Concert Dates, Concert Tour News, Artist Information

Three-Day Halloween Festival for Phish

Although the location has yet to be announced, legendary jam band Phish has announced plans to perform a three-day festival during Halloween weekend. Trey Anastasio & Co. revealed their upcoming festival plans via a message reading “Save the date … A 3-day festival 10/30, 10/31. 11/01” on the band’s Web site. The news comes on the heels of two performances by Phish at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee earlier in June and a three-night stint in Hampton, VA in March.

Phish is readying its new album, Joy, which was produced by Steve Lillywhite and will arrive later his summer. The band just finished a four-week tour of the States and will resume their road trip at the end of July. Phish’s upcoming concert dates:

July 30, 31, August 1, 2: Morrison, CO (Red Rocks Amphitheatre)
August 5: Mountain View, CA (Shoreline Amphitheatre)
August 7, 8: George, WA (The Gorge)
August 11: Chicago, IL (Toyota Park)
August 13: Darien Lake, NY (Dairen Lake Performing Arts Center)
August 14: Hartford, CT (Meadows Music Theater)
August 15: Columbia, MD (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
August 16: Saratoga Springs, NY (Saratoga Performing Arts Center)

Get all your Phish tickets at StubHub.

The Pixies are playing Doolittle—straight through

We’ve seen a rash of bands picking a best album and playing it straight through in the recent past, largely at All Tomorrow’s Parties events. That now includes The Pixies, who are going to be touring Europe soon, and have agreed to play through what is largely considered their best album, Doolittle, along with all its B-sides and singles. From Pitchfork: “At these shows, the band will play every song from Doolittle, along with all the associated B-sides. And you know what that means: “Debaser”, “Here Comes Your Man”, “La La Love You”, “Gouge Away”. Doolittle turns 20 this year, after all. It’s almost old enough to buy beer! In a statement, frontman Black Francis had this to say: ‘We wanted to do something special for Doolittle’s 20th anniversary, and we thought this was a good opportunity to play all of the songs from that album, something we don’t normally do at a regular gig.’”
That’s pretty exciting stuff, especially if you’ve never seen the Pixies live before. Considering they broke up in the early ‘90s, there’s a pretty good chance you haven’t, unless you caught them on a recent tour. If you’ll be in Europe, you might be able to hear them. Otherwise, keep looking for concert tickets on StubHub.

The Pixies Are Celebrating

The Pixies are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their second full-length album, 1989’s Doolittle by performing the album in its complete entirety during an 11-date European tour.  The journey will kick off with two shows scheduled for Olympia in Dublin, Ireland on Oct. 1 and 2.  Other dates include: Oct. 4 in Glasgow, Scotland; Oct 6-9 at the Brixton Academy in London; Oct. 11 in Frankfurt Germany; Oct. 13 in Amsterdam, Holland and Oct. 14 in Brussels, Belgium.  The tour concludes on Oct. 15 with a show at Zenith in Paris, France.  Who can forget Doolittle, which featured the popular singles: “Here Comes Your Man,” “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” “Wave of Mutilation” and “La La Love You.”

Don’t miss hearing the record from start to finish when you see the Pixies live onstage.  You can reserve your spot at the show by going to Stubhub and purchasing your very own pair of Pixies tickets.

Andrew Bird, St. Vincent touring the U.S. together

Great news for fans of thoughtful, quirky, folkie rock: According to Pitchfork, indie singer-songwriter Andrew Bird will be joining St. Vincent for a U.S. tour, which should be a show that no fan will want to miss. It’s a pretty good fit, and you can bet that most people who are fans of one will be fans of the other. Both are known for capturing a certain quirky spirit in their music, so they seem to mesh pretty well. If you do happen to be a fan of both their music, then you’re in luck: They happen to be taking off on a pretty extensive tour through the U.S., hitting up a number of cities on both coasts and pretty much everywhere in between. They will also be heading out towards Europe, so if you’re going to be there for any vacations or a music festival or two, you can bet they’ll be accessible there, too.
Hurry up and look for concert tickets to their shows on StubHub!

Kweller’s Final Jaunt for Changing Horses

Sure, he’s limping around with a nearly broken foot, but that isn’t stopping Ben Kweller from putting one of the best sets of his life. Supporting his first ever totally country based album “Changing Horses,” his jaunt concluded Saturday in Austin, Texas though he has a few more dates scheduled in July and August: July 2009
31 - Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion

August 2009
1 - Newport, RI - Newport Folk Festival
2 - Buffalo, NY - Rocks the Harbor

He says to LiveDaily: “All my music is really inspired by life and experience and things that I see or do or go through. All my songs are taken from that. What determines the way the song sounds, whether it’s a pop song or a piano ballad, or a country song or a punk rock song, it’s really something that just happens on its own. Like, when I’m sitting with the instrument, it’s whatever mood you’re in. Like, when you’re in a mood to have banana pudding for dessert or, like, apple pie. You don’t really know what inspires you to feel the way you do when you want apple pie versus banana pudding. It’s kind of the same with like writing a song. It’s just something that happens. So, I think, obviously, going back to me as a kid, country music being everywhere in Greenville, Texas, in the little town I grew up in, on the radio and in friend’s trucks and stuff like that. That obviously had a great impact on me, so stylistically I guess I was destined to write songs that had that sound at some point. But lyrically, it’s hard. I don’t think there’s a real lyrical theme to the album because the songs were written over such a long period of time. But they all definitely deal with real people and situations, kind of like characters that live in more of the shadows of society.”

Get Ben Kweller tickets today!

Wavves comes to terms with his breakdown

A little over a month ago, Wavves was on his way up. The noisy, ultra-lo-fi garage rock outfit (which is largely the work of San Diegan guitarist Nathan Williams) had exploded in the indie-rock scene, and was heading off across Europe for a series of shows. Then Barcelona happened. Williams insulted the audience, fought with his drummer, and basically couldn’t perform his material. It was a breakdown, and it happened publicly. For a band that already draws hate-them-or-love-them reactions, there was schadenfreude in the air.
So flash-forward to today. Wavves cancelled their European dates, and Williams admitted to being high on a number of prescription medications when he went up on stage. He’s still touring in America, and will still be performing with his drummer. But he’s starting to come to terms with the disappointment his breakdown caused, as well as the fact that it might have all been too much, too fast.
Pitchfork recently interviewed him about where he’s at creatively, what happened in Barcelona, and what the outfit’s future might be like. Who knows—it might turn out to just be a studio project with no live shows. It might continue to be one of the most feel-good shows you can see live (if Williams stays away from the prescription cocktails).
After reading the interview, consider getting some concert tickets to one of his upcoming American shows.

Korn’s July Dates

Korn is gearing up for several concert dates next month…and is ready to officially celebrate the 4th of July.  On Wednesday, July 1, the group will appear in Copenhagen, Denmark; Friday July 3 they are set to take the stage at the Quartfestivalen in Kristiansand, Norway; Saturday, July 4 they will be a the Arvikafestivalen in Arvika, Sweden and on Monday July 6 they will be appearing in Helsinki, Finland.  Other places that they are scheduled to perform include: St. Petersburg, Russa, Novi Sad, Serbia; Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Sturgis, South Dakota.  So far they have a plethora of dates scheduled through August 16.  Be sure to gather up all of your heavy metal buddies and attend one of Korn’s ear-assaulting shows.

You can find all of the latest tour information by going to Stubhub and getting your very own pair of Korn tickets as soon as possible.  They will disappear before you know it!

Janet Jackson’s Emotional Speech at BET Awards

Just three days after the death of her brother, pop icon Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson took the stage at the BET Awards last night (June 28) and delivered a heartfelt speech after taking a minute to collect her thoughts and reign in her emotion. “My entire family wanted to be here tonight, but it was just too painful. So they elected me to speak with all of you. To you, Michael is an icon, to us, Michael is family. And he will forever live in all of our hearts. On behalf of my family and myself, thank you for all of your love, thank you for all of your support. We miss him so much. Thank you so much,” said Jackson before BET Awards’ host Jamie Foxx took the stage to perform “I’ll Be There” with Ne-Yo and a pianist.

Jamie Foxx’s performance concluded a night of tributes to the late King of Pop, as the BET Awards opened with New Edition (including Bobby Brown) performing a medley of Jackson 5 songs which segued into an opening monologue by Foxx. Ne-Yo san “Lady in My Life” and the O’Jays revealed their favorite Michael Jackson memories while accepting a lifetime-achievement award.

Get all your Concert tickets at StubHub.

Michael Jackson’s death shocks the musical world

It goes without saying that the death of Michael Jackson left fans across the globe breathless. Included among his fans are many of the popular musical artists that have climbed to the top of the charts. Pitchfork knew exactly where to look: Twitter. And they found some great responses, often moving, from artists in the blogosphere. ?uestlove of the Roots: “I know he was mired in controversy the last decade of his life but I think it’s time we let him rest in peace and learn to separate the ART and the ARTIST. That is the MJ I will forever remember. Elvis got revisionist media treatment. I expect the friggin same for my hero.”
There are some that are a little more funny, like the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy: “Whoa. The deli lady started weeping while she was getting my greek salad.”
There are many more responses that Pitchfork has collected here. He’s definitely a legend of pop music, and he’ll be remembered fondly.
Many of the artists talking about him today are on tour. Support them by getting concert tickets.

Music videos that changed lives

You would expect the crew over at the AV Club to be pretty hardcore music nerds, and you would be right, based on a feature that they put up today. Their staff question of the week: “Did you ever see a video or TV performance from a band that made you fall instantly in love with them?” The answer is a strong affirmative, and the crew’s varied musical tastes are reflected in what they picked. There’s a lot of music videos listed here, most from smaller, indie rock bands—and major rock bands. Sean O’Neil points to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which is undoubtedly one of the most important music videos to come out in the past couple decades. It introduced the band and it’s sound—and to a certain degree, alternative music—to an entire generation of mainstream listeners. That changed the music industry completely, and influenced plenty of bands to come. There’s lots of other videos as well that you’re sure to remember as iconic, from Oasis to Elliott Smith.
Many of these artists are still touring today, and you can find concert tickets for them on StubHub.