Search Results for: arenas

It looks like Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are reuniting for a concert tour. The former duo has reserved dates at concert arenas across the country, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, a concert industry trade publication. And they were scheduled to make a “very special announcement” at a New York nightclub on Tuesday, publicists said. There has been talk of a tour since Simon & Garfunkel performed together to open the Grammy Awards ceremony in February, and they’ve done the logistical groundwork, Bongiovanni said. “Everyone’s been expecting it,” he said. “It was still in the speculative stages, because you… Read more »

Ticket sales are down, and big tours are scaling back to smaller venues. It looks to be a long, hot summer for the touring industry. On the cusp of the industry’s peak period, a number of high-profile tours and festivals have already hit snags, among them highly touted outings from Mariah Carey, the Field Day Music Festival, Lollapalooza, and Beck and Dashboard Confessional. Faced with a crowded tour market combined with high ticket prices, permit hassles, a sluggish economy and poor buzz, these tours and a handful of others have either had to scale back the size of the venues… Read more »

Pearl Jam is walking the long road…away from their longtime label. The grunge-rock survivors have served notice that they’re exiting the Sony-owned Epic Records after fulfilling the terms of its contract. The Seattle quintet quietly announced the split in the Q&A section of its Sony-run Rumour Pit Website. Sandwiched between questions about where the band is playing concerts and whether it will ever play the controversial anti-White House song “Bu$hleaguer” (answer: “Ya never know…”) is the query: “Have Pearl Jam left their record company yet?” The answer is simply “yes.” Pearl Jam has been in the Epic fold since the… Read more »

Due to popular demand, international superstars Bon Jovi have added more dates to their current sold-out tour in support of their acclaimed CD Bounce (Island Records). This summer, the band returns from their European stadium tour to play arenas, ampitheatres and stadiums (in Philadelphia, Detroit and Boston), returning to many markets where they have already played to capacity-filled crowds. The additional tour dates begin in July and conclude with a hometown, multi-night stand at Giants Stadium in New Jersey on August 7th and 8th. (See below for a full listing of additional tour dates). Tickets for the additional dates will… Read more »

From rampaging bikers at the Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont show in 1969 to deadly stampedes by fans of the Who and Pearl Jam, the most notorious rock concert tragedies have generally been linked to the biggest names in the business. That is, until Great White took the stage of a tiny Rhode Island nightclub Thursday night. The heavy metal “hair” band, which reached the brief apex of its career in the 1980s, will now be forever remembered for a devastating fire that stands in a class by itself as the deadliest episode in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll mayhem.… Read more »

‘NSYNC and Britney Spears took a distant back seat to dinosaur rockers Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and Cher this year when it came to concert ticket sales. As alarming as that might seem to Timberlake groupies, it probably has a lot more to do with the limited number of shows the young stars played than with any sort of pop backlash or classic rock revolution. Touring for the first time in almost a decade, McCartney netted $126.1 million, according to data from Billboard Boxscores. The former Beatle landed $98.8 million from U.S. shows and an additional $27.5 million from… Read more »

With a nod and a wink to their big-tongued logo, the Rolling Stones kicked off their “Licks” tour on Tuesday night in front of 16,000 roaring fans who lapped up every minute of it. Four decades after the Stones first took their blues-steeped soul to the stage, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the rest of the band launched what may be their most ambitious tour yet with a two-hour show at Boston’s Fleet Center. “There’s nothing so exciting as starting an American tour on the first night,” the 59-year-old Jagger told the audience. “And there’s nothing so exciting as starting… Read more »

A ban on the festival-seating arrangement that contributed to a fatal 1979 stampede at a Cincinnati arena will be lifted for a Bruce Springsteen concert this fall, officials said. Springsteen requested that the city reinstate general-admission seating for his Nov. 12 concert at U.S. Bank Arena. Managers of the venue said they were eager to try it anyway to compete with arenas in other cities that allow the arrangement for top acts. Eleven people were trampled to death Dec. 3, 1979, when fans rushed the doors at the arena – then known as Riverfront Coliseum – for a concert by… Read more »

Despite prolonged major success for Nickelback and projects linked to its frontman, Chad Kroeger, the Canadian rockers don’t look to be slowing down any time soon with promoting its multi-platinum album, Silver Side Up. The group has a new single and accompanying video with the song, “Never Again,” a live DVD in the works, and tour dates now scheduled worldwide through December. Nickelback once again collaborated on both the video and the DVD with Nigel Dick, who directed clips for the band’s two previous singles, “How You Remind Me” and “Too Bad.” Kroeger said that the concept of the DVD… Read more »

U2 frontman Bono’s next tour is less than a week away, although it won’t find the internationally famous singer performing in the glimmering sporting arenas of the first world. Instead, Bono will visit the AIDS-ravaged terrain of Sub-Saharan Africa with U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill beginning May 20. The 10-day-tour will take the unlikely duo to schools, AIDS clinics, and various World Bank development projects in Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, and Ethiopia, AP reports. Bono has long used his fame as a platform to speak out about the situation, which has seen more than 22 million Africans claimed by AIDS,… Read more »