We'll cut right to it.........................
Cheech and Chong were un-effing-believable.
Shelby Chong opened the show. She was damn funny and got things started nicely with her sex, drugs and Cheech and Chong jokes.
Cheech wanders across the stage looking trim and healthy and we're off into Up In Smoke. The Led Zeppelin joint, now updated with some ky jelly is a CLASSIC!! From there we're off into Mexican in Space, Let's Make A Dope Deal, Bob and Margaret, Blind Melon, Red and Earache My eye with Alice Bowie, Ralph and Herbie, Old Man In The Park and the great sing-along of Born In East LA with a little Beaners mixed in and the finale of the Up In Smoke theme song.
Periodic smiles from Cheech Marin, as he quickly and seamlessly regressed back into each of his classic characters, melted the crowd's collective heart. Cheech literally had us crying with laughter throughout the show. He is a deeply important modern media figure for my wife's Latino community. One can only imagine what will take place between him and his increasing Latino audience particularly in certain other venues. Cheech masterfully cements a sheer connection with his audience and there is an electricity that forms quickly between him and those who watch his performances.
Tommy Chong was golden in every sense of the word. His sincerity, his unbridled authenticity and his strong and refreshing sense of social critical purpose, provoked tender and at times, socially angry emotions in the audience, which he masterfully channeled for them into deep belly laughs. What a powerful formula Tommy, linking the lightly psychedelic and profound emotional attachment of the audiences' collective memory of Cheech and Chong, with a gentle expanding of their social and political consciousness.
From backstage, it was easy to see that everyone was having a good time. Do I have to say how great it was to meet them?
There's a lot of water under the bridges of those two, yet there were times when the chemistry between Cheech and Chong seemed as strong as ever.
The tour schedule for early 2009 shapes up like this:
1/2/2009 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Arena
1/3/2009 Verona, NY Turning Stone Casino Event Center
1/3/2009 Verona, NY Turning Stone Resort & Casino
1/8/2009 Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium
1/9/2009 Dallas, TX Majestic Theatre
1/15/2009 Mescalero, NM Inn Of The Mountain Gods
1/16/2009 Omaha, NE Omaha Civic Music Hall
1/17/2009 Kansas City, MO Kansas City Music Hall
1/18/2009 Saint Louis, MO The Pageant
1/23/2009 Grand Ronde, OR Spirit Mountain Casino
1/24/2009 Spokane, WA INB Performing Arts Center
1/25/2009 Sacramento, CA Memorial Auditorium
1/29/2009 Cincinnati, OH Taft Theatre
1/30/2009 Cleveland, OH PlayhouseSquare
1/31/2009 New York, NY Radio City Music Hall
2/5/2009 Elizabeth, IN Horseshoe Southern Indiana
2/6/2009 Bossier City, LA Horseshoe Casino & Hotel / Riverdome
2/7/2009 Tunica, MS Horseshoe Casino
2/20/2009 Milwaukee, WI Potawatomi Bingo Casino
2/21/2009 Columbus, OH Palace Theatre
2/22/2009 Green Bay, WI Oneida Bingo & Casino
2/26/2009 Lemoore, CA Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino
2/27/2009 Shelton, WA Little Creek Casino
2/28/2009 Santa Rosa, CA Wells Fargo Center For The Arts
3/6/2009 Pittsburgh, PA Benedum Center
3/7/2009 Reading, PA Sovereign Perf. Arts Center
This is history in the making and you could see it all from backstage. For complete info, visit BackstagePass Direct.
Backstagepassdirect.com has all the information.
The multiple-Grammy-winning Lyle Lovett kicks off his 2009 tour calendar Jan. 14 in Beaver Creek, CO, before heading back on the road with the legendary John Hiatt beginning Feb. 5 in Pittsburgh, PA. The pair has confirmed a slate of 11 cities together. Details are included below.
Don't forget, all passes are first-come, first-served. So don't delay. Order yours today and hang out with Lyle and John. Visit BackstagePassDirect.
BPD member RoyBoy wrote:
Cat's in the Well
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Summer Days
This Wheel's on Fire
Tangled Up in Blue
Masters of War
Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
John Brown
Beyond the Horizon
Highway 61 Revisited
Shooting Star (with Dylan on guitar -- another rarity)
It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Under the Red Sky
Thunder on the Mountain
Ain't Talkin'
Encore:
Like a Rolling Stone
Blowin' in the Wind
As unbelievable as this will sound, I arrived late and almost didn't get to meet Dylan at all. Am I stupid or what?
I did get to watch the show from backstage and that was a real hoot. Dylan apparently had someplace to be after the show, so I pretty much only got to shake his hand and tell him how much he meant to me before he was whisked away.
That'll have to be good enough for this idiot!
Don't be an idiot..............Join BackstagePassDirect today and experience what so many other satisfied members like RoyBoy experience.
Let me begin by just saying how awesome being backstage was. The show is completely different from back there. I can't thank BPD enough.Join BackstagePassDirect today and experience what so many other satisfied members like Sweet Steph experience.
Everybody from Tom himself to Mike Campbell to Benmont Tench to the crew were all super friendly. If that wasn't enough, there was the added bonus of meeting rock icon Steve Winwood who was opening the show. Ohmigod!!!
Early on in the gig, Tom uttered words rarely heard at his shows: “You probably don’t know this next one.” The band then launched into the super obscure 1999 Europe-only B side “Sweet William.” The bluesy, organ-heavy number was a clear indication this wasn’t going to be the typical nothing-but-the-hits Petty show he’s done on recent tours. With no new album to support, Petty was free to drag out the gems.
This doesn’t mean he avoided his massive arsenal of hits. The show began with a 1-2-3-4-5 punch of “You Wreck Me,” “Last Dance With Mary Jane,” “I Won’t Back Down,” “Even The Losers” and “Free Fallin’.” Nearly anyone else would save a song like the latter — which is so tailor made for arenas even the beer guys and ushers were singing along — but Petty has such a huge stable of war horses he could bust it out early with no problem. Rarities soon followed, such as the Traveling Wilburys’ “End of the Line,” which featured a few Heartbreakers subbing in for Petty’s absent bandmates and the Full Moon Fever track “A Face in the Crowd.”
The Heartbreakers are one of the greatest backing bands out there. Any song is immeasurably enhanced by their playing, particularly from Mike on guitar and Benmont on keyboards. It’s no wonder they get so much session work when Petty is off the road.
The night wrapped up with the hit parade of “Learning to Fly,” “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” “Refugee” and the inevitable encore of “American Girl.” He’s probably played that song at every concert for over 30 years, but he still does it with intense passion and it still can make an arena full of drunk middle-aged white people jump up and down like nothing short of “Born to Run.”
Petty still insists that the days of long tours are coming to an end. This is a song he's also been playing for quite some time now; we'll see.
Here's the entire set list:Encore:
- “You Wreck Me”
- “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
- “I Won’t Back Down”
- “Even the Losers”
- “Free Falling”
- “Cabin Down Below”
- “Sweet William”
- “End of the Line”
- “Can’t Find My Way Home”
- “Gimme Some Loving”
- “Saving Grace”
- “Face in the Crowd”
- “Honey Bee”
- “You Don’t Know How It Feels”
- “Learning to Fly”
- “Don’t Come Around Here No More”
- “Refugee”
- “Runnin’ Down a Dream”
- “Mystic Eyes”
- “American Girl”
BPD member Stella Rose wrote:
Everything that you see about Jack Johnson when he is onstage is the same in the back. When I was introduced to him, he greeted me warmly and sat with me asking questions about myself and the music that I liked. Then, he took me around and introduced me to his crew. I couldn't believe that all of this was going on when he was due onstage in fifteen minutes. Talk about laid back!
Johnson opened with “Do You Remember” from In Between Dreams, and, like the clapping crowd, remained upbeat through the entire night. One thing about Jack Johnson: he could be singing an upbeat melody or a slow, heart felt love song, and he always looks and sounds the same - standing there in the middle of the stage with a guitar (or a ukulele, which he used for “Breakdown”) slightly swaying and smiling. On stage he sounds just as good as when he’s in the studio, which makes for a more than pleasant listening experience, even if the tempo never seems to change. Even his latest album, Sleep Through the Static, which a lot of the night’s set list was from, has alot of similarities to his first album, Brushfire Fairytales.
Jack frequently digressed about some of his environmental causes, or simply applauded the fact that the stage was littered with clothes thrown up from the front rows (“We appreciate the nakedness and the clothes'). The highlight of the show was when pianist Zach Gill joined Jack on stage to play that end of the night, sing along, Bob Dylan/Band classic, “I Shall be Released.”
For his encore he came back with Gill and finished properly, unleashing his two love songs that have now become staples at every wedding: “Angel”, from Sleep Through the Static, and “Better Together”, from In Between Dreams. Oddly enough he also squeezed in a song about loving Jesus that sounded like it came directly from Bible camp. If it was anybody else but Jack I’d have to accuse them of trying to brainwash the audience, but given the fact that he donates one percent of all his revenue to charity and the concert was used as a platform to raise money for and awareness of environmental causes, you can only love the guy for being so positive.
And just so I don't forget, props to BackstagePassDirect for making this all happen for me. I will never forget it.
Join BackstagePassDirect today and experience what so many other satisfied members like Stella Rose experience.
.............................It's a little crazy for David Byrne to conduct a "Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour" without Brian Eno, but that didn't stop the maestro.
IMHO, Byrne's periodic sessions with Eno have resulted in many of his finest moments, from the pair's prophetic 1981 collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, to, most notably, the trilogy of 1978-1980 Eno-produced masterpieces by Talking Heads, a run of albums that evolved the band's nervous new wave into muscular, worldly funk.
Though the impetus of the tour is Byrne and Eno's cordial new record, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (hear it at http://www.everythingthathappens.com/index.html), David offered up one hell of a set list. Too, it wasn't surprising that it was the Talking Heads standards that most fired up the crowd.
After a energetic and prolonged standing ovation for an early performance of "Houses in Motion," the audience remained on its feet, migrating toward the aisles where designated dancing spaces had been set up. Silver and wiry, but otherwise showing few signs of his 56 years, Byrne did his share of dancing, too, assisted not only by his three backup singers but also by a trio of pretty young dancers. The trio's golly-gee choreography could have been ripped straight from the High School Musical playbook (save, perhaps, for a bizarre accompaniment that turned "My Big Hands" from Byrne's 1981 solo suite The Catherine Wheel into a sort of balletic re-imagination of the "Thriller" zombie dance). The dancers added undeniable momentum to Byrne's already hard-driving show.
Everything That Happens is perhaps his most wide-eyed album yet, and it's therefore only fitting that he should promote it with such a open and upbeat tour.
There were 3 encores:Encore #1:
“Take Me to the River”
“The Great Curve”Encore #2:
“Air”
“Burning Down the House”Encore #3:
What can I say about being backstage? It was my first time ever, and it was totally mind-blowing. First off, meeting Byrne was a dream come true. He was cordial and friendly and endured my gawking at him like a love-struck schoolgirl.
“Everything that Happens will Happen Today”
To see everything that really goes in to putting a show like this together gave me a brand new appreciation for live performance as a genre. Man, there are a lot of people back there working their asses off.
Thank you BPD for making this happen.
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Due out Aug 5, MULTI DIMENSIONAL WARRIOR is the first anthology to include tracks from Santana's three major label associations: Columbia, Polydor/ PolyGram, and Arista/BMG. With just three exceptions, all of the albums represented on disc one are different than the albums represented on disc two.
The Police Reunion that began in 2007 continues to roar ahead in 2008. Only one month to go here in the U.S. before the band kicks off its huge Euro-tour.
R.E.M.'s latest effort, ACCELERATE, continues to excel both critically and commercially in its third week since release. But time is running out to see the boys before they depart for their big European tour in early summer. Below are their remaining U.S. dates:
Sat 05/24/08 Quincy, WA Gorge Amphitheatre
Thu 05/29/08 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Bowl
Sat 05/31/08 Berkeley, CA Greek Theatre
Sun 06/01/08 Berkeley, CA Greek Theatre
Tue 06/03/08 Morrison, CO Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Fri 06/06/08 Chicago, IL United Center
Tue 06/10/08 Raleigh, NC Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion
Wed 06/11/08 Columbia, MD Merriweather Post Pavilion
Fri 06/13/08 Mansfield, MA Tweeter Center For The Perf. Arts
Sat 06/14/08 Wantagh, NY Nikon At Jones Beach Theater
Wed 06/18/08 Philadelphia, PA Mann Center For Performing Arts
Thu 06/19/08 New York, NY Madison Square Garden Arena
Sat 06/21/08 Atlanta, GA Lakewood Amphitheatre
It's not too late to get to see the band from the unique setting of backstage. Meet, greet and get something to eat.
Visit BackstagePassDirect to get the complete lowdown.
Most rock & roll bands are a tightly wound unit that developed their music through years of playing in garages and clubs around their hometown. Steely Dan never subscribed to that aesthetic. As the vehicle for the songwriting of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan defied all rock & roll conventions. Becker and Fagen never truly enjoyed rock -- with their ironic humor and cryptic lyrics, their eclectic body of work prefers Chet Baker jazz, traditional pop, blues, and R&B. Steely Dan created a sophisticated, distinctive sound with accessible melodic hooks, complex harmonies and time signatures, and a devotion to the recording studio.
With the help of punchy horns, backup singers and the standard rock-band complement (bass, guitar, drums, keyboards), Fagen and Becker maintained what really was a long look back at how Baker and his audience must have anticipated an easy future of personal jet packs, video phones and ever-larger tailfins.
Now, here they come again: Think Fast, the 2008 tour.
Sun 06/08/08 Hollywood, FL Seminole Hard Rock Live
Mon 06/09/08 Clearwater, FL Ruth Eckerd Hall
Wed 06/11/08 Alpharetta, GA Verizon Wireless Amph. At Encore Park
Fri 06/13/08 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
Sat 06/14/08 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
Tue 06/17/08 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
Wed 06/18/08 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
Fri 06/20/08 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
Mon 06/23/08 Boston, MA Bank Of America Pavilion
Wed 06/25/08 Wallingford, CT Chevrolet Theatre
Fri 06/27/08 Atlantic City, NJ Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa
Sat 06/28/08 Camden, NJ Susquehanna Bank Center
Sun 07/13/08 Cincinnati, OH National City Pavilion
Tue 07/15/08 Chicago, IL Chicago Theatre
Thu 07/17/08 Morrison, CO Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Sun 07/20/08 Phoenix, AZ Dodge Theatre
Fri 07/25/08 Murphys, CA Ironstone Vineyards
Sat 07/26/08 Berkeley, CA Greek Theatre
Mon 07/28/08 Saratoga, CA The Mountain Winery
Wed 07/30/08 Woodinville, WA Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery
Thu 07/31/08 Woodinville, WA Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery
Sat 08/02/08 Stateline, NV Harvey's Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena
Be the first to get your backstage passes to see these legends. Visit backstagepassdirect.com today!
Celine's Still Taking Chances Phase Two of Celine Dion's Taking Chances Tour kicks off in Manchester England of May 2 and she won't be returning to North America until late summer. The tour has received such critical acclaim that tickets for the following dates are already completely SOLD OUT:
Montreal (August 15, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 31, 2008)
Toronto (August 27 & 28, 2008)
Uniondale (September 13, 2008)
New York (September 15, 2008)
Atlantic City (September 20)
Sacramento (October 14, 2008)
Tacoma (October 18, 2008)
Vancouver (October 20, 2008)
Edmonton (all shows)
Chicago (November 4, 2008)
Kansas City (November 15, 2008)
Denver (November 19, 2008)
Salt Lake City (November 21, 2008)
Phoenix (December 6, 2008)
Tampa (January 28, 2009)
But have no fear; BackstagePassDirect still has passes available to all of these shows running through the end of the year:
Tue 08/12/08 Boston, MA TD Banknorth Garden
Wed 08/13/08 Boston, MA TD Banknorth Garden
Wed 09/03/08 Buffalo, NY HSBC Arena
Fri 09/05/08 Philadephia, PA The Wachovia Center
Mon 09/08/08 Washington D.C. Verizon Center
Wed 09/10/08 Newark, N.J. Prudential Center
Fri 09/12/08 Newark, N.J. Prudential Center
Sat 09/13/08 Uniondale, N.Y. Nassau Coliseum
Mon 09/15/08 New York, N.Y. Madison Square Garden Arena
Tue 09/16/08 New York, N.Y. Madison Square Garden Arena
Thu 09/18/08 Uniondale, N.Y. Nassau Coliseum
Sat 09/20/08 Atlantic City, N.J. Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall
Mon 09/22/08 Columbus, OH Schottenstein Center
Wed 09/24/08 Cleveland, OH Quicken Loans Arena
Fri 09/26/08 Auburn Hills, MI The Palace Of Auburn Hills
Mon 09/29/08 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
Tue 10/14/08 Sacramento, CA ARCO Arena
Thu 10/16/08 Portland, OR Rose Garden Arena
Sat 10/18/08 Tacoma, WA Tacoma Dome
Thu 10/30/08 Minneapolis, MN Target Center
Tue 11/04/08 Chicago, IL United Center
Sun 11/09/08 Indianapolis, IN Conseco Fieldhouse
Tue 11/11/08 St. Louis, MO Scottrade Center
Thu 11/13/08 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
Sat 11/15/08Omaha, NE Qwest Center
Wed 11/19/08 Denver, CO PepsiCenter
Fri 11/21/08 Salt Lake City, UT Energy Solutions Arena
Sun 11/23 San Jose, CA HP Pavillion
Sat 11/29/08 Anaheim, CA Honda Center
Tue 12/02/08 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
Sat 12/06/08 Glendale, AZ Jobing.com Arena
Fans just can't get enough of Celine Dion. See her show from backstage and you'll know why.
Backstagepassdirect.com has all the information.
YES, you heard right.......Yes is back, and Jon Anderson is ready to take the world by storm and we've got backstage passes for Yes.
Good things are worth waiting for. Radiohead surely took their time for the release of their seventh album. Entitled In Rainbows, the album was released 4 and a half years after Hail to the Thief. Widely acclaimed as an Album of the Year candidate, Radiohead now brings all their energy on tour with these limited U.S. engagements: