April 2005

Pearl Jam will embark on a 15-date tour of Canada this fall, on which it will debut material intended for its as-yet-untitled new studio album. The trek, which was hinted at in a recent newsletter to members of the band’s Ten Club fan association, will begin Sept. 2 in Vancouver and wrap Sept. 24 in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Ten Club members can purchase tickets beginning today; tickets go on-sale to the general public at the end of May.

Earlier this month, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready revealed to Billboard.com that the band was about halfway finished with the new album, which he hopes will be released before the end of the year via J Records/BMG. He said Pearl Jam has “about 20-25” songs in the mix, comprising “some ballads and some pretty harder stuff, and some Who-ish type-stuff.”

McCready said the band had been approaching the project from a new angle by revisiting songs after they were first put to tape, as opposed to Pearl Jam’s usual approach, where, “we generally just go in, do some demos and record.” “It is like taking them out live, although that’s an exciting way to do it too,” he said of the process.

The upcoming tour will mark several changes in the way Ten Club tickets are distributed to members. For the first time, seats will only be available online via PearlJam.com, and fans will not have to wait in long lines on the day of the show for an opportunity to obtain the closest tickets to the stage.

Pearl Jam last toured in the fall as part of the Vote for Change outing, and has only played one show since, a March benefit for Seattle’s Northwest School at the city’s Paramount Theatre.

Here are Pearl Jam’s Canadian tour dates:

Sept. 2: Vancouver (GM Place)
Sept. 4: Calgary, Alb. (Pengrowth Saddledome)
Sept. 5: Edmonton (Rexall Place)
Sept. 7: Saskatoon, Sask. (Credit Union Centre)
Sept. 8: Winnipeg, Manitoba (MTS Centre)
Sept. 9: Thunder Bay, Ont. (Fort William Gardens)
Sept. 11: Kitchener, Ont. (Memorial Auditorium)
Sept. 12: London, Ont. (Labatt Centre)
Sept. 13: Hamilton, Ont. (Copps Coliseum)
Sept. 15: Montreal (Bell Centre)
Sept. 16: Ottawa, Ont. (Corel Centre)
Sept. 20: Toronto (Air Canada Centre)
Sept. 20: Quebec City (Colisee Pepsi)
Sept. 22: Halifax, Nova Scotia (Metro Centre)
Sept. 24: St. John’s, Newfoundland (Mile One Stadium)

Source billboard.com.

Celebrate over 25 years of sports, music, and road rash in downtown Athens, Georgia April 29 – May 1, 2005. Founded in 1980 by Gene Dixon, the Athens Twilight Criterium was the first nighttime bicycle race in the United States in over 60 years.

Friday April 29th, Twilight Music features a free concert in Downtown Athens – 300 Block of College Avenue. Nate Nelson, The Weight (featuring Joseph Plunkett) and Cracker are scheduled to perform.

The main event of the Athens Twilight, the men’s and women’s criterium, features cyclists representing teams from all over the nation and the world. The men’s criterium is a 60-km race around historic downtown Athens. The course start-finish is on Clayton Street at College Avenue. The 1-kilometer course runs clockwise on Clayton, Lumpkin, Washington and Thomas. The high-speed action of nighttime criterium racing is unparalleled in the world of spectator appeal and action sports. With $20,000 in prize money on the line, the Athens Twilight Criterium is dubbed the most insane criterium in the world. Don’t miss a minute of the evening

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks (with Matador labelmates Yo La Tengo and Laura Cantrell), Richard Thompson, M. Ward, the Band’s Garth Hudson, Calexico, John Hammond, the Wailers, Regina Carter, the Fiery Furnaces, Robert Earl Keen, McCoy Tyner and Little Anthony and the Imperials have signed on to play free concerts in and around Lower Manhattan this summer.

The majority of the shows are part of the Hudson River Festival, but a number are being separately organized via the Downtown Alliance Inc., as part of the Music at Castle Clinton series.

For more information, visit WorldFinancialCenter.com.

Source billboard.com.

The Pixies, Weezer, Widespread Panic, the Killers, the Arcade Fire, Liz Phair, the Black Keys and Death Cab For Cutie are among the acts that will play the reconfigured Lollapalooza festival, which, as previously reported, will be held July 23-24 in Chicago’s Grant Park.

Also on the bill are Cake, Dashboard Confessional, Dinosaur Jr., Kasabian, Kaiser Chiefs, Louis XIV, Tegan & Sara, M83, Los Amigos Invisibles, Blue Merle, the Redwalls, the Changes, Dandy Warhols, Digable Planets, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Billy Idol, the Bravery and Blonde Redhead.

Lollapalooza 2005 will be produced by Capital Sports & Entertainment and Charles Attal Presents — the brain trust behind the successful Austin City Limits festival — along with Lollapalooza owners the William Morris Agency and Perry Farrell.

“This lineup is a cross between ACL and Coachella,” Attal tells Billboard.com of the event, which will feature more than 70 acts on five stages. “It’s the ACL model that we’re bringing to Chicago.”

Source billboard.com.