Search Results for: hard rock

Tuesday night (July 15), the original ’80s Duran Duran lineup (singer Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, guitarist Andy Taylor, bassist John Taylor, and drummer Roger Taylor) celebrated their 25th anniversary by playing Los Angeles’s 450-capacity Roxy nightclub as a warm-up for their much-hyped brief U.S. reunion tour, which officially kicks off tonight at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, California. Not only was this the group’s first Stateside performance in 18 years, but it also marked another homecoming of sorts, as the Roxy was the first American venue Duran Duran ever played back in 1981. Although Duran Duran have… 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 »

Ozzy may not like to play more than two shows in a row anymore, but too much rest leaves some of his Ozzfest touring partners restless. “There’s a lot of dead time on the road, and there are a lot of off days,” said Disturbed frontman David Draiman, whose band will play seven non-Ozzfest shows. “We start going nuts when we can’t play for a while. If we’re in touring mode, and we have the bus and the hotel and our instruments there, we want to play. We love getting in front of crowds rather than sitting around trying to… Read more »

Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough’s fourth annual Lupus benefit concert, Lupus 2003, takes place Friday (June 20), at Hard Rock Live located at Universal Studios City Walk in Orlando, Florida. Dorough said that he will be performing at the event, along with many of his friends from the music world. “Yeah, we have a great line-up this year,” says Dorough. “I’ve actually reached out to a bunch of friends out there-such artists as Dream, Shiloah, Alfonzo Blackwell, Tito Nieves, Debelah Morgan, and of course my lovely sister Pollyanna as well as myself.” In addition to all of those acts, Tito Puente… Read more »

Reel Big Fish and their friend and drummer for the past 4 years, Carlos De La Garza, have parted ways. The split is an amicable one as De La Garza has opted to pursue other things and spend more time with his wife and family. Filling in on drums for their upcoming summer tour is Justin Ferreria who also plays in Fish frontman Aaron Barrett’s side project, The Forces of Evil, and formally in Jeffries Fan Club and Longfellow. Opening for Reel Big Fish on the latest dates are Zebrahead, Wakefield and The Matches (with GOB and Riddlin Kids performing… Read more »

During “On My Own,” the first and only song the Used played for a radio station concert in Cincinnati on May 27, vocalist Bert McCracken slumped to the ground, where he lay unable to sing. Then he apologized to the crowd and staggered offstage. McCracken was rushed to a hospital and treated for intense chest pains, nausea and vomiting. He was later diagnosed with acute pancreatitis, a severe inflammation of the pancreas caused by autodigestion of pancreatic tissue by its own enzymes. The condition most often stems from alcohol abuse or gallstones, according to the University of Maryland Endocrinology Health… Read more »

When he belted out “Somewhere I Belong,” we’re guessing Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington didn’t mean that somewhere to be a hospital bed. But the alternametal band’s frontman has been confined to a Los Angeles-area hospital since Friday battling a mystery malady, the group’s label has announced. Bennington was admitted to an undisclosed hospital “after an attack of severe back and abdominal pains,” according to a statement from Warner Bros. Records released Tuesday on Linkin Park’s Website (www.linkinpark.com). “Bennington remains hospitalized as doctors are still trying to determine the cause of these ailments.” With Bennington idled in sick bay… Read more »

In the words of one of their songs, Dancing Days are here again for fans of Led Zeppelin. Defunct for almost 23 years, the pioneering English band behind such hard rock classics as “Stairway to Heaven” and “Kashmir” has cleaned out its vaults to issue eight hours of previously unreleased live material on DVD and CD. The “Led Zeppelin DVD” contains footage from four tours spanning 1970 to 1979; the CD “How The West Was Won” combines two Los Angeles shows from 1972 to replicate a single concert. Remarkably, the band’s leader and guitarist, Jimmy Page, who compiled the releases,… Read more »

Dirk Lance, it was nice to know you, but Incubus fans have reason to welcome new bassist Ben Kenney with open arms. “He’s been very inspiring for all of us,” guitarist Mike Einziger said at the recent ASCAP Pop Music Awards of the onetime Roots member. “He’s a very different musician than Dirk, so it adds a very different dynamic to what we’re doing. It’s just like a big fresh breath of air.” Incubus aren’t recording yet, but they’ve set up their instruments in a rented house and are writing new material they’ll take to a studio after finishing Lollapalooza.… Read more »

Proving that no one does Metallica better than Metallica, acts such as Sum 41, Limp Bizkit, Korn and Avril Lavigne gamely covered songs by the hard rock group at MTV’s annual tribute concert on Saturday while fans impatiently awaited a set by the honorees themselves. Playing in public for the first time with new bassist Rob Trujillo, Metallica ran through a fast and furious medley of songs, including “Creeping Death” and “Sanitarium,” before unveiling the speed-metal song “Frantic” from their upcoming album, “St. Anger.” Still a little rusty from a long layoff, Metallica performed “Frantic” twice after deciding that the… Read more »