NYS Music 2023

Category: The West

  • MSG Announces U2 ‘Achtung Baby’ Residency to open The Sphere

    During Super Bowl LVII on Sunday night, U2 dropped a brief look at their upcoming residency at the new MSG Sphere at The Venetian, coming this fall in Las Vegas. The venue has been in the works for years as a state-of-the-art venue, and one of the biggest bands in the world will be the first to christen it.

    MSG Sphere U2 Las Vegas

    ‘U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At The Sphere’ marks a special run of shows and the band’s first live outing in four years, following the massive success of their acclaimed Joshua Tree 30th anniversary stadium tour, and their 2018 eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE indoor tour which played to a combined audience of 1 million across Europe and North America.

    The full-length trailer is intended to show the global U2 community, featuring a select group of new and longtime U2 fans (along with a few band doppelgangers) coming together for a futuristic Achtung Baby adventure in a unique desert landscape.

    The announcement comes with confirmation that Larry Mullen Jr. will take time out to undergo and recuperate from surgery in 2023. These Las Vegas shows will see Larry and the band welcome drummer Bram van den Berg who will be sitting in to join Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton onstage at MSG Sphere. Bono, The Edge and Adam said in a statement:

    It’s going to take all we’ve got to approach the Sphere without our bandmate in the drum seat, but Larry has joined us in welcoming Bram van den Berg who is a force in his own right.

    The Sphere show has been in the works for a long time. We don’t want to let people down, least of all our audience… the truth is we miss them as much as they appear to miss us… our audience was always the fifth member of the band. Bottom line, U2 hasn’t played live since December 2019 and we need to get back on stage and see the faces of our fans again. And what a unique stage they’re building for us out there in the desert… We’re the right band, ACHTUNG BABY the right album, and the Sphere the right venue to take the live experience of music to the next level… That’s what U2’s been trying to do all along with our satellite stages and video installations, most memorably on the ZOO TV Tour, which ended in Tokyo 30 years ago this Fall.  

    The Sphere is more than just a venue, it’s a gallery and U2’s music is going to be all over the walls.

    The Edge added separately “The beauty of the Sphere is not only the ground-breaking technology that will make it so unique, with the world’s most advanced audio system, integrated into a structure which is designed with sound quality as a priority; it’s also the possibilities around immersive experience in real and imaginary landscapes. In short, it’s a canvas of an unparalleled scale and image resolution and a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We all thought about it and decided we’d be mad not to accept the invitation.”

    MSG Sphere U2 Las Vegas

    U2 is acknowledged as one of the best live acts in the world. Formed in Dublin in 1978, the band were marked out by their drive and ambition from the beginning. U2 has toured the globe countless times, released 14 studio albums, sold over 170 million albums and won numerous awards, including 22 Grammys and Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience award. U2 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

    The band has also released “One” from their new album Songs Of Surrender – a collection of 40 seminal U2 songs from across the band’s catalog, re-recorded and reimagined for 2023 in sessions spanning the last two years which sees the band revisit some of the most celebrated songs of their 40+ year career, to be released in full on Friday March 17th. A special world premiere of “One” could be heard during the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Super Bowl feature.

    MSG Sphere will introduce a new medium of entertainment, where fans will feel the impact of bands inside the world’s most experiential venue. MSG Sphere will introduce the first 16K screen that wraps up, around, and behind the audience. Sphere Immersive Sound will deliver pitch perfect audio to every seat in the house, with 4D technologies letting the audience feel the wind on their face, the heat on their skin and the rumble of thunder. The ‘U2 UV Achtung Baby Live At The Sphere’ opening series of shows will tap into this exclusive technology, allowing fans to experience something completely new. 

    With approximately 17,500 seats and a scalable capacity up to 20,000 guests, MSG Sphere at The Venetian will become the venue of choice for a wide variety of content, including Sphere experiences, concert residencies, product launches, and marquee events. In addition to the world’s highest resolution LED screen, MSG Entertainment has developed a multi-layered audio system – Sphere Immersive Sound – equipped with thousands of speakers that utilize beamforming technology to deliver targeted, crystal-clear and consistent audio to every seat in the house.

    Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. Executive Chairman and CEO James L. Dolan said, “MSG Sphere’s advanced technology allows a legendary band like U2 to bring its music to life in entirely new ways. The Sphere is a new medium that will redefine entertainment.”

    The venue will also feature 4D multi-sensory technologies such as immersive seating, evocative scents and changing temperatures, to take experiential storytelling to an entirely new level. The impactful exosphere, exterior screen features a fully programmable display, the largest LED screen on Earth. MSG Sphere at the Venetian is scheduled to open Fall 2023.

    Fans around the globe can register now to receive more information regarding U2 at the MSG Sphere show dates and on sale details once they are announced.

  • My First Billy Strings First Show : 1st Bank Center In Broomfield, CO

    Sometimes you need to head west in the winter to find some heat, and at 1st Bank Center on Saturday, February 4, that’s just what was found. Amid bitter cold back east, I flew out to Denver for a short weekend and experienced my first Billy Strings show.

    This is not to say I’ve never seen Billy Strings perform – I first saw him at WinterWonderGrass in Stratton, VT in December 2018, after years of hearing the buzz about this Michigan bluegrass musician. It took until last summer to catch him a second time, during Outlaw Music Fest when it came to Saratoga Performing Arts Center. But I had never seen him in a regular show setting, and festival sets always give you a different experience than seeing the band for an evening with. Thus, this would be my first Billy Strings show, on the last night of his sold out three-night run in Broomfield, CO, and what a show it was.

    Cutting to the chase here, Billy Strings, featuring Mr. Strings (guitar), Billy Failing (banjo), Royal Masat (bass), Jarrod Walker (mandolin), and Alex Hargreaves (fiddle), puts on one hell of a show. There wasn’t a dull moment, an unengaged fan or any feeling I was arriving to the show as an outsider – the crowd was welcoming, one that assured me afterwards that I got a heater at my first Billy show.

    With a half an hour before show time (given the 815pm start time the previous two nights), our crew found ourselves on the floor about a third of the way from the front, stage right. With 15 minutes, 10 minutes and 5 minutes before showtime, a brief announcement came on the screens with the voice of god saying “X minutes until Fuzzy Rainbows” – a unique way to get the crowd prepared for the show at the same time the band is getting ready and heading to the stage. With all the shows I’d listened to of Billy Strings’, this was a brand new concept and one of those welcome surprises that did not disappoint.

    Kicking off with two substance-tinged tunes, the ever popular “Dust in a Baggie” and “Heartbeat of America,” eyes were drawn to the video screens on either side of the stage. These made Billy and the band seem larger than life (by design), with the band-wide shot above the stage giving a horizontal frame to the band. For those way back in the audience, this was helpful as the five musicians side by side appeared so tiny after looking at the video screens of Giant Billy looking down on the crowd.

    The hour long first set had an array of covers, with traditional tunes from Roy Acuff and Larry Sparks complemented by covers from The Moody Blues and John Hartford. Billy Strings’ blending of his own originals and covers that go back through the history of bluegrass, as well as non-bluegrass tunes is a great part of the appeal that makes the music so accessible to so many.

    Alongside the video screens were the lights, which were another thing that could not translate to the audio-only experience, let alone festival sets. The lights were on par with the 20th Century Fox intro spotlights, continually shining all around, rotating and occassionally connecting with the disco ball way up in the rafters off stage left. This unexpected element to a bluegrass show gave a never-ending intertwining of lights, something you’d only see at a Greensky Bluegrass show.

    After a not too long setbreak, set 2 came out swinging with an Oak Ridge Boys tune, a mellow and delightful “Watch It Fall” and the traditional “Cumberland Reel.” From there, the set picked up speed and never let up, dropping in with the dark as hell “Psycho” that segued smooth as silk into J.J. Cale’s “Ride Me High.” The Bad Livers’ tune “Pretty Daughter” – covered often by Yonder Mountain String Band – jumped up late in the set, with Billy moving from side to side on the stage, hamming it up a bit and watching his bandmates take solos. The closing “Turmoil & Tinfoil” rounded things out with a punch, with an all too brief encore of “Tennessee,” noted as the band’s destination for some recording, and not a sit-in with Phil Lesh and Friends the next day in Denver.

    And with that, I checked my first Billy Strings show off the list, with assurance from the show and crowd that this would not be the last.

    Billy Strings – 1st Bank Center, Broomfield, CO – Saturday, February 4, 2023

    Set 1: Dust In A Baggie, Heartbeat of America, Along The Road (Dan Fogelberg), Streamlined Cannonball (Roy Acuff), The Fire On My Tounge > Know It All, John Deere Tractor (Larry Sparks), The Preacher & The Bear (Arthur Francis Collins), Wargasm, Nights In White Satin (The Moody Blues), This Old World, Bronzeback, All Fall Down (John Hartford), These Old Blues (Traditional)

    Set 2: Dig A Little Deeper In The Well (The Oak Ridge Boys), Ice Bridges, Watch It Fall, Slow Train, Cumberland Reel (traditional), Psycho (Eddie Noack) > Ride Me High (J.J. Cale) The Train That Carried My Girl From Town (Doc Watson) > Black Mountain Rag, Love Like Me, Whisper Your Name (New Grass Revival), Pretty Daughter (Bad Livers), Nothing’s Working, Turmoil & TInfoil

    Encore: Tennessee (Jimmy Martin)

    billy strings first show
    billy strings first show
    billy strings first show
    billy strings first show
    billy strings first show
    billy strings first show

  • Long Time Gone: David Crosby dies at 81

    David Crosby, a founding member of both The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, died today at age 81. A key player in the mid-60’s L.A. folk-rock scene, Crosby was known for his harmony more than songwriting, as he penned “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” “Long Time Gone,” “Almost Cut My Hair” and “Déjà Vu,” among others.

    David Crosby at Clearwater Music Festival 2015. Photo by Steve Malinski

    Just yesterday Crosby tweeted on his very active Twitter account about the afterlife, saying Heaven is “overrated….cloudy.”He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, once for the Byrds and once for Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. In recent years, he also had an advice column on Rolling Stone, Ask Croz.

    Crosby was born in Los Angeles as the child of famous Hollywood cinematographer Floyd Crosby, who won an Oscar for his work on F.W. Murnau’s 1931 feature Tabu. He gravitated to acting and music at an early age and dropped out of Santa Barbara City College to pursue music. He found himself in the commercial folk music scene via brief membership in Les Baxter’s Balladeers.

    After working at L.A. folk clubs as a solo act, he attracted the attention of Jim Dickson, the house engineer at Richard Bock’s L.A. label World Pacific Records. He was a solo act for a while but eventually formed a band in 1964 when jamming with Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark. They went under different names for a duration, starting as the Beefeaters, then picking up Chris Hillman along the way to become the Byrds.

    The group’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” leapt to No. 1 in the United States singles chart in early 1965. For the next two years, Crosby’s group would reign supreme as America’s version of The Beatles. All of their records under Columbia during this time reached the U.S. top 25. 

    David Crosby at Clearwater Music Festival 2015. Photo by Steve Malinski

    In 1967, Crosby’s time with the Byrds came to a close after an argument at the historic Monterey Pop Festival. He began jamming with Stephen Stills, whose group Buffalo Springfield had recently ended, and Graham Nash, who met the others during a 1966 U.S. tour with the Hollies. David Geffen freed the three from their contracts, and Crosby, Stills & Nash was signed to Atlantic Records.

    The group’s self-titled record was released in May 1969, went to No. 6 on the U.S. chart, and sold four million copies. CS&N won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1969. In August 1969, the group, along with new member Neil Young, performed at Woodstock in front of half a million people, only their second live performance together. After Young’s addition, the group’s 1970 record Déjà Vu went No. 1 and sold seven million copies.

    Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young had continued success until personal problems in Crosby’s life escalated. He was addicted to cocaine and eventually heroin, after his girlfriend Christine Hinton was killed in a car accident in 1970. Young eventually left after that to focus on his solo career, but returned to tour with the others in 1974. 

    During his addiction, Crosby released a 1971 solo debut, If I Could Only Remember My Name, which peaked at No. 12 in 1971. He reunited with the original Byrds lineup in 1972, disbanding after their 1973 release Byrds was dismissed by critics. He reunited with CS&N to release CNS in 1977, and Daylight Again in 1982, before things unraveled very publicly. 

    In April 1982, Crosby was arrested in a Dallas nightclub and charged with possessing a .45 caliber handgun and a pipe for his cocaine use. He was convicted in 1983, and served five months of the five years he was sentenced to in 1986. He credited this conviction to ending his addiction to cocaine. He also suffered from ill health and underwent a liver transplant in 1994, and in 2014 was named “rock’s unlikeliest survivor” by Rolling Stone.

    In 2000, it was revealed by singer Melissa Etheridge that Crosby was the biological father of two children born to her then-partner Julie Cypher via artificial insemination. One of those children, Beckett Cypher, died at the age of 21 in 2020, with Crosby writing “I didn’t get to raise that kid… but he was here many times. I loved him and he loved me and he was family to me.”

    He was convicted and fined for marijuana and firearms possession later in 2004. In 2015 he had another run in with the law, agreeing to pay a $3 million settlement following the filing of a suit that alleged he was intoxicated when he crashed into a jogger.

    His six-decade career culminated in a final solo album, For Free, released in 2021, having kept busy in the last decade by releasing six studio albums. He also put out live albums, including one, David Crosby & The Lighthouse Band Live at the Capitol Theatre, live at the iconic Port Chester venue. The 16-track live offering includes an uncut gem with the song “1974,” a long lost demo that Crosby had sitting around on a hard drive for decades.

    Crosby also dabbled in acting, with stints on Roseanne and in 1991’s Hook.

    In 2017, Crosby embarked on his Sky Trails tour, playing at The Egg in Albany. In 2019, Cameron Crowe would direct the 2019 documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name.

    Crosby retired from performing live in 2021, saying “It’s because I’m old. Being on a bus tour is a daunting task. It’s very hard. It takes it out of you. I’m too old to do it anymore. I don’t have the stamina; I don’t have the strength.” He also said he was “trying really hard to crank out as much music as I possibly can, as long as it’s really good.” He backtracked about that statement, saying he did want to play live again. 

    David Crosby is survived by his wife Jan Dance, their son Django, James Raymond, his son with Celia Crawford Ferguson and two daughters, Erika and Donovan, from previous relationships with Jackie Guthrie and Debbie Donovan. 

  • moe. to join Umphrey’s McGee at Red Rocks in June

    In the midst of the band’s 25th year, Umphrey’s McGee will once again return to Colorado, performing two nights at the fabled Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and they’ll be bringing along longtime friends moe. for the shows.

    moe umphreys mcgee

    Umphrey’s McGee will start their Colorado run with one night at Dillon Amphitheater on June 15th, followed by two nights at Red Rocks on June 16th and 17th. moe. will be performing an extended set each night at Red Rocks, opening up for Umphrey’s.

    Umphrey’s McGee shared in a statement, “We are thrilled to be welcoming our long-time compadres moe. for an extended set both nights at Red Rocks! Dillon Amphitheater easily became one of our favorite venues following our debut last year. And if you have rocked the Rocks with us before, you know it is not-to-be-missed – if you have’t, make this your year.”

    umVIP will be offering enhanced experience packages for Dillon and Red Rocks to make the Colorado weekend smooth and seamless. Enjoy program perks including exclusive pit access in Dillon and a private set at Red Rocks, signed posters, merch and more. Read up on the works here.

    Tickets go on sale on Tuesday, January 10th, with general on sale beginning Friday, January 13th.

    • Tuesday, January 10th, 10:00 am MT: umVIP tickets go on-sale
    • Wednesday, January 11th, 10:00 am MT: Two-Day Umphrey’s Pre-Sale tickets for Red Rocks only
    • Thursday, January 12th, 10:00 am MT: Limited venue Pre-Sale for all three shows
    • Friday, January 13th, 10:00 am MT: General on-sale begins for all three shows
    • Tuesday, January 10th, 10:00 am MT: umVIP tickets go on-sale
    • Wednesday, January 11th, 10:00 am MT: Two-Day Umphrey’s Pre-Sale tickets for Red Rocks only
    • Thursday, January 12th, 10:00 am MT: Limited venue Pre-Sale for all three shows
    • Friday, January 13th, 10:00 am MT: General on-sale begins for all three shows