Around Town: World Cup Parties, Naked Bike Rides, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Passion Pit

It's all about balls this weekend.

​Thanks to our proximity to South America, Miami cares a little bit more about the World Cup than most U.S. cities. Still, it's no England, where half of all workers bees are expected play hooky from their day jobs to watch a little footie at the pub. On the other end of the spectrum is Somalia, where a militant group might decapitate you if you take any time away from jihad to watch a match. Our soccer fanaticism is somewhere in the middle.

Friday

• Can you handle it? The World Cup starts today! Last year's headbutters - France - take on Uruguay for a 2:30 p.m. match. Watch the fancy footwork of striker Thierry Henry at any number of world-cup-viewing-bars. See which Miami bars are airing the game here.  

Saturday

• Critics point to Pains of Being Pure at Heart as being just another Brooklyn band aping shoegazers and new wavers. But in the words of Pitchfork's Ian Cohen, they're latest album "mixes sparkling melodies with an undercurrent of sad bastard mopery, and you're just being a dick if you think the past has some kind of patent on that." They play Grand Central with Surfer Blood on Saturday.

• We're hoping the fact that BP stands for British Petroleum gets the USA team pumped up to rock the overly confident England team. See this World Cup pairing at Miami's resident English (-ish) pun, Churchill's. The balls drops at 2:30pm.
  

• Perhaps the only time you can feel OK with visiting five dessert places in one day is when you must pedal to the next confection stop. Emerge Miami hosts a Sweet Treats Ride through the Gables and the Grove on Saturday

• Bare as much as you dare at the Miami World Naked Bike Ride to make a statement about our destructive dependence on oil.

• Saturday marks the first Miami match for the Gold Coast Derby Grrls. The South Florida team takes on Altanta's Sake Tuyas at the Doral Park Country Club.

• We know, we know. How are you expected to care about art in the midst of the World Cup's first weekend? Still, there's gotta be some pale, grumpy, art kids out there hankering for the Second Saturday Wynwood Art Walk. See our full preview here.

Sunday

• Sunday's big World Cup match is Australia v. Germany. Head over the Schnitzel Haus, a bona fide Bavarian restaurant and biergarten, where donning a soccer jersery will get you a free beer.

• Hit up a night of danceable rock music with Passion Pit at the Fillmore. I know their 2008 "Sleepyhead" is a little played out, but have you seen the video? Man, we miss the MTV that actually played music videos and not "16 and Pregnant."