DaveO

On one of the official release dates of their new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective have announced a massive world tour. The band kicks things off with a sold-out show tonight in NYC and will perform at four additional shows in the U.S. before heading overseas in March.

In March, the zealous overachievers are booked for 22 shows over 25 days in 11 countries. There’s no rest for the weary as May through June has the band playing 22 U.S. shows and two in Canada.

Most of us at Hidden Track Headquarters think this album qualifies as an early contender for best album of 2009 and Merriweather Post Pavilion will surely be making numerous appearances in many top 5 / top 10 album lists from a variety of publications at the end of the year.

READ ON after the jump for the band’s full itinerary. Mark your local show in your calendar as you will not be disappointed by AC live…

Looking back on last week’s Cover Wars, Tea Leaf Green has emerged victorious with over 50% of the vote. In 2nd place was The Allman Brothers Band and I am also very happy to report that every entry received at least one vote – I love it when that happens. In case you missed it, last week we looked at ten covers of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

This week I have chosen an 80’s super-hit by Simple Minds. This song was written specifically for the 1985 brat-pack film The Breakfast Club. Simple Minds is still touring and plan to release an album in 2009, a title has not yet been revealed.

As always, be sure to register/login to IMEEM before starting the playlist below to stream full-length clips.

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READ ON after the jump for a look at this week’s contestants…

Tonight at 8PM Central Standard Time, Umphrey’s McGee will perform one set at The Vic Theatre in Chicago. For those unable to attend, the show will be simulcast on www.wxrt.com.

To the best of my knowledge Phish has never once engaged in a tiered ticketing pricing structure. For every Phish concert, the price of a ticket in the front row is the same as the price for one in the nosebleeds or lawn.

When the Dave Matthews Band plays the Superpages.com Center in Dallas, pavilion tickets will be $70 and lawn tickets $40. When The Dead cruise into the Greensboro Coliseum, tickets will be $89 and $49.50. When Metallica plays the TD Banknorth Garden, tickets will be $79.50 and $59.50.

Phish now has thirteen dates on the books, and the ticket price for all of them is $49.50. I’d love to know how this all went down. Was having a single ticket price a requirement set forth by the band before joining Red Light? (Side note: redlight.com is a porn site, redlightmanagement.com is the correct link, might as well spare you that inconvenience).

When tickets go on sale through Live Nation, Ticketmaster and Metrotix the weekend of January 30, I predict that seven out of their ten shows will sell out within the first hour. Perhaps they won’t immediately sell 80,000 tickets to their two shows at Alpine Valley. Maybe they can’t immediately sell 22,000 in Burgettstown, PA on a Thursday night. But most fans believe that Jones Beach (2 shows), Great Woods, Camden, Asheville, St. Louis and Noblesville will sell out the day tickets are available for purchase.

READ ON for more of DaveO’s editorial on Phish ticket prices…

After a brief hiatus, Cover Wars is back. What can I say? I went on vacation for a week to Chicago over New Year’s and I left you guys without a playlist of covers of the same song to listen to at work. How you got by, I will never know. If you can remember, our last edition looked at covers of Hey Bulldog and Toad The Wet Sprocket has emerged victorious. Color me surprised, though they did do a great job with the song.

This week I have selected The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down from The Band’s self-titled second album, which was released in 1969. The song, which tells a civil war story, was ranked by Rolling Stone as the 245th greatest song of all time, nestled between Gimme Some Lovin’ and (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.

As always, be sure to register/login to IMEEM before starting the playlist below to ensure you stream full-length clips.

READ ON after the jump for a look at this week’s contestants…

“I hate New Year’s Eve, it’s always so anticlimactic.” – Friends of yours that don’t see live music every year.

Perhaps you’ve already got a show picked out for New Year’s Eve 2008-2009. Maybe you lucked out and it’s local or maybe you’re traveling 3,000 miles or even crossing an ocean to get there. Regardless of the status of your plans, it’s always fun to know what else is going on at that exact moment all over the country.

[Photo via Phishpics.net]

Well maybe not that exact moment, we’ve got those damn time-zones to deal with. When My Morning Jacket rings in New Year’s in New York, Umphrey’s McGee will be one hour behind in Chicago, followed by Widespread Panic in Colorado and finally Phil Lesh & Friends play the last notes of 2008 in the Continental United States.

So we’re sorting this guide in the following manner: First by Time zone then State then City then Band Name. Whenever we could, we linked directly to ticketing information. This post will be continually updated.

EASTERN STANDARD TIME

Ryan Montbleau Band with Zach Deputy & Jesse Dee, The Warehouse – Hartford ($30-65)

Earth Wind & Fire, Foxwoods – Mashantucket ($60-95)

The Breakfast with Shakedown, Toad’s Place – New Haven ($12.50)

Hall & Oates, Mohegan Sun Casino -Uncasville ($55-90)

READ ON for the rest of our New Year’s Eve Concert Guide…

No big surprise last week that our top two candidates were Phish and Neil Young. Over the weekend Phish pulled ahead as the winner of last week’s edition when we looked at covers of The Beatles’ A Day In The Life.

Check your pulse if this video doesn’t make you smile:

This week we look at Hey Bulldog off The Beatles’ 1969 release, Yellow Submarine. Yes, that’s right, we’re doing Beatles’ tunes in back-to-back weeks. Wanna fight about it? Lennon once described this song as a “good sounding record that means nothing.” While this may be true for parts of the verses, I’ve always loved the line, “Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles. What make you think you’re something special when you smile?” I think it’s funny and a little harsh. Also, one of the best basslines ever. For a boat load of fun info check out the song’s entry at The Beatles Bible.

We’ve got a nice mix of artists this round and I’ll say I was surprised at how many versions of this are out there. Once again, I have left off a number of them that I had found.

As always, be sure to register/login to Imeem before starting the playlist below to ensure you stream full-length clips.

READ ON after the jump for the details on this week’s competitors…

The Dave Matthews Band continues to do well when included in Cover Wars as they have walked away the winner of last week’s edition when we looked at covers of Burning Down The House. DMB also announced their initial tour dates for 2009 yesterday to promote a new studio release. The tour begins at Madison Square Garden on April 14, which is also the release date of the as-of-now untitled album.

Moving on to this week’s edition, we’ve got the last track on The Beatles’ 1967 release, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Paul McCartney recently performed the first ever live rendition of A Day In The Life by a member of The Beatles at the Liverpool Sound Concert on June 1, 2008.

As always, be sure to register/login to IMEEM before starting the playlist below to ensure you listen to full-length clips.

READ ON for the tale of the tape on this week’s contestants…

Though the contests are still very close, we’re going to call The Seeker for Pearl Jam and All Of My Love for Ween. Now that’s cleaned up, we’ll move on to this week’s edition which looks at Burning Down The House.

Remember Pop-Up Video? It appears MTVMusic.com has these up for free streaming now – awesome. I was inspired to to pick this song after seeing David Byrne’s production last week in New Bedford at the Zeiterion Theater. A fantastic, almost too perfect, production complete with beautiful vocal harmonies, choreography and cult-like matching white outfits for all onstage.

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READ ON for the lowdown on this week’s contestants…

The Canadians and the Seattle Grunge-Rockers are still fighting for the title of last week’s best cover of The Seeker. As of publishing time, they were tied. If you haven’t already, please have a listen and place your vote for Rush, Pearl Jam or any of the acts that are trailing the front-runners.

How much longer was Led Zeppelin gonna last after In Through the Out Door if John Bonham hadn’t died? We all heard that album. Things don’t go on forever, and the quicker you accept that change is inevitable, the happier you’re gonna be. Besides, I don’t want my daughter to be in high school with her friends following Phish around the country — that would just be too weird.

Pulling that quote from Trey Anastasio’s interview with Rolling Stone (June 3rd, 2004) seemed fitting considering that since its publication: Led Zeppelin has played gigs and Anastasio now needs to deal with the reality that his daughter’s friends may very well be on Phish tour before he knows it. Trey’s certainly going to need to walk back a few of his quotes he provided to the media during that dark period of his life, though I doubt he’ll change his opinion on Zeppelin’s last studio album, but who knows…

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READ ON after the jump for this week’s tale of the tape…