Search Results for: so what music festival

You’ll usually find R.E.M. playing arenas and esteemed concert halls. But this week, the rock hall of famers were among the acts trying to catch a break and artists looking to build their audience at the sprawling South by Southwest music festival. The multiplatinum rockers played Stubbs BBQ shortly after midnight Wednesday before an energetic crowd of a couple thousand, marking the first time they’ve played the annual extravaganza in their nearly three-decade career. But it’s hardly a downgrade: Playing a showcase at SXSW has often been a way for a veteran act to make a big splash with a… Read more »

Given the radical image changes that Panic! At The Disco has undergone in the past year, it’s hard not to read the lyrics to its new album’s opening song as a pre-emptive strike against critics. “Oh, how it’s been so long/we’re so sorry we’ve been gone/we were busy writing songs/for you,” bassist Jon Walker sings, by way of apology for the two-and-a-half-year lag between 2005’s “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” and the new “Pretty. Odd.,” due March 25 via Fueled by Ramen/Atlantic. Then, he launches into lines meant to comfort fans who have no doubt noticed that their favorite… Read more »

As By All Means continues to gain traction at commercial alternative and specialty radio (with recent adds at WEBX in Champagne IL, WSFM in Wilmington, NC and WHHZ in Gainesville, FL, plus spins on Detroit’s CIMX and more) National Product is busy loading up their tour bus for a string of dates starting Feb 7 with Just Surrender, Lorene Drive and Farewell. On March 1, National Product will open for a newly-reunited Slick Shoes at Anaheim, CA’s Chain Reaction, followed by dates with Ivoryline and Breathe Carolina . On March 14th the band will share the stage with Scary Kids… Read more »

Roy Scheider, a one-time boxer whose broken nose and pugnacious acting style made him a star in “The French Connection” and who later uttered one of cinematic history’s most memorable lines in “Jaws,” has died. He was 75. Scheider died Sunday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, hospital spokesman David Robinson said. The hospital did not release a cause of death, but Scheider had been treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital’s Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for the past two years. Scheider earned two Academy Award nominations – a best-supporting nod for… Read more »

Stevie Wonder has not performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 35 years, and has never headlined the event. Organizers want to change that this year. Wonder was scheduled to headline the second weekend of the 2008 Jazz Fest along with Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow and Louisiana native and country music star Tim McGraw, festival promoter Quint Davis said Thursday in announcing the lineup. Joel, Crow and McGraw are all festival first-timers. The last time Wonder took the stage at Jazz Fest was in 1973, when he participated in an impromptu jam session with The Meters, the… Read more »

Coachella’s indie roots will be watered down with classic rock this year. Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters has been tapped for the festival’s closing slot, performing the band’s 1973 opus, Dark Side of the Moon, in its entirety, organizers announced. The full lineup for the 2008 edition of the music festival was revealed Monday at a news conference in Mexico, with mellow rocker Jack Johnson and trip-hop trio Portishead set to hold down the other two headlining slots. Other highlights at this year’s Coachella include Kraftwerk, the Breeders, the Verve, Death Cab for Cutie, My Morning Jacket, Rilo Kiley, the… Read more »

Singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg died Sunday (Dec. 16) at his home in Maine after fighting prostate cancer for several years. He was 56. Although he made his biggest impact in pop music — via such hits as “Longer,” “Same Old Lang Syne,” “Hard to Say” and “Leader of the Band” — he had strong ties to Nashville and country music.Daniel Grayling Fogelberg was born Aug. 13, 1951, in Peoria, Ill. His father, whom he would immortalize in song, was a band leader, his mother a classically trained singer. Fogelberg dabbled in art and acting at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana… Read more »

They might not know much about running the ball at fourth and goal, but they’ve got it covered when it comes to runnin’ down a dream. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have been tapped to headline the Super Bowl XLII Halftime Show Feb. 3 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The “Free Fallin’ ” rockers join an illustrious lineup that, in the last five years, has included Prince, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Diddy, Kid Rock, Jessica Simpson and Shania Twain. (Some shows being more memorable than others, of course.) Petty’s last album with… Read more »

Is GirlFrenzy more like a GirlFizzle? The one-off daylong music festival, set to take place in October and feature an all-estrogen lineup of singers, has been indefinitely postponed, without so much as an explanation to fans or performers. “Right Arm Entertainment and Live Nation have postponed the first annual GirlFrenzy,” read an announcement on the concert’s official site. The promoters said the show would be rescheduled sometime for 2008. Among the topliners slated to appear at the show, which was supposed to take place Oct. 27 in Irvine, California, were Sheryl Crow, Avril Lavigne, Fiona Apple, Miranda Lambert, MySpace stalwart… Read more »