Search Results for: LIGHTS

NEW YORK – With a guest appearance from Alicia Keys, sing-alongs galore and an intimate two-song acoustic performance on a small stage in the middle of the crowd, John Mayer’s sold-out performance Wednesday night delivered everything a headlining spot at Madison Square Garden should. After a strong opening set from Mat Kearney, Mayer’s show began with the venue darkened before the sounds of Mayer’s guitar drowned out the screams from younger members of the audience. A blue spotlight revealed him as he began “Belief” solo before being joined by the rest of his band. As the 90-minute set (consisting primarily… Read more »

Around the time Brett Gurewitz was launching Epitaph Records in 1981, his father was lecturing him to take guitar lessons. The Bad Religion guitarist and punk-rock entrepreneur never sat down for courses with a guitar instructor, although he did go to school to learn to be a recording engineer. However, no amount of schooling could have prepared Gurewitz for the next 25 years of his life. Epitaph Records brought a new era of punk rock to the masses in 1994 when the Offspring’s “Smash” turned into one of the biggest rock records of the decade. The success of the label’s… Read more »

NEW YORK – Jamie Foxx is clearly a jack of all trades. His dramatic-acting skills earned him an Oscar and his comedy brings audiences to tears. And as for his singing, Foxx’s multiple Grammy nominations and multiplatinum plaque say it all. The actor/singer/comedian brought all his ammunition to Madison Square Garden on Monday night, breaking his Unpredictable show into two sets: One consisting of straight comedy and the other featuring singing, dancing and a brief resurrection of Ray Charles. A few days prior to the concert, Foxx checked in with MTV News via telephone from Paris, where we was attending… Read more »

Steve Jobs is the face of Apple, but the man most responsible for the iconic look and feel of such sleek devices as the iBook, iPod and now, the iPhone, is an intensely private London native named Jonathan Ive. So important is Ive to Apple that at the Macworld Expo unveiling of the iPhone, the first call Jobs placed was to Ive to offer congratulations. Ive, 39, is senior vice president of industrial design at the Cupertino, Calif., company. He lives in a modest two-bedroom home in the San Francisco suburb of Twin Peaks with his wife, Heather, a historian,… Read more »

It’s often said by, you know, people like Hulk Hogan or Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell, that into every life, a little fisticuffs must fall. For Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, that moment happened late Sunday night. And luckily for the rest of us, the whole thing was captured on a camera phone. As seen in a video now wildly making the rounds on the Net, Wentz and a member of Fall Out Boy’s security team took umbrage at the way one beefy security guard was treating a fan during the band’s sold-out gig at the Sunshine Theatre in Albuquerque,… Read more »

It’s New Year’s Eve in New York and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is headlining the buzziest indie rock bill in town. The eclectic quintet — which has risen to notoriety for selling more than 110,000 copies of its 2005 debut album in the United States without the help of a record label — has plenty to celebrate. The band is using the show at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom to preview a half-dozen tracks from its self-released sophomore set, “Some Loud Thunder,” due January 30. CYHSY’s most rabid fans don’t need much of an introduction to some of the new material.… Read more »

Switchfoot’s new Columbia album “Oh! Gravity” is pulling the band onto the road for an extensive North American tour in February and March. Labelmate Copeland will open. The trek begins Feb. 14 at the House of Blues in Anaheim, Calif., and wraps March 31 in the quintet’s San Diego homebase. Fans might even expect a concert after the concert in some instances. “I often find that after I get off stage I still have more music left in me. Hanging out with our friends in Nickel Creek in Chicago taught me what to do with the leftover music,” Switchfoot frontman… Read more »

Following are previews of albums due out within the next few months from debut acts or under-the-radar artists due for a breakthrough. PAOLO NUTINI Scottish singer/songwriter Paolo Nutini, who turns 20 January 9, was one of the most noteworthy breakout artists of 2006 for Atlantic Records in the United Kingdom. After an appearance at South by Southwest in Austin last March, his debut single, “Last Request,” reached No. 5 in July on the British charts and also became a substantial airplay hit. His debut album, “These Streets,” subsequently opened at No. 3 with out-of-the-box sales of 35,000, according to his… Read more »

You can’t blame U2’s concert promoter for wondering just how big the band’s Vertigo world tour could have been if it had simply kept on playing. After all, not one ticket went unsold for the 131 shows on the trek, which began March 28, 2005, in San Diego and wrapped December 9 in front of 47,000 fans at Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium. Having been on the road in fits and starts since March 2005, U2 was clearly in a celebratory mood in Hawaii, as Bono danced onstage with a woman from the crowd during “Mysterious Ways” and even pulled a lucky… Read more »

Touring behind Digital Ash In A Digital Urn, the second half of Conor Oberst ‘s recent double disc release, the king of heartache tried with all his might to outplay his opening band and uphold his recent large-scale reputation. However, he was no match for indie dance rock openers The Faint. Amidst the green and purple lights, The Faint hit the stage and immediately threw the crowd into a frenzy via a few bars of violin. With bassist Joel Petersen flinging his arms to the beat and vocalist Todd Fink continuously slamming his head into the microphone, the audience was… Read more »