Category — Concerts

The Police have officially called it quits for good (for the 2nd time). The band finished their 151-show reunion tour last night at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The tour came in as the 3rd highest grossing tour of all time with a whopping $358,825,665 in total gross, only U2 and The Rolling Stones have out grossed them.

Reviews of the finale show have generally been positive, noting that the band and in particular drummer Stewart Copeland were very tight. Sting has been playing his usual Fender bass, his signature model. Some reviews have noted the odd first encore break the band took.

“Another twist was saved for the encore, which began with a dexterous run through Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” Just prior, the video screens revealed that the heavily bearded Sting was being shaved backstage, while simultaneously getting a manicure, pedicure and massage.”

Wow, Sting is just ridiculous, I won’t even bother saying much more than that. One cool thing is that their 2nd encore, just one more song was the up-tempo “Next To You” which definitely reminds me of the bands early english-punk roots, after all that is the scene they originally came out of.

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Retro rock band Wolfmother have officially called it quits. The band reportedly played an awkward set at the Splendour In The Grass Festival on Sunday (August 3rd) and bassist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Haskett both left the band following the show.

Frontman Andrew Stockdale will continue on with the Wolfmother band name and recruit a new bassist and drummer to complete a new album and tour. The band issued this statement…

“Andrew Stockdale, Myles Heskett and Chris Ross will make no public statements at this time except to say that they are each really looking forward to making their new music over the years ahead.”

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Weezer have announced their first North American headlining tour in 3 years. The tour will begin September 23rd in Boston and end on October 25th in Atlanta and will see the band playing large arenas in support of the recently released “Red” album.

The tour will last five weeks and visit 21 cities, including…”New York’s Madison Square Garden (Sept. 24), Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills (Sept. 29), Chicago’s Allstate Arena (Oct. 2), Seattle’s Key Arena (Oct. 11), Los Angeles’ Forum (Oct. 14) and Dallas’ Nokia Theater (Oct. 21).”

No ticket prices or pre-sale information has been made available yet and the full list of dates has not been released.

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The first edition of the Pemberton Festival ended the other day, and while I didn’t mention the festival here previously I was interested in finding out how it went.

The main acts playing were Coldplay, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Jay-Z, Nine Inch Nails, The Flaming Lips and Death Cab For Cutie. Organization wise the festival seems to have suffered, as reported by several publications. Festival organizer, Live Nation (formerly Clear Channel) claimed that the festival was a “triumphant success.”

No matter who you believe, you can still check out some great photo’s from the event at Stereogum.

Acclaimed rock band Low has some tour dates on the horizon. The band has been playing a lot of shows at festivals but these are mainly headlining dates. If you’re not familiar with the band, they blend melodic guitar with stark minimalism that creates a somber, quiet atmosphere.

08-27 Saint Paul, MN - Turf Club (Eight Is Enough benefit)
09-11 Tel Aviv, Israel - Barby Club
09-13 Dorset, England - End of the Road Festival
09-17 Chicago, IL - Epiphany (”An Evening With Low”)
09-18 Detroit, MI - UFO Factory *
09-20 Monticello, NY - Kutshers County Resort (ATP New York)
09-22 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge (”An Evening With Low”)
09-23 Brooklyn, NY - Union Hall (”An Evening With Low”)
09-24 Boston, MA - Remis Auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts #

* with His Name Is Alive
# with Tulsa

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Stereogum has a very interesting post up today, which essentially is a link to a bootleg of a Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks performance at The Siren Festival from July 19th.

This is interesting because not only is a pretty official website posting a bootleg, but during the performance the band played a new song, not yet released titled “Astral Facial”.

Also of note is the picture above from the post, where it appears that Stephen Malkmus is playing a Japanese Fender Stratocaster, the kind I am always looking for because of the smaller neck radius.

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Last week I posted about VH1’s Rock Honors: The Who, footage of the Foo Fighters performing “Bargain” (with Supergrass’ Gaz Coombes on vocals), is now available online over at VH1’s site.

Dave Grohl appears to be rocking out on some strange electric guitar…I think it might be a Gibson. If anyone reading this knows, please leave a comment and enlighten me as I’m mainly a Fender guy.

The event took place last Saturday at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion and also featured Pearl Jam, The Flaming Lips, Incubus and Tenacious D as well as The Who themselves. The telecast premieres tomorrow.

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Last week I posted about Green River’s reunion show at Sub Pop’s 20th anniversary bash in Seattle, WA. Now Billboard has a full review up for those not lucky enough to attend the event.

“This seemed to be a firm consensus. Some rock’n'roll reunions fall flat when musicians can’t regain the spark of youthful energy and DIY not-quite-incompetence. But Green River’s anthems sounded better with a touch of polish and precision. The 1985 classic “Swallow My Pride” (re-cut by the band in 1988, and also covered by Soundgarden, Fastbacks and Pearl Jam) sounded almost pop.”

Billboard also notes that they heard a fan say “If they were that good back then, they never would have broken up.”

This is a good thing in my opinion, most reunions fall short because the band isn’t as good as they once were, in this case its the opposite.

The article also has coverage of a lot of the other bands playing the Sub Pop anniversary festival.

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An all-star cast of rock bands are participating in another installment of VH1’s Rock Honors series, this time to pay tribute to legendary rock-act The Who.

The Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Flaming Lips, Tenacious D and Incubus will all cover a Who song, followed by The Who themselves performing. This means we’ll most likely see Townshend smashing Gibsons SG’s and Stratocasters at the end of the performance, which is always cool.

Billboard spoke to Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament, The Flaming Lip’s Wayne Conye and Incubus Brandon Boyd about how The Who has influenced them and their music. Check it out here…

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The show airs tomorrow on VH1.

Record label Sub Pop, famous for releasing records by everyone from Nirvana to The Postal Service are going to be having a 2-day festival in Seattle, WA to commemorate their 20th anniversary.

Besides playing host to The Vaselines first U.S. performances ever and seeing many older Sub Pop bands re-unite, one of the most anticipated acts to play is Green River. If you don’t know, Green River was one of the first bands to release a record on Sub Pop and featured future members of Mudhoney and Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament spoke to Billboard.com regarding the reunion show…

“Bassist Jeff Ament tells Billboard.com the group re-learned two unreleased songs from its early demo, “Baby, Help Me Forget” and “Leech,” for the occasion, which will mark Green River’s first show in nearly 21 years.

“Green River, which also includes Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, Mudhoney principals Mark Arm and Steve Turner and drummer Alex Vincent, rehearsed twice in late April but has reconvened three additional times to relearn the material.

“Last night, felt like we were 95% there,” Ament says. “We had a go at 16 or 17 songs and we have 14 right now, but we may need to get that down to 11 or 12 for Sunday. We have a 40-minute slot.”

The band is reportedly having fun playing together and there is talk of a possible Green River reunion tour.

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