Concert Dates, Concert Tour News, Artist Information

U2 airing a live concert on YouTube

The AV Club is alerting its readers to a pretty nifty little promotion between U2 and YouTube (because they sound alike—see?). Apparently the band is going to be airing their Rose Bowl performance on the online video channel this Sunday. That’s a pretty good way for U2 fans to enjoy the live show, since not everyone will be able to be there, of course, and concert tickets are hard to come by. Of course, it’s a little gimmicky, but at least the band is offering people a chance to enjoy their music on TV.
The band is known for throwing intense live shows, so there’s a pretty good chance that this one will be fairly entertaining. There are some commenters on the AV Club that are already denigrating the band, however—they’ve become rather divisive in the past decade or so, with a lot of former fans swearing them off. Still, you can’t deny that they’re talented musicians and have plenty of hit songs. Expect to hear a lot of those hits when they play the Rose Bowl this weekend.

The RZA shares his mysticism with the AV Club

Wu-Tang’s RZA is known as a hip-hop maven, but anyone who has ever read any of the books he’s penned (largely about Wu-Tang) knows that he’s also a spiritual thinker, and has just published a new book about his religious views, The Tao of Wu. Now, we here at the Concert Blog love us some Wu Tang, but in this rambling interview with the AV Club, he reveals some pretty eccentric views. Anyone who is a Wu-Tang fan needs to check this out—or anyone with time to kill looking for a bizarre, winding conversation that touches on everything from how all faiths are similar to where homosexuality comes from and George Romero’s zombie movies.
There are some very interesting quotes along the way, but we’re going to make you read the interview yourself. But we will say that it’s pretty cool the RZA seems to genuinely want to help people through their spiritual wanderings. He might hold himself in greater esteem than he deserves—we’ll let you make the call based on his spiritual wisdom—but there’s certainly good intentions there. You can’t fault him for his music, either—get concert tickets next time the Clan is on tour.

U2 Streams Live on YouTube

Check it out, U2 is planning to stream their entire Pasadena Rose Bowl show live on YouTube, so that fans from across five continents will have several chances to see the performance.  U2 manager Paul McGuinness was quoted on Pollstar.com as saying, “The band has wanted to do something like this for a long time.  As we’re filming the L.A. show, it’s the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium.  Fans often travel long distances to come to see U2 - this time U2 can go to them globally.” In fact, the U2/YouTube hookup will be the biggest concert ever streamed live on the website.

Tune in for the grand U2/YouTube event and also don’t pass up on an opportunity to actually see the band live onstage.  You can find your own pair of U2 tickets right now from Stubhub.

New Horrors video is out

The Horrors 2009 record, Primary Colours, is soaked in the ‘80s. It seems like most pop music these days is, but they managed to tap into dark post-punk and goth in a way that few bands are doing. At times, that darkness can be kind of off-putting. After all, it takes some chutzpah for a band’s frontman to call himself Spider Webb (his real name is Rhys Webb).
But the band’s newest video, for the song “Whole New Way,” sees them taking a new slightly more upbeat track. The video shows them standing in a field with some steam-punk-looking goggles on, watching a sun rise while Spider sings about seeing someone “in a whole new way.” The post-punk sound is still there, but it’s definitely more light than some of the tracks on Primary Colours.
You can check out the video on Pitchfork TV, which is hosting it right now. The band happens to still be touring, so if you haven’t had the chance to check them out, do see if StubHub.com is still carrying concert tickets.

Bat For Lashes speaks about the making of Two Suns

When Bat For Lashes released Two Suns earlier this year, critics started buzzing about it being one of the year’s best, and certainly most original, records. Bat For Lashes, aka Natasha Khan, synthesizes the dreamy singer-songwriter fare of artists like Kate Bush or Tori Amos into a style that’s wholly her own, and which often includes pulsing electronic beats as well. A documentary is now out called Two Plus Two, and Pitchfork TV has the whole thing up on their site, divided into clips. The doc shows Khan speaking candidly about the creation of the album. She says the creative material that fueled the record has been in her for nearly two years, and putting all of that into one album was a lot like giving birth. In fact, she said, it was quite a painful process.
But it appears to be over now, and Khan’s music is standing on its own and attracting numerous fans from throughout the indie rock scene. The clip from the doc shows her performing some recent hits to packed houses, and you can bet that if you get concert tickets for her shows in the future, they’ll only be more faces there.

London Exhibit Chronicles Career of Kings of Leon

Although an American Southern rock band at their core, Kings of Leon first found success across the pond in the U.K., and now a new photo exhibition in London will chronicle the band’s career. As reported by NME.com, NME photographer and friend of the band Jo McCaughey has documented the lives of the Followill clan over the last decade and hand-picked his favorite photos for the exhibition. Kings of Leon: Ten Year Reign will make its debut tomorrow (Oct. 21) at London’s Proud Galleries in Camden and will remain on display until Dec. 6. Said McCaughey about snapping photos of the rock quartet: “The idea of just jumping on the tour bus and going along for the ride … shooting with no pretense … For a lot of my photographic life that’s just what I’ve done, and I’ve had a blast.”

Kings of Leon recently announced plans to release a DVD showcasing the band’s dates at London’s O2 arena this past June and Kings of Leon: Live At The O2 London, England, is set to arrive Nov. 9. The 22-track DVD will also be released in Blu-Ray form on Nov. 23.

Get all your Kings of Leon tickets at StubHub.

A Place to Bury Strangers rocks the Echoplex

Recently, we got to see A Place to Bury Strangers rock out on stage at San Diego’s Casbah, an awesome little venue that we’ve noticed has some apartments sitting right on top of it. We’ve always wondered how the tenants there put up with all the noise, and it certainly couldn’t have been easy when A Place played there. The band is infamous for turning the volume up to maximum and rattling eardrums with distortion effects. This night was no different, and saw the band losing themselves in a miasma of noise and smoke from a fog machine. Vocalist and lead guitarist Oliver Ackerman totally lost himself in the band’s songs, at one point apparently smashing up his guitar and disappearing from the stage while he got another one.
Stereogum doesn’t have anything that dramatic to show its readers, but they do have a spread of photos from the band’s show at L.A.‘s Echoplex, and it gives you an idea of the energy that the band brings to the stage. If you haven’t seen them perform live before, then get yourself concert tickets to their next show. They’re touring behind a new album, Exploding Head.

Lady GaGa and Kanye West Cancel Tour…GaGa Goes Solo

Fans were majorly bummed out to hear of the cancellation of the Kanye/Lady GaGa Tour, but Lady G doesn’t like to leave her devoted followers hanging.  She just announced dates for a solo concert run that is scheduled to kick off late next month.  Miss GaGa will treat fans to her latest creation: The Monster Ball on November 27 at the Bell Center in Montreal and will spend the next eight weeks on the road.  She’ll wrap things up with two shows (January 20 and 21) at the Radio City Music Hall in her hometown of New York City.  Popular hip hop artist Kid Cudi will be joining GaGa on all of her performance dates.

Want to see the talented and creative Lady GaGa live onstage?  Find a pair of Lady GaGa tickets and invite a friend to one of her upcoming shows.  You can find these and all kinds of concert tickets today from Stubhub.

UK issues stamps of classic rock albums

Pitchfork is reporting that if you live in the U.K. (and you still write letters), you’ll be seeing very cool stamps at your local post office. The office has issued a series of stamps bearing the image of some infamous British albums. We’d say that they’re all classic rock albums, but it’s hard to argue that for a few of the more offbeat choices. There’s classic rock, like Led Zeppelin’s IV, of course, and The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed, some ‘70s classics like The Clash’s London Calling and Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Things get interesting when you look at the more recent choices: New Order’s Power, Corruption and Lies (good), Primal Scream’s Screamdelica (not rock, but great record), Blur’s Parklife (a good Blur album, but much more important in the U.K. than in the U.S.) and Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head.
Coldplay? Really? On the same level as Led Zepp or New Order’s finest work? We find that kind of hard to believe, but different strokes for different folks. And the people at the post office have funny tastes—the two oddest choices are Pink Floyd’s The Bell Division and Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Of all Pink Floyd’s albums, why does The Bell Division deserve government recognition? And Tubular Bells hit us completely from left field.
Anyway, at least you know Coldplay is still touring, so get concert tickets for them when they next hit the road.

Wolfmother Preps for European Trek

Newly vamped Australian rock band Wolfmother is planning a month-long European tour, reports NME.com. The band will play dates in U.K. and Irish cities like Dublin, Glasgow and Leeds in addition to shows in Belgium, France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland during January and February 2010. Wolfmother will release its sophomore album, Cosmic Egg, on October 26 and NME.com is currently streaming the album.

Wolfmother’s upcoming European dates:

January 13, 2010: Dublin Olympia
January 14, 2010: Glasgow Academy
January 15, 2010: Newcastle Academy
January 17 2010: Manchester Academy
January 18, 2010: Leeds Academy
January 21, 2010: London Brixton Academy
January 24, 2010: Brussels Cirque Royal
January 25, 2010: Paris Bataclan
January 26, 2010: Tilbourg O13
January 28, 2010: Zurish Volkhaus
January 29, 2010: Munich Backstage Werk
January 30, 2010: Cologne Live Music Hall
February 1, 2010: Stockholm Berns
February 2: Copenhagen Vega
February 3: Hamburg Grosse Freiheit

To see this Aussie rock band here in the States, get your Wolfmother tickets at StubHub.