A popular and eye-popping mix of stars like Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga drew a TV audience of 25.8 million Americans to the Grammy Awards — the biggest TV audience for the telecast in six years, according to preliminary television ratings on Monday.
Concert promoter Live Nation and ticket-seller Ticketmaster consummated their merger on Monday after the U.S. Justice Department approved it with conditions meant to lower ticket prices for consumers.
What’s one way to ensure your mega music festival is well attended in the middle of a recession? Book a reunited Phish. The jam band’s legions of ardent followers sell out arenas in minutes, so with little difficulty they will flood the Tennessee fields of the Bonnaroo Music Festival, which begins Thursday and runs through Sunday. In its eighth year, Bonnaroo – arguably the country’s biggest festival – will have a distinctive Phish flavor. Oh, and a guy named Bruce Springsteen is playing, too. With that lineup, organizers expect that tickets to sell without a hitch along the way, in… Read more »
Kanye West is back in the lab, and there’s only word to describe his new rhymes: “awes-mazing” (that’s supposedly a cross between awesome and amazing). “I kill that rap sh–, that’s what I do,” West said of his upcoming opus. “Lyrics right now, they’re awes-mazing. They’re basically untouchable. I’m about to take it to a whole ‘nother level. I’d be scared if I was not me.” Kanye said he is always making an album, because he comes up with lyrics just by having conversations with people. He still does not write his rhymes down and has not in six years.… Read more »
Last week Green Day announced the dates for their massive summer tour supporting May 15th’s 21st Century Breakdown, and now the band has confirmed the venues they’ll be hitting on their 38-date journey across the U.S. and Canada. The band will be playing indoor arenas rather than amphitheaters. The trek starts July 3rd at Seattle’s Key Arena and ends August 25th at Los Angeles’ Forum. Green Day have not booked any festival dates. Following is a list of the official tour dates and accompanying venues. July 3 – Seattle, WA @ Key Arena July 4 – Vancouver, BC @ GM… Read more »
A month and a half after their eighth studio album, 21st Century Breakdown, is released, Green Day will hit the road for their first tour in three years, according to the band’s reps. The North American trek kicks off July 3rd in Seattle and heads to Canada. The 38-date journey wraps August 25th in Los Angeles. The band hasn’t announced any venues yet, but when Rolling Stone first listened to Breakdown, we reported the band was looking to book indoor arenas rather than amphitheatres. Rolling Stone’s David Fricke reported from one of the band’s warm-up gigs in California last week,… Read more »
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Elton John and Billy Joel’s latest tour kicked off to a packed house on Monday, operating under the simple business model: maximized reward, exceedingly minimized risk. The three-plus-hour event was steeped in hits and nostalgia. The youngest song was the title track from Joel’s last pop album, 1993’s “River of Dreams.” “Speaking of unemployment, we’re just happy you’re keeping us in business. We’re happy to have a job,” Joel said after a timely spin through “Allentown,” Joel’s 1982 ballad of economic gloom. Joel’s words rang true, but there wasn’t much worry about that: They last toured together… Read more »
The Live Nation Ticketmaster merger was brought before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights yesterday, with the Chicago music scene at the epicenter of testimony both for and against the merger. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the Windy City was used as an example of how the merger wouldn’t violate antitrust laws, with Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino citing that his company only put on 16 percent of the concerts in Chicago, compared to the 29 percent staged by Chicago-based concert company Jam Productions. However, Jam’s Jerry Mickelson, testifying against the merger, told the subcommittee that… Read more »
NASHVILLE — Watch Nathan Followill breeze into his local Nashville watering hole, and it’s obvious that he’s well known and well liked by the crew at McCabe’s Pub. Clad in sweats and a Yankees cap, the Kings of Leon drummer comes off more as cool local guy than international rock star Nothing in this manner indicates that his Nashville-based rock band’s fourth album is finally making the Kings as big in the United States as they have been in Europe since 2004, when the group had back-to-back No. 1 singles in the United Kingdom According to the band’s label, RCA,… Read more »
LOS ANGELES — Concert promoter Live Nation Inc and ticketing giant Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. confirmed their merger plans Tuesday and got right to work addressing antitrust concerns that have taken center stage Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller to be chairman of the new company – which would be called Live Nation Entertainment – sought to dispel the notion that the deal would lead to higher ticket prices. “Ticketmaster does not set prices. Live Nation does not set ticket prices. Artists set the prices,” he said, without mentioning the ticket surcharges Ticketmaster relies on for much of its revenue. Under the deal… Read more »
