After nailing “Shiver” with his trademark falsetto two songs into last night’s opening show of Coldplay’s second U.S. tour, Chris Martin greeted the crowd. “Sorry we’re a bit later than expected, like three months or something,” the singer told fans stuffed into Boston’s Avalon Ballroom, referring to a date Coldplay scrapped due to Martin’s sore throat. “But it gives you a buildup.” Vaulted expectations probably aren’t the best measure of a band such as Coldplay, a group supporting a solitary CD, Parachutes, whose sublime pleasures tend to creep up on listeners. Martin’s cheeriness lent levity to the British quartet’s 80-minute… Read more »
As if having the Number One single in the country (according to Soundscan) wasn’t enough good news for one week in an 11 year old boy’s life, rising rap star Lil’ Romeo, was chosen to kick off *N Sync’s sold out 2001 Pop Odyssey Tour tonight in Jacksonsville, Florida. Lil’ Romeo, whose hit single “My Baby” was the number one selling single in the country last week, will join BBMak and 3LW on the sold-out date at Jacksonville’s All-Tel Stadium (50,000 capacity). “It feels good to be performing on N’Sync’s opening night of their tour. Me and my brother and… Read more »
The release of Amnesiac on June 5 will bring to a conclusion Radiohead’s three-year saga of what to do after OK Computer. And after going in markedly different directions with Amnesiac and last fall’s Kid A, bassist Colin Greenwood says he expects the group to drift back toward something resembling a standard operating procedure. “We’ve talked about doing a guitar album next,” Greenwood reports. “The reason we did these two records is to show that anything is possible rather than everything is expected; the last thing we wanted to do was go into the studio and make another version of… Read more »
Capitol recording group OTEP, the provocative Los Angeles-based band whose signing to the label was celebrated with an A-list midnight hour convocation at the Viper Room last month, will join this summer’s all-star OzzFest 2001 lineup, featuring headliners Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Papa Roach, Linkin Park, and Crazytown. OTEP’s OzzFest 2001 dates, which commence June 8 in Chicago and run through July 13 in West Palm Beach, Fla., coincide with the release of “jihad,” the debut EP by OTEP, whose full-length debut album will follow next spring 2002. OTEP, whose nightly “ritual of mental alchemy” is fronted by the… Read more »
The plot was spoiled well before Eric Clapton even took the stage of Dallas’ Reunion Arena for the maiden performance of his 2001 Reptile tour. Opening act Doyle Bramhall II and his band Smokestack may have kicked off Thursday night’s show with a thunderous roar reminiscent of Clapton in his Cream days, but the three chairs brought front and center before the main event was a tell-tale sign that there would be no more of that tomfoolery. Not that Clapton didn1t receive an honest-to-god, three-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, guitar hero’s welcome when he walked out on… Read more »
‘NSYNC hit their legion of fans with a double whammy Wednesday morning. Their record company, Jive, announced that not only has the group delayed the release of its new album, Celebrity, from June 26 to July 24, but the start of the boys’ PopOdyssey tour has been pushed back again as well. The band isn’t quite done recording the album, a Jive spokesperson said. The album will display the group’s writing and production skill on some of the tracks, and it’ll also feature contributions from Rodney Jerkins, Brian McKnight, the Neptunes and Wade Robinson. This is the second time ‘NSYNC… Read more »
When the members of U2 walked off the stage on their 1997-1998 “PopMart” tour, the final image was a heart framed by the outsized “golden” arch – a juxtaposition that perfectly encapsulated that tour’s muddy concept, as the group had strained to find a balance between earnest emotion and smirking irony. On their current “Elevation” tour, the band wears their hearts on their sleeves or, to be more precise, on the heart-shaped runway that surrounds them and a portion of crowd, reaching halfway into the arena. Allowing much of the audience close contact with the band, the stage, along with… Read more »
In a triple bill of Australian rock heavyweights that would have filled arenas in 1988, INXS, Midnight Oil, and Men At Work will team for a month-long North American tour this summer. The jaunt, with INXS and Midnight Oil alternating in the closing spot each night, begins May 28 in Atlanta and wraps June 27 in Las Vegas. INXS will be fronted by Jon Stevens, replacing Michael Hutchence, who committed suicide in late 1997. The band is also said to be plotting a new studio album, which would be its first since 1997’s “Elegantly Wasted” (Mercury). As previously reported, Rhino… Read more »
Rock superstars U2 launched their first U.S. tour in nearly four years in classic form in Florida Saturday night, treating 20,000 devoted, delirious fans to a crowd-pleasing mix of old and new songs delivered with their legendary energy free of the extravagances of their most recent tours. The Irish rockers hit the stage of the National Car Rental Center arena at Sunrise, near Miami, with the house lights still on and launched into a swinging “Elevation” for their new album “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”. For the next two hours they put on a performance in which the songs,… Read more »
blink-182 kicked off their world tour last night, playing a couple of tracks off ‘California’ with Tom DeLonge for the first time.
