-grade Jamaican agriculture to turn Star Jones-Reynolds into the scourge of every cookie-cracker isle this side of Hershey, Pa.

And if that whole “what goes up…” thing is true, then it’s only appropriate that Sub Pop Records’ 145th battalion of my-parade-is-officially-drenched-rock Low will be playing The Velvet Room at Shaggy’s (155 West 200 South) tonight. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., tickets are $14 and available from Smith’sTix outlets wherever. But there’s a catch: not only do you have to be 21 and older to go to the Low show, but “at the artists’ request,” there’ll be no drinking or smoking inside The Velvet Room tonight. So Low’s supposed to be a natural high? That’s like taking the “mean” out of amphetamine-just a downer.

And this week, on the ever-indiscriminate “24,” CTU Agent Jack Bauer has to deal with not having power within a 5-mile radius of Disneyland or something, which raises the greater question: How small of a world is it, after all? Small enough so that Bauer will always have a loaded gun, bathroom or fully-gassed Expedition ready for him at all hours of the day. Like 50 Cent, just…uh…less color, fewer groupies, fewer hits, fewer hype-man shout-outs (“Murdoch! You my boy! Droppin’ it hot!”), and less “chronic bu-bubbly-bonic.” FOX ruins everyone’s fun tonight at 8 p.m.

What’s a mono-Bono-wanna-be do when he realizes that he’s 43 and not the guy behind “The Joshua Tree?” Throw the Faux-No a bone…o: as long as he can count to four, chances are, he’s “even better than the real thing.” And you wonder why we get paid for this? Pssh. Elevation, a U2 tribute band, plays Ego’s (668 South State St.) tonight at 9 p.m. Tickets are $8 from Smith’sTix; 21 and up; proceeds from this show will go to The Ledge’s bar-tab, because a U2 tribute band, unlike the legit U2, really couldn’t care less about developing nations’ debt. Really. They just want to get drunk. At least the Irish is authentic.