Concert Dates, Concert Tour News, Artist Information

The White Stripes go from rock to ballet

It’s not the first time that rock stars have gone from performing in a grimy nightclub to opulent theater halls, but it’s certainly a first for The White Stripes, who have written their first ballet.

Pitchfork reports that the Stripes wrote the music for Chroma, a contemporary ballet that is set to the band’s music, though it’s played by a full orchestra. Without a doubt, this should be interesting. “The award-winning piece debuted at London’s Royal Opera House in November 2006, and now it’s coming to Toronto as part of the National Ballet of Canada’s forthcoming season…Chroma features five pairs in flesh-colored outfits artfully moving to White Stripes songs like “The Hardest Button to Button” and “Blue Orchid”, according to a Guardian review of the London show.”

Sounds cool, but how will regular ballet patrons enjoy the show? If they also happen to be White Stripes fans, then they’ll probably like it quite a lot. Still, it’s quite a stretch from the Detroit garage-rock the Stripes are known for and classical orchestral music.

In any case, next time they go on tour, get concert tickets from StubHub.

The Onion makes NASA cool again

With all that shiny, space material in NASA’s shuttle, it was never going to take long for rock to be attracted to nerdy space travel (rock stars, after all, are fond of shiny things). That’s essentially where glam came from, though there’s much more to glam than the color and glitz of it. Not that you’d know that reading through The Onion’s smart and funny article about NASA launching a David Bowie Concept Mission.

Well, they don’t have money for a real mission, do they?

The Onion is always awesome for the level of detail that they put into their stories, but this article is especially well-written, with references to Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust days sprinkled throughout. This portion of the article earned the biggest guffaws from us: “The five-member crew is made up entirely of United States Air Force officers and includes Maj. Tom Louis, Maj. Tom Greely, Maj. Tom Ohweiler, Maj. Thomas Sinclair, and Maj. Tom Keenan. While the mission will primarily study paranoia, decadence, and the fluidity of sexual identity in a zero-gravity environment, additional scientific testing will be conducted during the shuttle’s 14-day orbit of Earth.”

Brilliant as always. Now let’s hope Ziggy gets back on tour in the near future. Get concert tickets for Bowie at StubHub.

News about James Murphy’s first film soundtrack

Noah Baumbach, director of The Squid and the Whale and longtime collaborator of Wes Anderson, has a new movie coming out that’s steadily gathering buzz online. It isn’t just that Greenburg looks like it’ll be a hilarious story about a guy who’s trying to figure out what he’s doing with his life—it’s that it’ll have a fantastic soundtrack provided by none other than LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy.

This is the first soundtrack that Murphy has put together, but if anyone should be charged with setting evocative, hip music to images, it would be him. Pitchfork has a few new details about the soundtrack, including a listing of the track titles and the news that new LCD Soundsystem music will be coming. He also offers a heads-up about the music on the soundtrack, noting it “sounds NOTHING like LCD, really. it’s made to fit the movie, not be ‘my record’.”

Good news all around. When LCD finally heads back out on tour, you can get concert tickets at StubHub.

American Idol has found the new Simon Cowell: Howard Stern

During his tenure with American Idol, judge Simon Cowell was known for his brutally frank assessments (some would say “take-downs”) of various aspiring singers. His sarcastic barbs were witty and sometimes laced with venom. So who to get to replace a divisive figure that regularly brought fireworks to the stage?

How about Howard Stern?

According to the AV Club, who cites several other news sources, Stern is being considered for the position, which would certainly be a fiery replacement for Cowell. You want someone who will start some controversy and offer some no-holds-barred opinions? That’s Stern to a T. But he’s a lot more rough around the edges than the refined but brutal Cowell. And how will he get along with the other judges—like Ellen Degeneres, who has a very different style of humor? You can see the show’s producers rubbing their hands with glee over the drama that’s set to unfold if they go with Stern. Drama, after all, is what makes show business go ‘round.

Looking for concert tickets to see your favorite former Idol contestants on stage? Check StubHub today.

Leonard Cohen: Forced to Take a Break

Apparently Leonard Cohen is being forced to rest. According to an article on Pollstar.com, the singer/songwriter suffered a compression injury in his lower back and has been forced to postpone his European tour. Instead of taking place in the spring, the trek will now take place from September to October. Cohen is 75-years-old and has been advised by his doctors to take a rest to allow the injury to properly heal. Cohen’s manager, Robert Kory, put out a press release saying, “Doctors have confirmed that Mr. Cohen is otherwise in terrific shape, thanks to years of exercise and careful diet, and simply needs appropriate time to recover from the lower back injury.”

Don’t miss out on the autumn tour by Cohen, check out all of the available Leonard Cohen tickets currently on StubHub to reserve your seat at one of the many performances.

Kid Rock to Open for Bon Jovi in London

As reported by Billboard.com, Bon Jovi added a pair of dates onto its residency at the London O2 Arena in June, and Kid Rock will open for the band on June 25 and 26. Promoted by AEG Live, the string of 13 dates runs from June 7 through June 26. AEG Live president of international touring Rob Hallett released a statement saying, “London is staging one of the great rock ‘n’ roll shows, night after night this summer. There are very few bands in the world that can sell out this many dates at one venue and we haven’t stopped yet. As a promoter, you listen to the fans and if the demand is there, you can do something as big as this. We’ve been listening and it’s a deafening roar out there.” London’s O2 Arena has a capacity of 23,000, although the venue is usually configured to accommodate around 17,000 for rock and pop concerts.

Bon Jovi kicks off a North American tour in Honolulu, HI on Thursday (Feb. 11). The New Jersey-bred band will make stops in cities like Seattle, WA; San Jose, CA; Glendale, AZ; Anaheim, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; Fargo, ND; Omaha, NE; Philadelphia; PA, Uncasville, CT; Dallas, TX; Atlanta, GA and more through July 30, 2010.

Get your Bon Jovi tickets at StubHub.

Cobra Starship + 3OH!3 = Tour = Awesome

So word is out that Cobra Starship and 3OH!3 are joining together for a co-headlining tour this spring, which will see the bands travel across North America April through June. It’s called the “Too Fast For Love” tour and will officially kick off on April 28 at the Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee. It is scheduled to continue through June 11. The dates are listed below.

April 28: Milwaukee at the Eagles Ballroom
May 5: Detroit at The Fillmore
May 12: New York at the Roseland Ballroom
May 26: Seattle at the Showbox SoDo
June 1: Los Angeles at Club Nokia
June 9: Lake Buena Vista, Florida at the House of Blues
June 11: Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing

In addition be sure to see them both at the inaugural Bamboozle Chicago on May 15!

What are you waiting for? Get your Cobra Starship tickets from StubHub before they all disappear.

Pitchfork Music Festival lineup is out

The AV Club has a brief up about the upcoming Pitchfork Music Festival, and the lineup is looking pretty enticing. The three day festival doesn’t offer as much as, say, Coachella or Bonnaroo, but serves as an excellent little “mini” festival, with the selection pared down to the essentials. The bands that are breaking through and really attracting attention are the ones that get noticed at these events.

Held at Union Park in Chicago from July 16 through 18, the festival features a variety of indie-rock regulars. Friday night kicks it off with Modest Mouse. Just that band—what a way to start. Saturday includes LCD Soundsystem and Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan, so dance fans and hip-hop fans will be brought together. Sunday has the most variety, with Pavement and St. Vincent undoubtedly being the highlights, though smaller bands like Sleigh Bells and Lightning Bolt are sure to be interesting to see, as well.

Get yourself concert tickets to this event by going to StubHub‘s page for the festival today.

The Kronos Quartet: Like firing a .38 special from a clamshell holster—beauty meets brains.

“When I listen to music, which is quite frequently, I’m always hoping to find something that I can’t live without. And if I find that, I try to bring whatever that might be into the realm of Kronos.” So says David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet, a string quartet that has been pushing the boundaries of music since the 1970s, working with experimental scores as well as covering rock standards by artists as diverse as Jimi Hendrix and Nine Inch Nails. This is truly a unique band, and more people should become familiar with their music. Most people who do know them probably discovered them through Requiem for a Dream, the bleak Darren Aronofsky film about four individuals whose individual addictions get the better of them, leading them to their own personal damnation.

Kronos was the perfect band to bring song to that terrifying film. There’s an interview up with the band on the AV Club, and it’s compelling reading, with some amazing music, both by the quartet and their influences, available on the interview. The first comment at the bottom quotes Tom Waits, who said working with the band “was like firing a .38 Special with a clam shell holster: beauty meets brains.”

Leave it to Waits to phrase that perfectly. If you see concert tickets available for this band on StubHub, grab them.

Kelly Clarkson Fires Back at Big Machine Records CEO

After Taylor Swift garnered criticism for her Grammys performance, Big Machine Records (her label home) CEO Scott Borchetta came to her rescue. In response to harsh words over Swift’s not-so-great vocals during her Grammy gig, Borchetta said, “This is not American Idol. This is not a competition of getting up and seeing who can sing the highest note. This is about a true artist and writer and communicator. It’s not about that technically perfect performance.” Original American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson is now striking back at Borchetta for his stab at American Idol. Clarkson took to her blog yesterday (Feb. 4) to say, “I understand defending your artist obviously because I have done the same in the past for artists I like, including Taylor, so you might see why it’s upsetting to read you attacking American Idol for producing simply vocalists that hit ‘the high notes.’ Thank you for that ‘Captain Obvious’ sense of humor because you know what, we not only hit the high notes, you forgot to mention we generally hit the ‘right’ notes as well.”

Clarkson continued to say via her blog, “Every artist has a bad performance or two and that is understandable, but throwing blame will not make the situation at hand any better. I have been criticized left and right for having shaky performances before (and they were shaky) and what my manager or label executives say to me and the public is ‘I’ll kick butt next time’ or ‘every performance isn’t going to be perfect’ … I bring this up because you should take a lesson from these people …” Clarkson ended her rant by signing off, “One of those contestants from American Idol who only made it because of her high notes.”

Get your Kelly Clarkson tickets to see the feisty American Idol Season 1 winner at StubHub.