Fans of progressive Americana have reason to rejoice: Bela Fleck & The Flecktones are coming through this summer on the Acoustic Planet Tour, featuring friends Keller Williams and Yonder Mountain String Band on almost all dates.
The tour kicks off August 5 at Interlochen, Mich.’s Kresge Auditorium. They’ll play amphitheatres across the eastern half of the U.S. for just over a month, finishing up September 5 in Myrtle Beach, S.C., at the House of Blues.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones will precede the tour with dates of their own in June and July, including Colorado’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the Playboy Jazz Festival in Hollywood, Calif.
Telluride will also feature Yonder Mountain String Band, who have a busy early summer schedule of their own. Keller Williams is no exception, with a host of solo dates and festival appearances in addition to an opening stint for Dave Matthews in late June.
Source pollstar.com.
L.A. rock veterans gone solo Grant Lee Phillips and John Doe are teaming up for a tour of the eastern U.S. this June.
Phillips, who spent the bulk of the ’90s fronting the critically acclaimed Grant Lee Buffalo, is supporting his new release, Virginia Creeper.
Doe has been doing solo work for more than a dozen years now, along with occasional reunions with X, the seminal punk band he co-founded in the late ’70s. His most recent album is Dim Stars, Bright Sky.
The two troubadours will hit the highway June 2, when they play Headliners in Louisville, Ky. They’ll move on to Nashville, New York City, Boston and other hot spots throughout the East Coast and Midwest before wrapping in Chicago June 17.
Immediately following the tour, Doe will hook up with original X bandmates Exene Cervenka, D.J. Bonebrake, and Billy Zoom for two shows at Anaheim’s House of Blues June 18-19.
Source pollstar.com.
I got an irresistible invitation from a friend this month. My friend Tina called and asked if I wanted to go outdoor rock climbing with some of her climbing friends. She said they had an extra harness and all the gear I
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Stone, Steel, & Bright Lights, Jay Farrar
Van Halen is hitting the road this summer for the first time in eight years, and drummer Alex Van Halen and vocalist Sammy Hagar promise it will be well worth the wait. “This set we’re playing right now is better than any set we ever played before,” Hagar said during a teleconference today (May 27). “I used to be a little sensitive to the old material, but I’m not now. We have a whole different outlook on everything. Let’s make this the greatest songs the Van Halen fans have ever heard. The set list will kill you!”
Although neither artist would reveal specifics, the show will find Hagar singing many more songs from Van Halen’s David Lee Roth era than he did during his first stint in the band. “I’m really digging ‘Jump’ right now,” he said. “In the old days I never got off on singing that song. I would pull a guy out of the audience to sing it. Now, I want to sing this song better than it has ever been sung. I’m tearing it up!” He also insisted “there’s a couple of surprises in [the set], one in particular that is completely oddball.”
The group will issue its first new material since 1998’s “Van Halen III” on the upcoming “Best of Both Worlds” retrospective, due July 20 via Warner Bros. Hagar boasted that “there were 10 other songs we could have worked on. If there’d been time, we’d love to have done a whole record.”
“[Alex and guitarist Eddie Van Halen had been] jamming in the studio for years putting ideas down,” he continued. “I’d say, ‘that song’s great, let’s work on that.’ But then they’d say, ‘listen to this.’ It was never-ending. There’s so much material that needs to be finished for sure. It became a heavy workload on me as soon as we started getting into it. We had to kind of pick and choose. I took about two hours of stuff home with me and used to work out to it every day. That’s really how it got defined.”
Both artists said any ill will they may have harbored following Hagar’s rancorous 1996 exit from Van Halen is now water under the bridge, but Hagar admitted that before last fall, he hadn’t even spoken to Eddie Van Halen in at least six-and-a-half years. “Not even one conversation,” he said. “The first one, I was a little nervous. It was kind of like a little uncomfortable. It actually got heavy fast.”
“[But] when you see a person you truly have a deep relationship with, all the sudden you realize after time that, hey, forget it. We decided rather than go to therapy, no, no, we’re going to pretend like it never happened. We’re going to rise above it.”
The tour will be documented for potential release on DVD or a live album. “We’re very particular about how our music is presented,” Van Halen said. “When we do it, we do want control over it. But these days with all the different technologies, we might just join the bandwagon and do our own bootlegs.” Either way, Hagar stressed the impact of experiencing the show first hand: “the only way you’re gonna get fulfilled is to sit right there in that front row and just get your face bashed in.”
Source billboard.com.
Musician, activist and poet Michael Franti will join a delegation of peace workers, musicians, artists and film makers who are traveling to Iraq andIsrael from June 2nd through the 15th. The intention of the trip is to see first-hand the affects of the war on all those involved from Iraqi civilians to men and women in uniform. Although no concerts are planned for the trip, Michael and the others are planning on meeting with as many Iraqi musicians and artists as possible as well as students and other youth organizations.
The late Bob Marley’s sons Ziggy, Stephen, Julian and Damian will team this summer for the first Bob Marley Roots Rock Reggae Festival. The trek begins Aug. 7 in Portsmouth, Va., and will wrap Aug. 29 in Berkeley, Calif. Other artists confirmed to perform are Toots & the Maytals, Common, Slightly Stoopid and Looner.
Roots Rock Reggae marks the first time the Marley family is collaborating on a national tour that is this extensive. Stops on the trek include an Aug. 10 appearance at Celebrate Brooklyn in the borough’s Prospect Park, an Aug. 22 show at Red Rocks outside Denver and an Aug. 28 gig at San Diego’s annual Street Scene festival.
A number of the headliners are supporting new albums. Stephen is scheduled to release a solo effort on Motown this fall. Ziggy is touring in support of 2003’s “Dragonfly” on Private Music/Arista, while Julian rolled out “Time & Place” in November 2003 on Ghetto Youths/Tuff Gong Records.
Common has recently collaborated with hot producer Kanye West on his next set, the follow-up to 2002’s “Electric Circus.” Toots & the Maytals just released their newest album, “True Love,” via V2.
Here are the Roots Rock Reggae dates:
Aug. 7: Portsmouth, Va. (nTelos Pavilion Harbor Center)
Aug. 8: Vienna, Va. (Wolf Trap)
Aug. 10: Brooklyn, N.Y. (Celebrate Brooklyn)
Aug. 12: Boston (Fleet Boston Pavilion)
Aug. 13: Trenton, N.J. (Sovereign Bank Arena)
Aug. 14: Wilmington, Del. (Tubman-Garrett Park)
Aug. 15: Pittsfield, Mass. (Berkshire Music Glen)
Aug. 17: Cleveland (Tower City Amphitheatre)
Aug. 18: Rochester Hills, Mich. (Meadowbrook Music Festival)
Aug. 20: Chicago (The Chill on Kingsbury Street)
Aug. 21: Riverside, Mo. (E.H. Young Riverfront Park)
Aug. 22: Morrison, Colo. (Red Rocks Amphitheater)
Aug. 24: Albuquerque, N.M. (Journal Pavilion)
Aug. 26: Mesa, Ariz. (Mesa Amphitheatre)
Aug. 27: Los Angeles (Greek Theatre)
Aug. 28: San Diego (San Diego Street Scene)
Aug. 29: Berkeley, Calif. (Greek Theatre)
Source billboard.com.
After a long break, activity is slowly brewing in the Pearl Jam camp. The group’s official Web site hints at a handful of future releases and live performances by the fall. “There could be some shows — maybe acoustic, maybe not, a possible CD of some sort, and it’s possible the band may head back to the studio towards the end of the year to begin work on their eighth album,” the site says.
“As far as new music from side projects goes, some releases are possible but not definite,” the post continues, referring to such affiliated acts as Brad and the Rockfords. In addition, frontman Eddie Vedder is confirmed to appear on former Pearl Jam drummer Jack Irons’ upcoming solo album, but will not make a rumored guest spot on the Who’s in-progress studio release.
The prospective fall shows may be held in swing states in the run-up toward the U.S. presidential election. And while Pearl Jam actively campaigned for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election, the site says the group will not play any fundraisers on his behalf this year.
Bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard will be seen in the upcoming documentary “Malfunksun: The Andrew Wood Story,” which chronicles the life of the late Mother Love Bone vocalist. Former Soundgarden members Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil have also participated in the film.
Finally, the site confirms that Sony Music is working on a Pearl Jam greatest hits album, with details to be announced. The band exited Sony’s Epic Records last year after spending its entire career on the label. Pearl Jam says it is “still leaving options open” for a new record deal.
Source billboard.com.
Woodstock, Monterey Pop, Altamont and Isle of Wight are famous music festivals of the late ’60s/early ’70s that have been immortalized on film. But the new documentary “Festival Express” may rank among fans and critics as one of the era’s “must see” concert films.
The documentary focuses on an overlooked event in rock history: the five-day, cross-country festival tour of Canada in 1970, where acts including Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, the Band and Buddy Guy traveled together on a train called the Festival Express.
THINKFilm will release “Festival Express” in select U.S. theaters this summer. The movie opens July 23 in San Francisco and July 30 in New York and Los Angeles. It will have a rollout in other cities in August.
“This just may be the last great rock’n’roll movie of that time,” says documentary director Bob Smeaton, who has won two Grammy Awards for directing such longform music videos as “The Beatles Anthology” and “Live at Fillmore East” from Jimi Hendrix’s Band Of Gypsys.
Footage of “Festival Express,” originally shot by Peter Bizou, had been stored in the Canadian National Archives for nearly 25 years. It then took almost 10 years for the project to be completed for theatrical release. “It was truly a labor of love,” says Gavin Poolman, who produced the movie with John Trapman.
When Smeaton came on board for the project, he had to comb through about 40 hours of raw footage, much of which had to be “cleaned up” through digital transfers and audio restoration. “It took about nine months to get the performances’ sound and pictures to match,” Smeaton tells Billboard.
Joplin is undoubtedly the highlight of the film, with electrifying performances of “Cry Baby” and “Tell Mama” that underscore her legendary status. The movie documents the problems the tour encountered when protesters demanded free admission for concertgoers. It also captures the camaraderie that existed among the musicians as they socialized and performed together on the train. The Dead even wrote a song about the experience, “Might As Well.”
The film includes commentary from the festival’s participants, who offer their perspectives on the event. The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh; Guy; and festival co-promoter Ken Walker are among those interviewed.
Poolman theorizes why the tour remained in the shadows of the Woodstock and Monterey Pop festivals. “At the time, the Festival Express tour was not considered a success. It lost money, and the venues weren’t that full. But the musicians involved remembered it as a phenomenal event.”
Source billboard.com.
