Posts by Luke Sacks

NBC has a busy night on Thursday as Los Lobos plays The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Iron & Wine visits Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly features a repeat of She & Him’s performance from last year. Monday, January 3 [All Times Eastern] Hall & Oates: Behind the Music Remastered [VH1 Classic 6PM] […]

Prime time may be full of repeats, but there’s plenty of new late night programming this week. Dream-poppers Beach House perform on Conan tonight, Brooklyn’s own Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings visit Jay Leno on Tuesday,  crossover success story Grace Potter and the Nocturnals hit the Ed Sullivan Theater stage for Wednesday’s Letterman episode and […]

Roger Waters, who has been astonishing audiences with his new production of The Wall, will stop by Conan on TBS this Wednesday night. Monday, December 13 [all times Eastern] Ice-T on Live with Regis and Kelly [Syndicated – check listings] Green Day: Behind the Music Remastered [VH1 Classic 3PM] Depeche Mode: Live in Barcelona [Palladia […]

Thursday’s late night lineup has a double shot of awesome with She & Him visiting Conan and Robert Plant visting Jimmy Fallon. Plant will head out on the road with his Band of Joy bandmates on January 18 and tour through February 9. Zooey Deschanel, the “She” in She & Him, will team with the […]

Quirky Sacramento rockers Cake will pay a visit to Conan on Wednesday, four days before they kick off a four-month tour in Charleston, West Virginia. The group will play several radio station holiday festivals including NYC’s Rock 101.9’s “Yule Rock” (12/7) and Chicago’s Q 101’s “Twisted Christmas” (12/14) before launching into their own leg on December […]

Russian-born singer/songwriter Regina Spektor and her glorious voice will visit Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday night to promote her new concert film Live in London. This is the first concert video release for Spektor, who also contributed two gems – Us and Hero – to the (500) Days of Summer Soundtrack in 2009. Monday, November 22 […]

Dublin’s The Frames will visit Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night to promote their 20th Anniversary Tour which starts Friday in Philadelphia. Other late-night highlights this week include Sharon Jones & Dap Kings on Conan (Monday), Bruce Springsteen on Fallon (Tuesday) and a pair of apperances for Jay-Z (Letterman on Tuesday; Daily Show on Wednesday). Monday, […]

Conan O’Brien will launch his new TBS late-night show tonight at 11PM with some help from his old friend Jack White, who will serve as the musical guest for the initial broadcast. Other guests for the first show include actor Seth Rogen and Gleekster Lea Michele. Soundgarden stop by tomorrow. Monday, November 8 (all times ET) Jack […]

Philadelphia rockers Dr. Dog, who will release four new songs digitally on November 2, will visit the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Wednesday. The group also kicks off its North American Tour this week with a gig Friday night in Seattle. Monday, November 1 [All times EDT] Alice Cooper: Behind the Music Remastered […]

What better way to prepare for Halloween than by watching the ultra-campy Rocky Horror Picture Show? Fox Movie Channel will run the creepy cult classic, which stars Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry, on Tuesday at 9PM. Also, keep an eye out for a cameo by Meat Loaf  playing Eddie and obviously be prepared to do the […]

Scruffy-voiced legend Rod Stewart will release the fifth edition of his Great American Songbook series, which includes his take on classics like I Get a Kick Out of You, Fly Me to the Moon and Moon River among others, on Tuesday. To promote the release he will sit down with the ladies of The View on Wednesday […]

My Morning Jacket will make a late-night TV splash this week with two talk show appearances and a live webcast. The Southern Gentlemen will visit David Letterman on Tuesday and perform a special webcast at 8PM EDT from the Ed Sullivan Theater as part of the Live on Letterman series followed by a performance on […]

Phish kicks off its Fall Tour on October 10 with three gigs at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield, Colorado and I have to admit I am not quite sure what to expect on several fronts. And there’s something sort of exciting about that. There also something extra special about Phish in the Fall as they have proven throughout the years, including 2009 when they tore apart the Northeast in late-November after a glorious performance of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street at Festival 8 in Indio, CA.

But the last time we saw the band it was wrapping up a somewhat unsteady second leg of summer tour. Yes, the Berkeley Cities is other-worldly (how many recent jams can you hear/feel that connection between the crowd and the band that was felt during that segment?) and the two Alpine Valley shows brought the heat. But overall the shows lacked the creativity and punch of the first leg of the summer. I found it interesting that in Leg 2, there were 10 songs played four times in the 11 shows (Backwards Down the Number Line, Down with Disease, You Enjoy Myself, Possum, Ocelot, Run Like an Antelope, Tweezer, Tweezer Reprise, Mike’s Song and Weekapaug Groove).

Those songs are always in constant rotation so it’s not a huge surprise they saw a lot of action. But in Leg 1 of the summer tour, Phish made such an effort to mix up the setlists, bust out the bust outs and generally catch fans by surprise at least once on most nights. So it was indeed surprising to basically see that approach abandoned for the August shows. Not to mention the fact that they ignored the 15th Anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death – I don’t want to hear that Quinn the Eskimo was a tribute – and failed to do anything unique in two of the most special musical venues in the country: Berkeley’s Greek Theater and Town Park in Telluride.

READ ON for more of Luke’s preview of Phish Fall Tour…

In 2009 Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy began collaborations with Chicago soul icon Mavis Staples and the resulting 13 tracks can be heard on the new rootsy/gospel Staples release You Are Not Alone. Tweedy served as producer on the album, his first time producing a non-Wilco record. The duo will visit both David Letterman (Tuesday) and The Colbert […]

Gorillaz will kick off their eagerly anticipated Escape to Plastic Beach World Tour on Sunday in Montreal. The band will hit North America in October, Europe in November, Australia & New Zealand in December and Asia in 2011. To gear up you can tune into Palladia on Thursday at 6pm for the group’s performance from […]

Pavement, along with a contest winner on guitar, visit Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night. You can also catch Pavement tonight on The Colbert Report. Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel Live offers an eclectic trio of musical guests this week at Midnight on ABC with indie Frenchmen Phoenix stopping by on Monday, Seattle rockers Band of […]

It’s a triple shot of British rock awesomeness on Wednesday as BIO airs profiles of Led Zeppelin (8PM), Ozzy Osbourne (9PM) and The Rolling Stones (11PM). Speaking of Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant visits Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight to perform a song off of Band of Joy. Monday, September 13 AC/DC: Live from Circus […]

Ray LaMontagne will make two late-night TV appearances this week stopping by Jay Leno on Wednesday and Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday in support of his new album God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise, which was recorded in two weeks in LaMontagne’s home in Western Massachusetts. Monday, September 6 (All times ET) DMX: Behind the Music […]

The Swell Season had a rough August following the suicide of a fan during one of their shows in Saratoga, CA. But they are a tremendously talented act and if you missed it the first time, be sure to check out a re-airing of their appearance on Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night. And if you […]

Learn everything you ever want to know about The Who and more with back to back looks at the band and Pete Townshend on BIO beginning Wednesday at 2PM (EDT). If you’re more of a CSNY fan, you can catch profiles of the “Y” and the “C” on Friday morning on BIO beginning at 8AM. Monday, August […]