2005

With its new single, “Speed of Sound,” infiltrating radio worldwide, Coldplay has confirmed the first five dates of its late summer/early fall North American tour. At deadline, the route begins Aug. 8 at the Tweeter Center outside Boston and runs through Sept. 24 in Houston. No opening acts have yet been announced for the tour, although they will reportedly include Franz Ferdinand and Rilo Kiley.

Coldplay has also been gradually confirming a series of North American club/theatre gigs to build buzz for its upcoming Capitol album, “X&Y, due June 7. On tap so far are shows on May 4 in San Francisco, May 6 in Chicago, May 11 in Toronto and May 17 in New York. The day before the latter, Coldplay will tape an episode of VH1’s “Storytellers” program at Brooklyn’s Academy of Music.

The band’s official Web site is offering a VIP travel package to New York for the May 16-17 shows, including tickets and three nights of hotel.

Meanwhile, a video for “Speed of Sound” was shot over the weekend with director Mark Romanek (Beck, Jay-Z, Madonna). The cut will debut tomorrow (April 28) at No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot Digital Songs chart, having logged 44,000 paid downloads. “Speed of Sound” also will open at No. 8 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks tally and No. 31 on the Adult Top 40 roundup.

Coldplay is gearing up for its Saturday headlining slot at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., and will warm up the night before with a Las Vegas club gig featuring Rilo Kiley.

Source billboard.com.

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.

Hydra, a new band featuring Particle and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, made an appearance last night at the Walter Cronkite Stewardship Award event presented to Yo Yo Ma & the silk road project. The evening was sponsored by the World Foundation for Environment & Development. Hydra performed ‘Wavemaker’ as a tribute to the late Betsy Cronkite. The performance roused the audience and yielded a standing ovation from Walter Cronkite and Mr. Ma. The event was held at the Mayflower Hotel in the nations capital.

Hydra continues their tour this weekend with stops in Worcester, New
York, and Philly.

For more info see: hydra-music.com