Concert Dates, Concert Tour News, Artist Information

Zac Brown Band Tickets – ZBB’s First Major-Label Album Goes Platinum

The Zac Brown Band has been at the Southern-steeped pinnacle of traditional-meets-contemporary country music success ever since the group’s first big splash on the country music scene in 2008 with the breezy smash single “Chicken Fried,” and after leading the band’s first major-label full-length album release The Foundation to No. 2 on the country music charts, “Chicken Fried” has helped take the hit album to platinum status, as The Foundation was certified platinum earlier this week with sales reaching more than one million copies. Successive hit singles “Whatever It Is” and “Toes,” both Billboard charting singles, are also to credit for the overwhelming success of The Foundation, and of the Zac Brown Band’s platinum success the group blogged on their MySpace page, “We want to thank our fans for believing in us, coming to our shows and supporting our music by buying The Foundation. We couldn’t have done all this without you! To show our appreciation, our Breaking Southern Ground tour will be pulling out ALL the stops this fall – we’ll have opportunities for fans to win passes to join us for a pre-show feast with our signature dishes and we’ll be bringing along the Southern Ground Records Artists to join the party. Look forward to seeing you there.”
The Georgia-based fiddle-and-guitar clan the Zac Brown Band originated out of Dahlonega, Georgia thanks to former restaurant owner Zac Brown, and with the help of bassist John Hopkins and fiddler Jimmy De Martini (and later a larger cast of key players,) the Zac Brown Band came into being in 2004, kicking up dust upon its arrival on the music scene. With the help of guitarist/organist Coy Bowles, drummer Chris Fryar and multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Clay Cook, the Zac Brown Band absolutely exploded in 2008 when their hit single “Chicken Fried” was released, the sing-along lyrics “You know I like my chicken fried/ Cold beer on a Friday night/ A pair of jeans that fit just right/ And the radio up” resonating through the nation like a shockwave of good ol’ honky tonk heaven. The Zac Brown Band kicked up another huge dose of country music success with the follow-up hit single “Whatever It Is,” and the band’s current smash single “Toes” is still on the rise, making these Georgia peaches a force to be reckoned with.
While The Foundation is still one of the most-played records in the country music industry, the Zac Brown Band has been moving onto bigger ventures, announcing in late August the arrival of the Breaking Southern Ground tour, which kicked off in early September. The tour features an all-out smorgasbord of Southern-fried favorites including eat-and-greets and, of course, some of those famed knee-slappin’ tunes, and Zac Brown Band tickets are available now from StubHub, so make sure to get ‘em before they’re all gone! Going through the rundown of the full Zac Brown Band experience, frontman Zac Brown recently said, “Obviously we’re always working on our music, but with this tour we’re building an experience that involves all senses. When people come to our show, we want them to smell the food cooking, taste our favorite recipes, watch the light show, listen to some great new artists and feel our excitement – a full five-sense experience.” The Breaking Southern Ground tour is coming to select cities across the country this fall, and a new album should be in the works before long, as well.

Paramore Tickets – Paramore: Still Just a Band from Tennessee

Even after opening for No Doubt, landing a song on the soundtrack for the first film in the popular Twilight series and releasing their third album, brand new eyes, the members of Paramore insist they are still just a band from Franklin, Tennessee. Recently MTV News travelled to Paramore’s hometown, where they took off on an impromptu cycling tour of the town and talked about their latest album and how they remain down-to-earth. Lead singer Hayley Williams explained why the band returns to their roots often saying, “I ride my bike around town, I get food and I hang out with my friends. No one stops me. Or stops any of us. That’s just the way it is around here. It’s part of why we love it.” Paramore filmed the video for “That’s What You Get,” the hit single off the band’s 2007 breakthrough album Riot, in Franklin, and Williams pointed out the graveyard site for some of the shots.
Another location in Franklin that holds significance to Paramore is the Goodwill, as the band has been returning there since first launching their career in 2004 and returned when creating the album artwork for brand new eyes. Recalled Williams to MTV News, “When our band first started, we would always come and shop here for random outfits, little photo shoots that we had to do. Onetime in particular, we were shooting a Christmas chart—my mom took the photo—and we came here and got sweaters and little Christmas candles and stuff. But more recently, our album artwork, we picked up the props at this Goodwill. The little angels that are one the artwork for ‘Ignorance,’ the picture frames on the back of our album … a lot of little random gadgets that you can see in our artwork—we got them all here. This place is rad.”
The members of Paramore may have remained humble, but their story is nothing short of a rock ‘n’ roll fairytale. Williams, guitarist Josh Farro and drummer Zach Farro were only in their teens when they signed a 360-degree deal with John Janick’s Fueled by Raman label in 2005. Their debut full-length album, All We Know Is Falling, soon afterward, and then they began the frantic touring pace that they continue to keep, with spots at New Jersey’s Bamboozle Festival as well as some dates on the Vans Warped Tour. After some internal adjustments, Riot followed in 2007 via Atlantic Records and scored Paramore a Grammy nod for best new artist thanks to a string of hit singles, such as “Misery Business,” “That’s What You Get” and “crushcrushcrush.”
When “Decode” scored a spot on the Twilight soundtrack Paramore was instantly swept up in the vampire franchise frenzy. Although the band has denied any involvement in the soundtrack to the film’s sequel, Hayley Williams did reveal that she had a candlelight dinner with Twilight star Robert Pattinson, telling BBC Newsbeat, “It was really funny because they set it up as if we had known each other for years but we’d just met. I realized, we did the interview and it was kind of awkward and once were out of the interview and we were just hanging out it was totally cool.” Lead singer of Paramore aside, many teenage girls would have loved to be in Williams’ shoes during that dinner! Check out StubHub.com for Paramore tickets.

Metric Tickets – Metric Unveils New North American Tour Dates

Coming off the success of its fourth album, Fantasies, and the radio staple “Help I’m Alive,” Canadian rock quartet Metric has announced a new batch of fall North American tour dates. Frontwoman Emily Haines and the boys of Metric (guitarist Jimmy Shaw, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key) will begin their road trip in Buffalo, New York on November 16 and continue to weave their way throughout the States, making stops in Portland, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Austin and other cities before wrapping things up in Dallas on December 2. Metric will be unveiling additional dates in the near future, and fans who want to see them live can check out StubHub.com for Metric tickets.
Following in the footsteps of bands like Radiohead and Pearl Jam, Metric opted to release its most recent effort, Fantasies, without the help of a record label. Metric made fans wait four years for the album, the follow-up to the lauded Live It Out, and released Fantasies on their Website, I Love Metric, prior to its arrival in stores this past April. In a video interview posted on I Love Metric, Haines revealed that she did the “simplest and clearest” writing for the album while escaping from the fast-paced music scenes in the U.K. and New York in Buenos Aires. Among the tracks Haines penned in Argentina was “Help I’m Alive,” which landed in the Top 40 on Billboard’s Rock Songs chart and remains omnipresent on rock radio, with the lyrics “Help, I’m alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammer / Hard to be soft, tough to be tender / Come take my pulse, the pace is on a runaway train” remaining in listeners’ heads long after the song is over.
Also in the interview, Haines said that the band initially tried on labels of all sizes before deciding to go it alone recalling, “We just said, “Oh f***it, let’s gamble,’ took a deep breath and decided to put this record out worldwide our own way.” As a result, Last Gang released the album in Metric’s native Canada while Arts & Crafts followed suit in Mexico. As for the States, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Metric forged its own distribution. Prior to the experimental release of the 10-track album Shaw said, “We might go down in flames, or it might be the best move ever. Either way it will have been on our terms, and that for us is success.” The move proved to be a good one, as Metric sold more albums within eight weeks of the release of Fantasies than in the previous four years since Live It Out arrived! For a band to score its breakthrough using the self-released method is practically unprecedented, as Radiohead, for example, was already one of the biggest bands to emerge out of the U.K. when it historically released In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-like download on its website.
Metric recorded Fantasies in studios in Toronto and the outskirts of Seattle, mixing the album with Grammy-nominated John O’Mahony at Electric Lady in New York. In an interview with The Victoria Advocate, Haines said that the making of Fantasies felt like a natural progression for her as a songwriter and for the band as a whole, revealing “Our goal is to never repeat ourselves. I know it sounds a lot different from Live It Out, but our first album sounds a lot different from Live it Out, so for us it feels like a natural progressions, but we’re always pushing ourselves to try and create something new that doesn’t sound completely unrecognizable to the people who have always been with us.”

Kylie Minogue Tickets – Gearing Up for her North American Tour

She’s a popular singer who managed to make a name for herself slowly in the States, but few would have thought she would have become Australia’s best known personal brand. The pop singer and actress managed to clinch the title, ahead of sports stars and personalities (and even the Prime Minister) to become the most powerful brand in Australia, says a recent marketing and entertainment industry survey – as her name has been associated with everything from music, to acting, and perfume. “I think what makes Kylie number one is overall she appeals to a broad stream of people,” Mark Richardson said from the company that surveyed, Talent Inc. “Although she’s had ups and downs in terms of her albums, and especially in her love life and health, she’s always managed those things with grace and integrity. Over a period of time it’s given her brand a real strength and value.” The rest of the group, including Elle Macpherson in second, cricketer Shane Warne, golfer Greg Norman, Steve Irwin, Hugh Jackson, Nicole Kidman and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd all rounded out the top Ten. The star, who has been in the business since the ‘80s, will return this year for the ABBA tribute concert in London’s Hyde Park. If you want to see this country’s personality shine this year, then you better act quickly to get Klyie Minogue tickets from http://www.stubhub.com/.

Minogue recently announced that the one UK performance she plans on attending this year is to take part in celebrating ABBA. Set to perform at the “Thank You for the Music: A Celebration of the Music of ABBA” on September 13th, the Australian native will perform alongside ABBA’s Benny Anderson for the tune “When All is Said and Done.” “Their music has played such a great part in my life from a very early age and I’m thrilled I’ll be able to share that with them personally,” she said during a BBC News report. The event is set to broadcast on Radio 2 Drivetime host Chris Evans, along with Lulu, Chaka Khan, The Feeling, Sharleen Spiteri, Jason Donovan and Elaine Paige also on stage.

Gearing up for her tour late September, the 41 year old has been taking it easy until her North American tour goes underway in Oakland, California. It will be the first North American tour for the “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” singer since her days from the late ‘80s hit “The Loco- Motion.” Though she has clearly made her mark everywhere else, with five fragrances, given the Order of the British Empire and the French Order of Arts and Letters and a sexy Italian model for a boyfriend (ten years her junior), it is now her time to shine in the States. “The fans in America aren’t great in number, but they’re great in spirit. And they’ve been so patient. I think I really shocked them when I said I was touring, because they’ve become accepting of the fact that it was never going to happen. But I meant it, all the years I spent saying I would love to tour the States,” she said to Black Book Magazine. “I decided not to go somewhere I’ve never been before, direction-wise, because American audiences haven’t seen my live shows for the most part. So we decided—and I guess it works well in these financial times—to bring with us a “best of” my different tours.” See her live today, stateside.

Willie Nelson Tickets – Willie Nelson Is Still At It

Don’t let Willie Nelson’s age fool you, even after 50 years on the road he manages to keep his audience—and his band—guessing. Nelson’s backing band is comprised of Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Joe Sample (piano), Christian McBride (bass) and Lewis Nash (drums), all of whom played on his latest album, American Classic. Nelson’s longtime harmonica player Mickey Raphael recently told ToledoBlade.com, “There is no set list. He’ll start off with ‘Whiskey River,’ then we have no idea where he is going after that. We don’t know from one night to the next what to expect. That’s what keeps it interesting and fresh. He is playing more guitar than ever before. If you’re at all a fan of guitar playing, it’s worth it if he never sang a note.” But he does sing quite a few notes on his current tour, which sees fans clamoring for Willie Nelson tickets to see him live.
Willie Nelson emerged as one of the original outlaws of country music in the 1960s, penning hit songs for artists like Patsy Cline (“Crazy”), Billy Walker (“Funny How Times Slips Away”), Ray Price (“Night Life”) and others. In the 1970s, Nelson teamed up with Wylon Jennings and scored crossover success with his 1975 album The Red Headed Stranger and its lead single “Blue Eyes Crying Rain.” Of Nelson’s ability to create a commonality between country and rock fans, Raphael said, “Back then the country fans didn’t like the rock fans. There was a distance between all genres of music. Willie was one of those guys who got all those barriers dropped. That’s what I saw at his concerts. You had the hippies and the rednecks. Whatever animosity there might have been went away because of the music. Willie was an ambassador to that type of change.”
Nelson’s current tour is in support of his latest album, American Classic, which is his second album for the Blue Note Records label. Nelson drew from the Great American Songbook for the album, which arrived over 30 years after the release of his acclaimed 1978 standards album Stardust. American Classic features production by well-known adult contemporary producer Tommy LiPuma. Hailed his finest album since 1998’s Teatro by Billboard.com, American Classic features 12 “timeless melodies” such as his take on Bart Howard’s “Fly Me to the Moon” and Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” Nelson duets with Diana Krall on “If I Had You” and Norah Jones on a rendition of Frank Loesser’s “Baby Its Cold Outside” and also revises “Always on My Mind,” which he won a Best Country Vocal Performance Grammy Award in 1982. Earlier on this summer, Nelson kicked off a 22-date “Baseball Tour” with John Mellencamp and Bob Dylan and recently announced plans to add an additional 14 dates to his road trip. Among Nelson’s stops is an appearance at St. Louis’ Farm Aid 2009, the benefit concert he co-founded in 1985 with Neil Young and Mellencamp. Check out StubHub.com for Willie Nelson tickets.