Showing posts with label Concerts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Concerts. Show all posts
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Some Music in Nashville This Week
Feist at the Ryman - November 21
The Reverend Horton Heat with Hank III at the Cannery Ballroom - November 21
Highway 101 at the Wildhorse Saloon - November 23
Banjo Demonstration with Leroy Troy at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum - November 25
The Reverend Horton Heat with Hank III at the Cannery Ballroom - November 21
Highway 101 at the Wildhorse Saloon - November 23
Banjo Demonstration with Leroy Troy at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum - November 25
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Nashville This Week: Some Concerts November 8-10
Def Leprechaun at Mulligan's Pub - November 8 - 10
Bill Engvall at TPAC - November 10
Chris Cagle at the Wildhorse Saloon - November 10
Kids Club: Kandinsky Kolors at the Frist Center - November 10
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Big & Rich Concert Reviews From Around the Country
I love to hear the stories of our local boys while they are out on the road. Love to hear that they could entertain and blow away a crowd even if they aren't 100%.
Keep up the work Kenny and John....
Duo Big and Rich's brand of dynamic country music can rock any venue.
The band, part of Nashville's fraternal Musik Mafia, did just that last night when they brought their rebel-rousing exuberant show to Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, Ind.
Big Kenny and John Rich, touring in support of their latest album "Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace," performed a 90-minute show filled with their signature hard-driving country/rock tunes.
On the bill with Big and Rich were other Musik Mafia members rapping Cowboy Troy, James Otto and Two-Foot Fred who helped promote the fun-loving party atmosphere.
Audience members didn't stay in their seats for long at this concert. From the moment Cowboy Troy took the stage with his "Hick-Hop" sound to the opening strains of Big and Rich's guitars and the finale featuring all the musicians, fans remained up on their feet and dancing.
Read the entire review in the Daily Southtown.
Big & Rich are -- how shall I put this? -- the most unusual duo in the history of country music.
Their albums are a swirling, intoxicating blend of country, rock, gospel, pop and rap. Their concerts are like a collision between a circus and a freak show. But their career has been a roller coaster.
After playing to more than 14,000 at Xcel Energy Center in November 2005, Big & Rich returned Sunday to 2,100 fans at Mystic Showroom at Mystic Lake Casino. The duo didn't seem as wired, weird and wild as at Xcel. Early on, John Rich realized the odds were against him at a booze-free casino.
After Big & Rich's third number, "Wild West Show," Rich learned from fans that alcohol wasn't being served. "Are you kidding me?" he said. "Who needs a drink? I've got one. It's a Crown and 7. Ladies, pass that around the front row. We gotta rock extra hard if you aren't extra drunk!"
Visit the Star Tribune for the rest of the review.
Keep up the work Kenny and John....
Duo Big and Rich's brand of dynamic country music can rock any venue.
The band, part of Nashville's fraternal Musik Mafia, did just that last night when they brought their rebel-rousing exuberant show to Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, Ind.
Big Kenny and John Rich, touring in support of their latest album "Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace," performed a 90-minute show filled with their signature hard-driving country/rock tunes.
On the bill with Big and Rich were other Musik Mafia members rapping Cowboy Troy, James Otto and Two-Foot Fred who helped promote the fun-loving party atmosphere.
Audience members didn't stay in their seats for long at this concert. From the moment Cowboy Troy took the stage with his "Hick-Hop" sound to the opening strains of Big and Rich's guitars and the finale featuring all the musicians, fans remained up on their feet and dancing.
Read the entire review in the Daily Southtown.
Big & Rich are -- how shall I put this? -- the most unusual duo in the history of country music.
Their albums are a swirling, intoxicating blend of country, rock, gospel, pop and rap. Their concerts are like a collision between a circus and a freak show. But their career has been a roller coaster.
After playing to more than 14,000 at Xcel Energy Center in November 2005, Big & Rich returned Sunday to 2,100 fans at Mystic Showroom at Mystic Lake Casino. The duo didn't seem as wired, weird and wild as at Xcel. Early on, John Rich realized the odds were against him at a booze-free casino.
After Big & Rich's third number, "Wild West Show," Rich learned from fans that alcohol wasn't being served. "Are you kidding me?" he said. "Who needs a drink? I've got one. It's a Crown and 7. Ladies, pass that around the front row. We gotta rock extra hard if you aren't extra drunk!"
Visit the Star Tribune for the rest of the review.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Not My Normal Kind of Post but Here is Britney Spears News
Britney Spears' disastrous appearance in Las Vegas killed a pending multimillion, 30-market tour deal, according to an insider.
"Everyone was waiting on that. The wild card was how she performed," said the source, an executive who was close to the deal with Live Nation, the world's largest producer of concerts.
"Everyone said 'no way.' She blew it bad," said the source.
Spears had hoped to launch her comeback, after a four-year hiatus, at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 9 at the Palms. Instead, she's not only back to square one professionally, but her continuing personal unraveling may have placed her on the music industry's radioactive list for some time.
This comes from Norm Clarke's column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Rappers brag, but Chesney may top 'em
By PETER COOPER
Staff Writer
This week, hundreds of thousands of people will plunk down money for new music from Kenny Chesney. Less than a decade ago, you couldn't give the guy away.
Chesney was on the road, in a Brownsville, Texas, club, when he turned 30. "There was, literally, nobody there," said Chesney, now the only artist in country history to sell a million tickets in five consecutive years. "I had my girlfriend, and my band, and then there were two bartenders and a couple of waitresses, and nobody showed up to hear us. For me to fast-forward 9½ years and know that I'm selling out NFL stadiums, that wasn't even in my dreams."
Much has been made of the sales competition this week, as Chesney goes up against urban innovator Kanye West and rapper 50 Cent to see who can move the most albums in the first seven days of issue. Chesney's new Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates hits stores today, and while West and 50 Cent have wrangled over who's on top (50 Cent threatened to retire if West sells more), Chesney is a much more popular artist when touring is figured into the equation.
"He's in his own league with selling albums and tickets," said Billboard Senior Editor Ray Waddell, who covers touring for that magazine. "Very few artists in any kind of music can do what he's done."
Lyrics may be revealing
From the lyrics of some of the songs on the new album, some fans might figure that Chesney is wondering about the personal costs inherent in doing what he's done. "Never Wanted Nothing More," "Wife and Kids" and "Just Not Today" all find him ruminating about the possibility of settling down; the bracing "Demons" is a classic-sounding country song about the pull of life's darker attractions, and "Don't Blink" finds the East Tennessee native singing about "trying to slow it down" and "trying to take it in."
"I didn't write any of these songs, but they speak a lot of truth about where I am in my head and in my heart," Chesney said, sitting in a room at his record label's offices. "Those are two pretty complicated places right now.
"To do what I do in the way I do it, I've sacrificed not just a lot, but everything. It's been worth every second, but the tone of some of these songs is that I do see a day when my life is not going to totally revolve around singing in front of thousands of people, going to catering at 5 o'clock and doing a meet-and-greet at 7:30.
"I guess there's an underlying search for balance in these songs, and that's got to happen at some point."
Chesney is a five-time winner of country awards' top entertainer prizes, and a favorite in that category at November's CMA Awards.
His studio albums sell more in their first on-sale week than most country artists' albums sell at all, and he is a sellout attraction at arenas and stadiums. (At Chesney's last Nashville show, he sold out the Titans' LP Field. When West comes in October, he'll play Vanderbilt.)
The balance part is still tricky, though. Chesney is tired of having to get reacquainted each year with family and friends.
"It's bad when you've spent more time with people out on the road or with radio stations than you have with your mom, your friends or your grandmother," he said.
"That's why 'Don't Blink' means a lot to me. I stay pretty closed up, and I don't tell people around me what I'm feeling, and it's hard for me to stop and smell the roses, 'cause there's always somewhere else for me to be. This song told me, 'You might want to stop for a moment.' "
He can be competitive
That said, Chesney is still competitive enough to chafe when folks talk about the 50 Cent vs. Kanye West rivalry without mentioning him. "In November of 2005, I had an album called The Road and the Radio come out on the same day 50 Cent released an album (Get Rich or Die Tryin'), and we beat him pretty soundly. It's a slam against the country genre as a whole to pretend it doesn't exist."
The competition extends to country awards shows, though Chesney is disappointed that Tim McGraw — who with wife Faith Hill headlined the highest-grossing country music tour in North America — is not nominated along with him in the CMA's entertainer category.
"Tim has a lot of passionate fans out there, and I'm one of them," Chesney said. "And what he and Faith have done in the last two years is as historic as anybody's touring, and, to be honest, more historic than some people that are nominated. He can't come to The Tennessean and say that, but I can. If I had the career he had and wasn't nominated, it would bother me."
Losing that category has bothered Chesney before, and he worries enough about his legacy to hope to win a few more entertainer crowns in order to be name-checked along with Alabama and Garth Brooks as a dominant performer in his era.
"I'd love to win it three more times, but the odds of me keeping the pedal down that long aren't good," he said.
"The search for balance is going to come with a price. This year, we had a hell of a year and I think we deserve it and I want to win it, but if I don't it's not going to change my enthusiasm, or my fans' enthusiasm. The awards don't fuel me."
What fuels him are the miles he's traveled to find his own historically significant place in music. Kenny Chesney turns 40 next March, and there's not a club in Brownsville big enough to hold the party.
Staff Writer
This week, hundreds of thousands of people will plunk down money for new music from Kenny Chesney. Less than a decade ago, you couldn't give the guy away.
Chesney was on the road, in a Brownsville, Texas, club, when he turned 30. "There was, literally, nobody there," said Chesney, now the only artist in country history to sell a million tickets in five consecutive years. "I had my girlfriend, and my band, and then there were two bartenders and a couple of waitresses, and nobody showed up to hear us. For me to fast-forward 9½ years and know that I'm selling out NFL stadiums, that wasn't even in my dreams."
Much has been made of the sales competition this week, as Chesney goes up against urban innovator Kanye West and rapper 50 Cent to see who can move the most albums in the first seven days of issue. Chesney's new Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates hits stores today, and while West and 50 Cent have wrangled over who's on top (50 Cent threatened to retire if West sells more), Chesney is a much more popular artist when touring is figured into the equation.
"He's in his own league with selling albums and tickets," said Billboard Senior Editor Ray Waddell, who covers touring for that magazine. "Very few artists in any kind of music can do what he's done."
Lyrics may be revealing
From the lyrics of some of the songs on the new album, some fans might figure that Chesney is wondering about the personal costs inherent in doing what he's done. "Never Wanted Nothing More," "Wife and Kids" and "Just Not Today" all find him ruminating about the possibility of settling down; the bracing "Demons" is a classic-sounding country song about the pull of life's darker attractions, and "Don't Blink" finds the East Tennessee native singing about "trying to slow it down" and "trying to take it in."
"I didn't write any of these songs, but they speak a lot of truth about where I am in my head and in my heart," Chesney said, sitting in a room at his record label's offices. "Those are two pretty complicated places right now.
"To do what I do in the way I do it, I've sacrificed not just a lot, but everything. It's been worth every second, but the tone of some of these songs is that I do see a day when my life is not going to totally revolve around singing in front of thousands of people, going to catering at 5 o'clock and doing a meet-and-greet at 7:30.
"I guess there's an underlying search for balance in these songs, and that's got to happen at some point."
Chesney is a five-time winner of country awards' top entertainer prizes, and a favorite in that category at November's CMA Awards.
His studio albums sell more in their first on-sale week than most country artists' albums sell at all, and he is a sellout attraction at arenas and stadiums. (At Chesney's last Nashville show, he sold out the Titans' LP Field. When West comes in October, he'll play Vanderbilt.)
The balance part is still tricky, though. Chesney is tired of having to get reacquainted each year with family and friends.
"It's bad when you've spent more time with people out on the road or with radio stations than you have with your mom, your friends or your grandmother," he said.
"That's why 'Don't Blink' means a lot to me. I stay pretty closed up, and I don't tell people around me what I'm feeling, and it's hard for me to stop and smell the roses, 'cause there's always somewhere else for me to be. This song told me, 'You might want to stop for a moment.' "
He can be competitive
That said, Chesney is still competitive enough to chafe when folks talk about the 50 Cent vs. Kanye West rivalry without mentioning him. "In November of 2005, I had an album called The Road and the Radio come out on the same day 50 Cent released an album (Get Rich or Die Tryin'), and we beat him pretty soundly. It's a slam against the country genre as a whole to pretend it doesn't exist."
The competition extends to country awards shows, though Chesney is disappointed that Tim McGraw — who with wife Faith Hill headlined the highest-grossing country music tour in North America — is not nominated along with him in the CMA's entertainer category.
"Tim has a lot of passionate fans out there, and I'm one of them," Chesney said. "And what he and Faith have done in the last two years is as historic as anybody's touring, and, to be honest, more historic than some people that are nominated. He can't come to The Tennessean and say that, but I can. If I had the career he had and wasn't nominated, it would bother me."
Losing that category has bothered Chesney before, and he worries enough about his legacy to hope to win a few more entertainer crowns in order to be name-checked along with Alabama and Garth Brooks as a dominant performer in his era.
"I'd love to win it three more times, but the odds of me keeping the pedal down that long aren't good," he said.
"The search for balance is going to come with a price. This year, we had a hell of a year and I think we deserve it and I want to win it, but if I don't it's not going to change my enthusiasm, or my fans' enthusiasm. The awards don't fuel me."
What fuels him are the miles he's traveled to find his own historically significant place in music. Kenny Chesney turns 40 next March, and there's not a club in Brownsville big enough to hold the party.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Rock of aged
Seasoned performers keep packing in the fans at area concert venues
By David Lindquist
david.lindquist@indystar.com
Cincinnati Reds outfielder George Foster won the National League Most Valuable Player award in 1977, the same year Jimmy Buffett reached the Top 10 with his hit "Margaritaville."
The passage of time has made it impossible for 58-year-old Foster to play baseball in front of thousands of paying customers in 2007, but 60-year-old Buffett continues to perform tropical-themed tunes for sellout crowds in the nation's largest concert venues.
Forging an emotional bond with listeners and creating a festive atmosphere in concert are two tickets to career longevity, according to music-industry experts and fans.
Buffett, specifically, is known for playing concerts where his loyalists -- commonly termed "Parrotheads" -- wear grass skirts, floral shirts and inflatable sharks as accessories.
"These (shows) have become more than a night out," says Dave Clark, vice president of marketing for concert promoter Live Nation.
Read the entire story in the Indy Star
By David Lindquist
david.lindquist@indystar.com
Cincinnati Reds outfielder George Foster won the National League Most Valuable Player award in 1977, the same year Jimmy Buffett reached the Top 10 with his hit "Margaritaville."
The passage of time has made it impossible for 58-year-old Foster to play baseball in front of thousands of paying customers in 2007, but 60-year-old Buffett continues to perform tropical-themed tunes for sellout crowds in the nation's largest concert venues.
Forging an emotional bond with listeners and creating a festive atmosphere in concert are two tickets to career longevity, according to music-industry experts and fans.
Buffett, specifically, is known for playing concerts where his loyalists -- commonly termed "Parrotheads" -- wear grass skirts, floral shirts and inflatable sharks as accessories.
"These (shows) have become more than a night out," says Dave Clark, vice president of marketing for concert promoter Live Nation.
Read the entire story in the Indy Star
Friday, April 20, 2007
Loss of Festivals and Starwood Amphitheatre
Nashville has experienced great loss over the years in the form of cultural festivals. In the last decade or so, we lost "Summer Lights", "The Italian Street Festival", "RiverStages" and "Dancin' in the District." They added so much fun and uniqueness to our city and were events geared toward locals instead of tourists, but they were fun for visitors as well. They provided great music, food, family-friendly activities and a great way to spend a day in the city without spending a fortune.
I see and hear about festivals, fairs, tours and all sorts of things in other cities and see them doing really well. I long for the days when Nashville had the same, and we went out and enjoyed it. I long for the days in the future when we have these sorts of things for everyone to enjoy again.
This also brings to mind Starwood Amphitheatre which was Nashville's only outdoor venue that could hold major events and concerts without using a stadium. It provided many incredible memories for us over the years as we saw concerts of every kind showcased year in and year out. It was far from perfect, but it could still provide a great time.
I hope we come up with someone to buy the venue or maybe we will have another one built in the next couple of years. Keep your fingers crossed and get out to hear all the great music that comes to town. It is up to us to keep our venues open, so that performers will want to come to Nashville for the best fans in the world.
"From the Nashville Post"- 2/13/07
Journalist Kay West spoke for many in 1998 after readers of Nashville Life magazine chose the venue as the "worst place to hear live music" in a poll of local bests and worsts. West's entry read: "Starwood, dear Starwood. How do we hate thee? Let us count the ways.
We hate the lousy drive on the ever-under-construction I-24. We hate the immobile stream of overheating cars in terminal holding pattern. We hate your exorbitant parking fees. We hate your Gestapo seize-and-destroy security force. We hate your carnival sideshow on the plaza. We hate your rip-off concessions. We hate your stinking bathrooms. And, come to think of it, we’re pretty damned sick of your music, too. Hank Williams Jr. again? Yawn."
I see and hear about festivals, fairs, tours and all sorts of things in other cities and see them doing really well. I long for the days when Nashville had the same, and we went out and enjoyed it. I long for the days in the future when we have these sorts of things for everyone to enjoy again.
This also brings to mind Starwood Amphitheatre which was Nashville's only outdoor venue that could hold major events and concerts without using a stadium. It provided many incredible memories for us over the years as we saw concerts of every kind showcased year in and year out. It was far from perfect, but it could still provide a great time.
I hope we come up with someone to buy the venue or maybe we will have another one built in the next couple of years. Keep your fingers crossed and get out to hear all the great music that comes to town. It is up to us to keep our venues open, so that performers will want to come to Nashville for the best fans in the world.
"From the Nashville Post"- 2/13/07
Journalist Kay West spoke for many in 1998 after readers of Nashville Life magazine chose the venue as the "worst place to hear live music" in a poll of local bests and worsts. West's entry read: "Starwood, dear Starwood. How do we hate thee? Let us count the ways.
We hate the lousy drive on the ever-under-construction I-24. We hate the immobile stream of overheating cars in terminal holding pattern. We hate your exorbitant parking fees. We hate your Gestapo seize-and-destroy security force. We hate your carnival sideshow on the plaza. We hate your rip-off concessions. We hate your stinking bathrooms. And, come to think of it, we’re pretty damned sick of your music, too. Hank Williams Jr. again? Yawn."
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