2003

Chris Rock is bringing his whip-smart brand of comedy to theatres across North America this winter. Under the Black Ambition Tour, the comedian will laugh it up from mid-October well into the new year.There are a couple two-night engagements scheduled – one in New York City and another in Los Angeles. Additional dates are expected to be announced.
Aside from hosting various award shows, including this year’s MTV Video Awards, and doing a few one-off gigs, it’s been four long years since Rock last toured stages. In the in-between time, he’s been anything but lazy. He hosted the critically acclaimed “The Chris Rock Show” on HBO, has put out a couple comedy albums, won three Emmys and two Grammys, and has starred in several films.
For a full list of performance dates visit Pollstar.com.

San Francisco will once again be the site of the funkiest place in October when the third annual Funk Festival takes over from October 8-25. Celebrating all things funk, the event will feature music, art and film.
This year’s lineup boasts DJ Greyboy, The Headhunters, Grandmaster Flash, and Robert Walter’s 20th Congress. Various venues in and around San Francisco – including Bimbo’s 365 Club, the Elbo Room and the Great American Music Hall – host the concerts.
The San Francisco Funk Fest first descended on the bay city in 2001. Even though the event was held a couple months after September 11, it managed to attract upward of 3,000 people, laying the ground for the successive festivals.
Source Pollstar.com.

Pearl Jam is tossing plans to release a comprehensive DVD of its 2003 Riot Act tour in favor of spotlighting the band

Singer Robert Palmer has died in Paris of a heart attack at the age of 54, his manager said. The British star, whose chart hits in the 1980s included “Addicted to Love,” suffered the attack in the early hours of Friday morning, Mick Cater said.
The Yorkshireman, who had lived in Switzerland for 16 years, was staying in the French capital with his partner, Mary Ambrose, after traveling from the United Kingdom where he had been recording a TV show.
Palmer was in several British rock bands before he hit the big time as a solo artist with singles that also included “Simply Irresistible” and “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On.”
Source cnn.com.

Three Days,” a Jane’s Addiction documentary that played at various 1999 film festivals but was never officialy released, will be issued on DVD on Oct. 7.
The film, directed by Carter Smith and Kevin Ford, follows the band on and off stage during its 1997 tour in support of it’s album Kettle Whistle.

Metallica will bring in the New Year with a performance at the Joint In Las Vegas

Over 70,000 people attended the Dave Matthews Band free concert in central park Wednesday night, and although rumors spread across the net this week of various special guests, only one inevitably emerged. Midway through the two-hour set, Warren Haynes joined the band for Neil Young’s “Cortez The Killer” and DMB’s “Jimi Thing.”
Proceeds were donated to building music programs in city schools

As eclectic as the festival itself, a two-disc CD release and a DVD commemorating this year’s second Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tenn., will showcase everyone from the Dead and Emmylou Harris to Sonic Youth and the Polyphonic Spree. The audio set “Live From Bonnaroo” and the DVD “270 Miles From Graceland – Bonnaroo 2003” will be issued Oct. 21 via Sanctuary.
John Alagia (John Mayer, Keller Williams) produced the 23-track CD compilation. It includes such highlights from the June 13-15 event as the Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia,” Warren Haynes’ “The Real Thing,” James Brown’s “I Feel Good” and Ben Harper’s cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.”
“For all my previous films, I was the main cinematographer,” Clinch says in a statement, recalling such features as “Pleasure & Pain,” his 2002 Harper documentary. “For shooting something of this magnitude — four stages, 80,000 people — I hired cinematographers who I could trust to translate the feeling I was trying to capture… a classic hand-held documentary style combined with adventurous framing and point of view.”
The film will receive a theatrical premiere Oct. 8 at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater.

Source Billboard.com.

A DVD commemorating the closing of the famed San Francisco venue