Archive: 2009

We thought we have seen it all when it comes to ticketing companies, but this past week has been full of shocking new developments. First, Live Nation’s ticketing system crashed and burned under what Live Nation CEO Nathan Hubbard claims was 10 million requests for Phish tickets. Then, Ticketmaster’s system crashed and burned when Bruce Springsteen tickets went onsale and finally last night word came down of an impending merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Hey… Wha Happened?

We’re at a loss to figure out what’s gonna happen next. The love shown for Ticketmaster by Phish fans on Friday and Saturday was a sign of how screwed up the industry has become. But let’s get back to the Springsteen fiasco. Springsteen and his team issued the following statement this afternoon…

A LETTER TO OUR FANS:
We know there was much confusion regarding Ticketmaster and TicketsNow during last Monday’s on-sale dates. We were as confused as you were, as we were given no advance notice of the major changes in the Ticketmaster-TicketsNow world. (Bear in mind that we are not clients of any ticketing company, and that all those arrangements are between venues and ticketing companies.)

Last Monday, we were informed that Ticketmaster was redirecting your log-in requests for tickets at face value, to their secondary site TicketsNow, which specializes in up-selling tickets at above face value. They did this even when other seats remained available at face value. We condemn this practice.

We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest. Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade, and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site.

READ ON for more of Springsteen’s letter to his fans…

While Jacque-Imo’s – my favorite NoLa restaurant in NYC – closed last year, it’s nice to see another Crescent City in NYC tradition continues.  Nolafunk.com’s 3rd Annual Mardi Gras Ball will be held Saturday, February 21st at 8pm at (Le) Poisson Rouge and will feature performances by New Orleans funk powerhouse Big Sam’s Funky Nation, […]

The Flaming Lips – This Here Giraffe

The new God Street Wednesday feature on Hidden Track seems to take me down memory lane more than any other column on the site. I guess that’s because for me, God Street Wine’s peak came at a time when I had
nothing to do but blow off classes in college and listen to music.

[Photo by Charlie Watts]

Back in the early ’90s, God Street Wine was just as much a part of the emerging “jamband scene” as anyone including the eventually more popular Blues Traveler, Widespread Panic or Phish. Granted GSW wasn’t selling out arenas the way Phish began to in 1994, but on the “small room” circuit, GSW brought just as much to the table as anyone other than Phish at that time.

GSW had a nice mix of quirkiness – with Aaron Maxwell’s booming vocals adding a little theatrics to the mix – and straight up rock and roll. They may not have been Phish with the extended jamming and 30-minute Tweezers. And they may not have been John Popper when it came to arranging music or wailing out solos. But one thing GSW always did was write a fun song and play the hell out of it live.

READ ON for more of Luke’s essay and some live God Street Wine…

Every now and then, you get surprised. It doesn’t happen every day, getting really surprised, I mean. I raised two children (and their friends) through their teenage years so there have been times in my life I was surprised to find there was any cereal left in the cupboard in the morning. But finding a twenty dollar bill in the pocket of a two dollar shirt from the local thrift store kind of surprised isn’t as common as one might think.

Surprise is a totally perception based premise. Let’s face it. If you knock on the door and a naked, middle aged man or woman answered, your reaction would most likely be one of surprise, shock, perhaps even outrage. But if you were raised in a nudist colony (Naturalist preserve to be politically correct), your reaction to the birthday suit welcoming committee would be more along the lines of “Morning, Mom, Dad” as you brush past them to the cupboard to get more cereal. Everything’s relative.

So I had tickets to see James Morrison open for Adele Tuesday night at the Wonder Ballroom. Here was my perception of these artists prior to walking up the stairs and through the double doors into the hall. Musically, I was familiar with what I heard on the radio; Morrison’s soulful Nothing Ever Hurt Like You and Adele’s Chasing Pavements, Right As Rain and Cold Shoulder which she performed on Saturday Night Live (I had tuned in to see the Sarah Palin vs. Tina Fey stare down).

READ ON for more of A.J.’s review of Adele and James Morrison…

Just sayin…….

08/09/04 Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA
Set I: Chalkdust Torture, Bathtub Gin> Runaway Jim, Walls of the Cave, Loving Cup
Set II: All of These Dreams, Limb By Limb, Lifeboy, Crowd Control, Seven Below> Stash> NICU, Bug, Contact, Character Zero
Encore: David Bowie¹

¹ First Bowie encore since 11.16.97 and only fifth time in history

[All Setlists Sourced From Phantasy Tour]

06/29/95 Jones Beach Amphitheatre, Wantagh, NY
Set I: Runaway Jim, Taste, The Horse> Silent in the Morning, The Divided Sky, Cavern, Rift, Simple, Split Open and Melt, Carolina
Set II: Free> David Bowie, Strange Design, You Enjoy Myself, Acoustic Army, A Day in the Life
Encore: Theme from the Bottom

06/28/95 Jones Beach Amphitheatre, Wantagh, NY
Set I: Axilla, Foam, Fast Enough For You, Reba, Punch You in the Eye, Stash, Fluffhead, Chalkdust Torture
Set II: Sample in a Jar, Poor Heart, Tweezer> Dave’s Energy Guide> Tweezer> Gumbo, Sparkle, Suzy Greenberg, Harry Hood, Tweezer Reprise
Encore: Sweet Adeline, While My Guitar Gently Weeps

READ ON for more setlists from Phish’s last time through town…

Those of you longing for the days when Ticketmaster sold tickets for Live Nation events just might get your wish. The Wall Street Journal just reported that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are close to a merger. If the merger goes through, you can say goodbye to Live Nation’s ticketing system.

2008 was quite a year for artistic revival. Portishead remerged from a 10-year hiatus to create an album wholly beyond themselves. Mickey Rourke overcame a bruised reputation to achieve an incredible portrayal of, well, himself. Now, it appears that Georgia-based southern rockers Bloodkin have set the benchmark for artistic rediscovery in 2009.  

Flight of the Conchords have confirmed a North American tour to kick off this April.  The tour is in support of their sophomore release coming from Sub Pop and commences right at the finale of their second season on HBO.  Flight of the Conchords Tour Dates: April 6 Tampa, FL – Tampa Bay PAC 7 […]

Last year we introduced you to the lush indie-folk music of Portland, Oregon’s Blind Pilot. While the duo gained notoriety for their bike tour last year, the band will be using quicker modes of transportation when they embark on a cross-country tour that kicks off in their hometown on March 5 at Mississippi Studio and […]

Derek Trucks Band – Down Don’t Bother Me

When Phish announced they were returning to the stage for three shows on March 6-8 at the Hampton Coliseum, the only jamfans who weren’t happy were those running the Langerado Festival which was scheduled for the same dates at Miami’s Bicentennial Park. Add a lackluster lineup and the worst economic downturn in recent history and […]

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy has added two Chicago shows at the Vic Theater to his solo tour schedule. The shows, which were announced on a popular Wilco message board by Tweedy’s wife Sue, will serve as benefits for a yet-to-be-named cause and come on the heels of shows last week in Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and […]

Welcome to Day Two of the Umphrey’s McGee Virtual Tour. Yesterday, Higgins from Lollapalooza 8/4/2006 kicked things off over at ilike.com. Hidden Track has the pleasure of debuting the video of Wappy Sprayberry from August 31st, 2008 from the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre. This Virtual Tour is another effort of the UM team in its promotion of their 2009 release Mantis, which debuted this week at #64 on The Billboard Top 200.

READ ON after the jump for a full history of the song Wappy Sprayberry…

As expected, Bruce Springsteen and Phish have been tapped to headline the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival on June 11 – 14 in Manchester, TN. Indie favorites TV on the Radio leaked the news in an announcement on their MySpace page and Consequence of Sound – a site that has spent the past six […]

The Allman Brothers Band have announced that they have added five nights to their 10-show engagement at the Beacon Theater. Staging at the newly renovated Beacon Theatre, the band’s residency runs from March 9 through March 28, with tickets for the newly added dates scheduled to hit the box office Saturday (2/6). March 20099, 10 […]

I hate the radio.  I’m impatient; I don’t want to hear vacuum repair commercials or the crappy, overproduced pop du jour.  However, there are a few songs that, when they fill my rinky-dink, factory speakers, allow me to sink back in total driving pleasure for at least three whole minutes.  Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee” is one of those songs.

Cursive has confirmed that their sixth full-length studio album, Mama, I’m Swollen, will be released March 10, 2009 on Saddle Creek Records.  The follow-up to 2006’s Happy Hollow – which was heralded by publications such as Alternative Press, Spin, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Blender as an adventurous and triumphant evolution of the band – […]

The long awaited Bonnaroo 2009 line-up was officially announced at midnight tonight (Feb 2nd).  As expected, Bruce Springsteen and Phish lead the list of stellar bands, which also includes Elvis Costello, Nine Inch Nails and Wilco, among many, many others. This year’s festival will be held June 11-14 back in Manchester, TN Bruce Springsteen and […]

The 2009 Langerado Music Festival has been cancelled due to sluggish ticket sales.    Langerado’s independent local promoters, faced with a very tough decision in a dismal economy, cancelled the 2009 event only after every possible option was exhausted.   As Langerado Co-Promoter Ethan Schwartz explains, “Langerado has always put the fan experience first.  Unfortunately, […]