Search Results for: night verses

Toronto’s ACC was packed to the brim with people of all ages, ready to check out the Beasties. After a stripped-down set by Talib Kweli, The Beastie Boys touched down. Wearing old school uniforms (Mike D rocking archetypal Cazal shades) and hysterically oversized mesh caps, the B-Boys kicked an opening set that never seemed to quit. As bizarre images and camera shots of Mike, Adam and Adam floated around on massive screens, the three were in constant motion, seeming to tag each other as they traded verses. After about 15 minutes of this, they took a moment to catch their… Read more »

Recently boasting about how she always sings live, Avril Lavigne had to make good on her claims and put Ashlee Simpson, in her place. After all, some of Lavigne’s past performances have been less than on-key. Quite expertly, Napanee’s pint-sized hero delivered the vocal goods, save for her “Complicated” encore in which she still struggled with the verses’ low notes. But otherwise, the nearly packed house at the Hanger had someone worth screaming for (ear-deafeningly, of course). Lavigne’s mall-punk compadres from Ajax, Not By Choice, riled up the tykes – a group of mostly parental accompanied 10 to 17 year… Read more »

Slipknot’s lighting guy deserves a raise. His chaotic visual display so accurately complements the band’s turbulent music that even with the sound turned off, Slipknot’s punishing assault would come across loud and clear. At Monday’s stop of the Jägermeister Music Tour, which began March 30 in Orlando, Florida, whirring red emergency lights translated the dizzying guitar lines of Jim Root and Mick Thompson. Blinding white strobes pulsed in time with Joey Jordison’s unrelenting bass drums. The sickly green hues that backlit the nine masked bandmembers manifested the music’s creepy, menacing tones, while reality-distorting black lighting frequently bathed the stage, suggesting… Read more »

Continuing to labor away in a Los Angeles studio, Avril Lavigne was reluctant to give too much away about the follow-up to 2002’s Let Go. She promised, however, that when she returns to the fray with her second album, she won’t be the wide-eyed newbie she was a year ago. “I’m a lot wiser now,” she said. “Now I know what the business is like – what you have to do and how to work it. As a writer, I’m growing and my guitar-playing is getting better. I know what it’s all about now, so I’m ready to go back… Read more »

Blink-182 recently spent the night in jail. No, not as inmates. That was their teenage years (Tom DeLonge when he was 18, Travis Barker 15, to be specific). The older, more mature Blink-182 were only behind bars for the sake of work. The punk trio shot their latest clip, for the new single “Feeling This,” at the abandoned Lincoln Heights Jail north of downtown Los Angeles. “The idea is that it’s a very institutionalized school,” singer/bassist Mark Hoppus explained on the set. “It’s kind of a combination of prep school and reform school, and it’s very repressed and kids are… Read more »

He may never win the Thug of the Year award, but his new friends the Patty Cake Man and the Pusha Man have vouched that Justin Timberlake knows the streets. “Working with Justin was crazy,” Malice, the older half of the Clipse affirmed last week in New York, the day before MTV’s 2002 Video Music Awards. The Patty Cake Man (a.k.a. Malice) and his brother Pusha T took to the stage at Radio City Music Hall as special guests for J.T.’s solo set of “Like I Love You.” “Justin recognized us,” Malice continued about working on the track. “He does… Read more »

In the city of sin, Britney Spears behaved. There was no dissing of Justin Timberlake during the opening night of the second leg of the Dream Within a Dream Tour. No cigarette smoking. No… whatever vice the rumor mills have her doing this week. Things may have changed in Britney’s well-chronicled life since the last time we saw her onstage – and that’s only if you believe the gossip – but there were no signs of it Friday at Mandalay Bay. The 20-year-old headliner was the same pop princess she was at 19. Nearly every part of Spears’ 90-minute show… Read more »

Maverick Records and the Music & Media Group of Vivendi Universal Net USA (VUNet USA) today announced that celebrated bass phenom Meshell Ndegeocello is the first major label recording artist to offer her fans a downloadable track for sale in the MP3 format. Starting today, a special dance version of the song “Earth” remixed by Lazy Dog (Ben Watt & Jay Hannan) will be available exclusively for purchase and download for 99 cents from VUNet USA’s music and media Web sites – MP3.com, RollingStone.com, GetMusic.com and MP4.com. Additionally, the 50,000 subscribers to VUNet USA’s EMusic MP3 music service will be… Read more »

“I have a buttload of material,” says Courtney Love of the archive of unreleased material by Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. “I have the holy grail of rock & roll. That’s the story.” There are 109 tapes. “But not all of it’s great. Some of it’s fragments.” She thinks there are between five and eight “solidly good,” unheard acoustic songs. “There’s some stuff that’s not very melodic that I’m not fond of, but, hey, if you’re a fan of [Radiohead’s] Kid A, it might be really great. “On those tapes,” Love continues, “are everything from shitty collages to some pretty stunning,… Read more »

With nearly a decade of hits to their name and a command of large audiences that would put Tony Robbins to shame, Green Day are a hard act to follow. No wonder, then, that Blink-182 took a page from one of rock’s biggest bad boys Wednesday night in an attempt to avoid being overshadowed. Facing an opening-night Pop Disaster Tour crowd that had expended most of its energy during Green Day’s set, Mark, Tom and Travis found that even their onstage fireballs were no match for the ones their elder peers had singed the Centennial Garden with less than an… Read more »