Iconic rockers, The Rolling Stones, have announced a North American Tour for 2020. The slate of performances are scheduled this spring, beginning on May 8 in San Diego, California and concluding on July 9, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, FL.
This latest leg is a continuation of their widely popular “No Filter” tour – marking their seventh consecutive decade on the road. With no more than six performances scheduled each month, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners will focus on major arenas. Beginning on the West Coast at the SDCCU stadium, they will perform throughout the Midwest, the Southwest and the Northeast and Canada.
Tickets for the North American Tour will be made available on February 14. Early registration for tickets can be made on their official website.
A list of tour dates can be found below.
May 8 – SDCCU Stadium – San Diego, CA
May 12 – BC Place – Vancouver, BC
May 16 – U.S. Bank Stadium – Minneapolis, MN
May 20 – Nissan Stadium – Nashville, TN
May 24 – Circuit of the America – Austin, TX
May 29 – Cotton Bowl – Dallas, TX
Jun. 6 – New Era Field – Orchard Park, NY
Jun. 10 – Ford Field – Detroit MI
Jun. 14 – Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium – Louisville, KY
Jun. 19 – FirstEnergy Stadium – Cleveland, OH
Jun. 23 – Heinz Field – Pittsburgh, PA
Jun. 27 – The Dome at America’s Center – St, Louis, MO
After a successful December tour of New York City venues, legendary New York hardcore acts Agnostic Front and Sick Of It All have announced they will embark on a 19-date tour.
The tour kicks off in Boston on April 23 and has the co-headliners visiting two festivals — Epicenter in Charlotte and Rockville in Daytona — wrapping with a show at Syracuse’s venerable Lost Horizon on May 15.
Tickets for all dates go on sale Friday, Jan. 31 at 10:00 a.m.
Agnostic Front / Sick Of It All — 2020 Tour Dates: April 23 – The Middle East – Boston, MA April 24 – Le D’Auteull – Quebec City, QUE April 25 – Foufounes Electrique – Montreal, QUE April 26 – Lee’s Place – Toronto, ONT April 27 – The Shelter – Detroit, MI April 28 – Crafthouse – Pittsburgh, PA April 29 – Elevation 27 – Virginia Beach, VA May 1 – Epicenter Festival – Charlotte, NC May 2 – Diamond Pub – Louisville, KY May 3 – Subterranean – Chicago, IL May 4 – Blueberry Hill – St. Louis, MO May 6 – Barracuda – Austin, TX May 7 – Trees – Dallas, TX May 8 – White Oak Upstairs – Houston, TX May 10 – Rockville Festival – Daytona, FL May 11 – The Loft – Atlanta, GA May 13 – Ottobar – Baltimore, MD May 14 – Underground Arts – Philadelphia, PA May 15 – The Lost Horizon – Syracuse, NY
On Sunday, Umphrey’s McGee closed out a three-night NYC weekend on their winter tour with an intimate show at Brooklyn Bowl. The jam veterans treated loyal fans to two sets filled with covers, rare originals and new music. The Sunday closer was a change of venue, but the intimate atmosphere of Brooklyn Bowl proved to be the key ingredient in a night where the entire band felt comfortable and dialed in to the show and their fans.
The first set began with “Looks” and continued with “The Fussy Dutchman” which included a “YYZ” tease that continued the themed tribute to Rush and the late Neil Peart for the entire weekend run. The first set concluded with a “Miss Tinkle’s Overture” that segued into the band’s original take on LCD Soundsystem’s “Tribulations,” debuted for the first time during the recent New Year’s run, before returning back to “Miss Tinkle’s Overture,” closing out a fantastic first set.
After a short set break, the band came back with the rare opener “Front Porch,” rewarding a die-hard fan who has been chasing that track for a few tours. The 30+ minute opening track was the highlight of the night, showing off the prowess of the veteran rockers. The set continued with fan favorites “40’s Theme,” “Gulf Stream,” and “The Floor.” But it was the debut performance of “Suxity,” a brand-new song, that closed out an amazing show and was proof that 2020 will be a good one for Umphrey’s Mcgee.
Set 1: Looks, The Fussy Dutchman, Maybe Someday > Got Your Milk (Right Here) > Walletsworth, Domino Theory, Miss Tinkle’s Overture -> Tribulations > Miss Tinkle’s Overture
Set 2: Front Porch > Resolution > Front Porch, 40’s Theme, Miami Virtue -> Out Of Order > Gulf Stream, The Floor
Legendary German metal band, Rammstein, have teased a US tour over the past few days with social media posts featuring a map of the US with several states including NY being highlighted in the German colors. A Rammstein bannered Zeppelin flies high over major US cities, with he hashtag: #GETREADYAMERICA – all backed by a new music video “RAMMERIKA,” which explicitly credits the Apollo space program – as if foreshadowing a massive touchdown:
In the method ultimately employed, lunar orbit rendezvous, a powerful launch vehicle (Saturn V rocket) placed a 50-ton spacecraft in a lunar trajectory (Brittanica.com, as linked from the ).
The states teased in the image are as follows:
New York
Quebec
Pennsylvania
Maryland
Massachusetts
Illinois
Minnesota
Texas
California
Mexico City
Rammstein last performed in NY at Jones Beach on June 25, 2017. While no official locations have been named yet, it is likely they will return to Jones Beach.
The silly and surreal met the seriously groovy at the 9th Annual Wintercourse. The single-night, multi-artist musical event was presented by Brooklyn electro-funk band Cousin Earth.
The historic, hole-in-the-wall Knitting factory hosted the event for the fourth time in a row. This year’s Wintercourse went off with aplomb, delivering the musical goods four times over. Pennsylvania psychedelic punk band Medusa’s Disco opened things up. Additionally, Of Clocks and Clouds performed next, while the legendary jam band The Breakfast headlined the evening. Cousin Earth themselves also performed a complete set in addition to hosting the event.
Cousin Earth performs at their festival: The 9th Annual Wintercourse
The Performance
Medusa’s Disco revved up the beginning of the night with an immediate smattering of fearlessly intense music. Donned in devil horns and Willy Wonka spectacles, the members whipped across head-spinning riffs and cool, classic rock-style melodies. Medusa’s Disco presented a kind of feel-so-bad-it-feels-good rock and roll. A song like “Painters Painting Paintings,” a new song from the band, gives a great example of their essence: punk rock updated sonically for the modern age, without losing the raw spirit of the genre.
Of Clocks And Clouds performed at a hometown venue in Knitting Factory. Their set received fantastic enthusiasm from the crowd. The psychedelic metal quartet tapped into some vibrant improvisation for their performance. They played a few songs that were outright inspirational in their climactic peaks. One in particular was “Who I Am,” which managed to mutate its catchy chorus and composition into a terrifically bright and uplifting jam.
Medusa’s Disco gets down at the 9th Annual Wintercourse
Collaboration Efforts
Many anticipated a collaboration somewhere on this stacked lineup for Wintercourse 9. Cousin Earth’s ukulele lead Joey Calfa made that happen here in the Clocks set. He joined the band on a great version of “Hey Joe,” for which he shared in a sweet guitar shredding session with OCAC’s Tom Salgo. Calfa, for anybody who for some reason is unaware, is a Jedi on his instrument, at danger of ripping holes in time and space when he really gets going on a ukulele solo. But OCAC’s Tom and his brother Joe Salgo are confidently apt guitar players themselves, and they both delivered their own righteous lead solos back and forth.
Perhaps Cousin Earth followed the lead of Of Clocks and Clouds (who wrapped things up with Pink Floyd’s “Time”), for they opened their own performance with a take on “Great Gig In The Sky,” a rare and pretty cool choice for a set opener. Then they dove into their own music and things got groovy real fast. “Burnin’ Up For You” was a great blues-funk number that showcased the insatiable voice of the band’s lead vocalist Melissa Raye. By the time the band led the room through a meticulously played, futuristic-sounding disco rock groove, Knitting Factory took the spirit of Wintercourse 9 and ran away with it.
Prodded on by the ultimate ringmaster/troublemaker, Medusa’s Disco guitarist Wynton Huddle, the show which was musically splendid now became physically and visually joyful.
A wild unicorn appears at the 9th Annual Wintercourse
The Snowball Fight, Aliens, and More
Huddle snuck on stage in the middle of Cousin Earth’s jam and unleashed dozens of styrofoam “snowballs” into the crowd. A snowball fight occurred between crowd goers and members of Cousin Earth. The spontaneous snowball fight lasted for the entirety of their song. A unicorn making its way onto stage and men in alien and dinosaur costumes dancing in the audience threw the careless whimsy of Wintercourse over the cliff. As the craziness wound down, Cousin Earth’s members sang sweetly into the mic repeating: “Mr. Alien, please don’t kill us. Please don’t kill us, Mr. Alien.” This segment takes its name from the band’s most recent studio album, Please Don’t Kill Us, released in April of 2019.
“Okay, here’s a fish song.” For their finish, the Brooklyn ukelele-led rockers threw down an incredibly unique and formidable version of Heart’s “Barracuda”. The night pointed straight towards a high-reigning set from The Breakfast. The band consists of four unmatchable players: guitarist Tim Palmeri, drummer Adrian Tromontano, bassist Chris DeAngelis, as well as keyboard player Jordan Giangreco, who gets invited regularly to play with far too many notable bands to count. “I’d say these guys are my guilty pleasure, but I don’t feel guilty about it at all. They’re just my pleasure,” introduced Cousin Earth bassist Corey J. Feldman, who was acting as MC for the evening.
Jordan Giangreco of The Breakfast at The 9th Annual Wintercourse
The Closing Act – Final Thoughts
Furthermore, the short set from The Breakfast was a ballistic sprint from start to finish. Those aware of the northeast jam scene know that fast and furious is the only way how to do it. No matter the time, place, or conditions, it will always be a masterclass in how to shred.
Nevertheless, the band played versions of their classic hits in this closing set, including a version of “Over Exposure”. The musically focused song, worked through varying sections of tempo and melody with the maximum tightness. The song hit at the same level of supersonic barbarity as all the other jams produced throughout the night. Lastly, fans cheered on The Breakfast’s following cover of “Teenage Wasteland” as they screamed along to the lyrics.
Inductees for the 2020 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have officially been announced. The committee in charge of inductees – made up of more than 1,000 historians, members of the music industry and every living Rock Hall inductee – have included two prominent names in music culture, whose body of work was not based in the genre. In an effort to diversify the Rock Hall of Fame, soul songstress Whitney Houston and iconic hip-hop emcee The Notorious B.I.G., will make their entrance into the hallowed halls of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. They will be posthumously induced, at the 35th annual Rock Hall of Fame Induction ceremony, on Saturday, May 2, 2020, at Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio.
The duo headlines an illustrious class, which features influential rock band The Doobie Brothers, Grammy-winning rock act, Nine Inch Nails, English rockers, T. Rex, who were prominent in the development of the rock scene during the early 1970s, as well as Depeche Mode, a dominant force within the electronic music scene.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Jon Landau, the longtime manager of Bruce Springsteen, and entertainment executive Irving Azoff will also be recognized at the ceremony. They will be presented with the Ahmet Ertegun Award, which honors songwriters, producers, disc jockeys, record executives, journalists, and other industry professionals who have had a major influence on rock & roll.
The ceremony will be broadcast live for the first time on HBO on May 2 at 8 p.m. ET. Performances and special guests and Induction Week programs will be announced later.
Tickets go on sale to Rock Hall members on February 25 and to the public on February 27 at 10 a.m. ET, at ticketmaster.com or by calling 800-745-3000.
Motion City Soundtrack have been on indefinite hiatus since 2016, but last summer the Minneapolis band began teasing something for New Years Eve. The surprise came in the form of a NYE show in Chicago at House of Blues followed by a month-long “Don’t Call It A Comeback” tour of the US. New York area shows included Webster Hall in NYC, where we caught the tour, Starland Ballroom in NJ and The Paramount on Long Island.
The newly renovated Webster Hall is still very much a work in progress, but that did not take away from the delight and anticipation of the fans. By the time the opening bands were set to play, the room was already mostly full and buzzing. Support for the night came from Gregory Stovetop followed by The Sidekicks who both played very upbeat pop-rock sets.
Motion City Soundtrack put out one of the most iconic mid-2000s anthem in “Everything is Alright,” and the crowd was treated to it early as the second song. The entire room jumped along to the guitar riff, stressing the ancient Webster Hall floor, while shouting the chorus in full-throat. Another fan favorite, and pop-rock hit “The Future Freaks Me Out” served as the final song of the night.
Motion City Soundtrack at Webster Hall 1/8/2020 – Photo: Joseph Buscarello
The band had terrific chemistry throughout the night, Justin’s vocals sounded crisp and the band delivered a tight 20 song, career-spanning set, meant to please. The hiatus is certainly over and MCS are back at it.
Motion City Soundtrack at Webster Hall 1/8/2020 – Photo: Joseph Buscarello
The rest of the tour runs through mid February, with stops coast to coast, concluding with three sold-out home town shows at The Fillmore in Minneapolis. Support for those last shows comes from White Reaper, Why Not, Lydia Lizer and Author.
Neil Peart, the pioneering drummer and primary lyricist for Canadian progressive rock icons Rush died Tuesday, January 7 following a nearly three-year-long battle with brain cancer. He was 67 years old.
The influential drummer joined Rush, replacing John Rutsy, in 1974 for the band’s second album Fly By Night and immediately changed the musical direction of the band with his Ayn Rand and SciFi-inspired lyrics and technical drumming skills.
Peart was an unassuming and deeply private man with an extraordinary talent for drumming, the man who inspired legions of air-drummers throughout the world. He rarely did interviews, leaving those duties for bandmates Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, where he spoke most directly was through his lyrics.
Drawing from science fiction, fantasy and the works of Ayn Rand (which he would later renounce), Peart wrote lyrics that could be fantastical, could be direct but they made the listener think.
The 1982 single “Subdivisions” spoke directly to a generation of young disaffected high schoolers, addressing the loneliness and separation of one trying to fit in.
Subdivisions
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Rush – “Subdivisions” (1982)
Those lyrics spoke directly to this writer trying to find his way around the halls of Staley Junior High School. It let the disaffected know they weren’t alone in their feelings. And it struck home.
A truly lasting memory associated with Rush is from the winter following the release of the band’s breakthrough 1981 album Moving Pictures. This album was inescapable that year but nowhere more than at the outdoor hockey rink at Franklyn’s Field in my hometown.
My friends and I made the short trek to the park every day, sticks over tiny shoulders, skates dangling behind us. We knew we were in the right place once we heard the lone tinny speaker attached to a light pole overlooking the rink cranking “Limelight,” “Tom Sawyer,” “YYZ.” This was my first real exposure to Rush and the most lasting memory I have of the band. The songs were technical, yet accessible. And the drums. I’d never paid much attention to individual instrumentation as a 12-year-old finding his way in the music world. Peart demanded your attention. And he did just that, for 40 years. A virtuoso in a band of virtuosos.
Peart retired completely from drumming following Rush’s final tour in 2015. The demand put on his body over years of constant performing left Peart unsure of his ability to maintain his precision. The demands of the profession lost out over the desire to spend more time with his family and with his other writing and producing projects.
He leaves behind his wife Carrie Nuttal and a daughter, Olivia along with a legacy few humans can claim.
The 2020 Bonnaroo lineup was revealed Tuesday morning. The June 11-14 festival returns to Manchester, TN for its 19th year with headliners Tool, Lizzo and Tame Impala.
Other acts slated to appear this year include the newly reformed Oysterhead (featuring Trey Anastasio of Phish, Stewart Copeland of the Police and Les Claypool of Primus — which will also be performing), Lana Del Ray, Vampire Weekend, Miley Cyrus, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit and Tenacious D.
Brooklyn’s Turkuaz, which released its latest EP Kuadochrome in November of last year, is performing with former Talking Heads members Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew as part of a 40th-anniversary tribute to the Heads’ Remain in Light album. Also Nelly will be performing a 20th-anniversary tribute to his Country Grammar album.
Tickets for Bonnaroo 2020 go on sale Thursday, Jan. 9 at Noon ET at several different price levels. Details can be found here.
Metallica, Deftones and Slipknot are set to headline the Sonic Temple Festival 2020. The iconic metal festival returns for its second year to MAPFRE Stadium in Columbus, Ohio on May 15 – 17, 2020.
Metallica is set to headline both Friday and Sunday with two unique sets. Bring Me The Horizon returns for 2020 after being forced to cancel last years set due to a weather evacuation. Some of the heavy hitting bands include Evanescence, Staind, Ice Nine Kills, Dropkick Murphys, Royal Blood, Cypress Hill, Anthrax, The Pretty Reckless, and Jinjer.
