Robert Cray Band on Tour

Tin-eared critics have frequently damned him as a yuppie blues wannabe whose slickly soulful offerings bear scant resemblance to the real down-home item. In reality, Robert Cray is one of a precious few younger blues artists with the talent and vision to successfully usher the idiom into the 21st century without resorting either to slavish imitation or simply playing rock while passing it off as blues.

Just as importantly, his immensely popular records helped immeasurably to jump-start the contemporary blues boom that still holds sway to this day. Blessed with a soulful voice that sometimes recalls '60s-great O.V. Wright and a concise lead guitar approach that never wastes notes, Cray's rise to international fame is well deserved.

His Summer tour schedule is below:

Fri 06/26/09 Fort Smith, AR Harry Kelly Park

Sun 06/28/09 Boulder, CO Boulder Theater

Mon 06/29/09 Jackson, WY Center For The Arts

Tue 06/30/09 Aspen, CO Belly Up Aspen

Thu 07/02/09 Minneapolis, MN The Cabooze

Fri 07/03/09 Bayfield, WI Big Top Chautauqua

Thu 07/09/09 Wichita, KS Sedgwick County Zoo

Fri 07/10/09 Austin, TX Antone's

Sat 07/11/09 Houston, TX House Of Blues

Sun 07/12/09 Helotes, TX Floores Country Store

Thu 07/16/09 Alexandria, VA Birchmere

Fri 07/17/09 Brooklyn, NY Prospect Park Bandshell

Sat 07/18/09 Buffalo, NY Erie Basin Marina

Sun 07/19/09 Tarrytown, NY The Tarrytown Music Hall

Tue 07/21/09 Brownfield, ME Stone Mountain Arts Center

Thu 07/23/09 Cary, NC Koka Booth Amphitheatre At Regency Park

Fri 07/24/09 Camden, NJ Wiggins Park

Sat 07/25/09 Newport, RI Newport Yachting Center

Sun 07/26/09 Pittsburgh, PA Hartwood Acres

Fri 07/31/09 Lehi, UT Thanksgiving Point

Sat 08/15/09 Albany, NY Hart Theatre @ The Egg

Sun 08/16/09 Bristol, VA Paramount Theater

Wed 08/19/09 Clarkston, MI DTE Energy Music Theatre

Sat 08/22/09 Thief River Falls, MN Seven Clans Casino

Fri 09/04/09 Naperville, IL Downtown

Sat 09/19/09 Stateline, NV Harrah's Lake Tahoe

Sun 09/20/09 Saratoga, CA The Mountain Winery

Fri 10/16/09 Virginia Beach, VA Sandler Center For The Perf. Arts

Passes are still available for many venues on Cray's tour. If you're not yet a member of BackstagePassDirect, it's never too late. Sign up today.

Member Review: The Boss

Member 80303 checks in:

Familiar name, new face...................... Jay Weinberg, the teenage son of longtime E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg. He and dad have been sharing timekeeping duties on the current Bruce Springsteen tour, and with the younger Weinberg in the drum chair for the final two-thirds of the three-hour show, the band’s chemistry was slightly unsettled for the better. Jay Weinberg hits just as hard as his father, and is touch looser, less predictable. His fills during “Radio Nowhere” kicked the song, and the concert, into a higher gear, and galvanized a band that was starting to pace itself.

Springsteen smiled in approval. He had to love the kid’s energy.

Springsteen is about as consistent as a performer gets. You pay, he plays until he drops. You may not love all the songs, you may wish he’d play "Glory Days" or that obscure B side no one else knows except you, but Springsteen always works his tail off.

All of that was still true, but his longtime E Street Band is in transition. They’re a band of pros, and they do their jobs well, but they lack the physicality, the sustained urgency of their prime. Slowly, the band is being retooled. Stellar organist Danny Federici died last year, and has been replaced by Charles Giordano. Patti Scialfa, Springsteen’s wife and backing vocalist, was back home in New Jersey with their three children. Violinist Soozie Tyrell, a relative newcomer, has assumed a larger role, and longtime saxophonist Clarence Clemons a smaller one, in part because he’s been hobbled by ailing hips (he had double hip replacement surgery in 1998).

Springsteen has always played his band like a small orchestra, and their versatility allowed him to explore the widest contours of his catalog. He ranged from the stark blues of “Seeds” to the Celtic celebration of “American Land.” The E Streeters expertly negotiated the ebb and surge of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped” and the gospel drama of “The Rising.” And they figured out the chord changes for Tommy James and the Shondells’ 1968 garage-rock classic “Mony, Mony” during the audience-request portion of the concert.

“Doesn’t it have some weird bridge?” Springsteen asked guitarist Steve Van Zandt. It did, and they crossed it unscathed, in one of those smile-inducing moments that echoed the band’s early days, when Springsteen used to shout out impromptu covers with mischievous regularity.

If there was a disappointment, it was that Springsteen didn’t make a stronger case for his latest album, “Working on a Dream.” I’m not a fan of the album, but I always look forward to how the singer reinvents his studio work on the stage. In this case, however, he barely touched the new material, which was a shame, because he did a marvelous job of turning “Outlaw Pete” into a theatrical, Old West showpiece while doffing a black cowboy hat with Spaghetti Western guitars, Tyrell’s campfire fiddle and Grand Canyon reverb on the vocals.

As usual, Springsteen divvied up the show into thematic sections. Among the strongest was the topical trinity of “Seeds,” “Johnny 99” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” a seething commentary on blue-collar citizens brought to the brink of desperation by hard times. Each was punctuated by nasty guitar solo: Springsteen channeling the mantra of “It’s gone, gone, it’s all gone” on “Seeds” with a vengeance through his instrument, then Van Zandt riding hard with “Johnny 99” and Nils Lofgren spinning out from Max Weinberg’s surging drums on “Joad.”

The show started to settle a bit after the midway point, but Jay Weinberg took care of that problem. During “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day,” one of his more enthusiastic fills brought an arched eyebrow and a smile from bassist Garry Tallent. The newcomer wanted to run, and the band had no choice but to rise to the challenge.

The set list:

1 Badlands
2 Spirit in the Night
3 Outlaw Pete
4 She’s the One
5 Working on a Dream
6 Seeds
7 Johnny 99
8 The Ghost of Tom Joad
9 Raise Your Hand

Audience request
10 Trapped (Jimmy Cliff)
11 Candy’s Room
12 Mony, Mony (Tommy James and the Shondells)

13 Waitin' on a Sunny Day
14 The Promised Land
15 The Wrestler
16 Kingdom of Days
17 Radio Nowhere
18 Lonesome Day
19 The Rising
20 Born to Run

Encore
21 Hard Times Come Again No More (Stephen Foster)
22 Jungleland
23 Land of Hope and Dreams
24 American Land
25 Dancing in the Dark
26 Rosalita

I spent most of my backstage time with Nils, who I've known since our high school days in Bethesda. He's traveled quite a distance since Grin, yet he remains a truly stand-up guy.

It doesn't get any better than backstage with the Boss. Spend time with your faves; request your passes today. Not a member? It's not to late; join now.

Member Review: Slipknot

Member No Pretense wrote:

When Slipknot played last night, we got a view of a demented circus in which the animals are all rabid and the clowns wear make-up made from crushed bone dust and human blood.

With their 1999 self-titled debut, the nine Halloween-masked members of Slipknot enjoyed almost immediate success, riding the cresting popularity of the freshly minted genre of ‘nu-metal’. Of course, this brought along an inevitable backlash from some metalheads, who viewed nu-metal’s mix of alternative music with funk basslines, hip hop elements, and the canned aggression of X-Games ad campaigns as overly commercial. Add the fact that Slipknot’s popularity appeared nearly instantaneous, seemingly arriving without being earned through years of releasing forgotten split 7-inch records with bands like Mgla, and you have a tough sell to some purists.

But truth be told, the Iowa-based band owes less to hip-hop than they do to alternative metal. Essentially, they’re a very angry Tool without the math, or a less lethargic Acid Bath. Creating what could be described as high-octane grunge for kids with behavioural problems, their angst-ridden lyrics continue to strike a chord with disillusioned teens, who feed off the band’s nihilism and near boundless aggression.

That aggression was out in full force last night, as the band took the stage to a nearly packed house, dressed like nightmarish, serial killing GI Joes, and basked in the crowd's adulation.

Though Slipknot can sound generic on recordings, their stage show is something to behold. Not only are songs like Eyeless and the profanity-laced Get This absolutely crushing in a live setting, but the band is a fountain of bizarre, chaotic energy. With nine members, including a DJ, sampler, and two custom percussionists on top of super-drummer Joey Jordison, not everyone is constantly occupied with their instrument. Yet there were no idle moments, with members constantly roaming the stage, thrashing wildly or engaging in elaborate Punch and Judy style pantomime.

Between songs, singer Corey Taylor worked the crowd into a frenzy that matched his own spastic convulsions. But despite his manic energy, Taylor managed to keep his vocals tightly controlled, alternating between furious screaming and melodic passages in tracks like Wait and Bleed, Duality, or Before I Forget.

Equally ferocious were guitarists Jim Root and Mick Thomson, who thrashed their way through a down-tuned crunch of sound, though some of the solos drifted away from Root towards the end of the band’s nearly 2-hour set.

Surprisingly, Slipknot didn’t seem particularly interested in playing tracks off their new record, though they did make the token effort to play singles Sulfer, Psychosocial and the morose Dead Memories. Instead, the focus was on their earlier, heavier work, and some of the more experimental tracks from 2004's Vol 3 (The Subliminal Verses) and 2001’s Iowa. The chiming guitar intro of Vermillion, for example, brought to mind Twilight Zone music cues. And the marching band rhythms of The Blister Exists were aggressively martial, particularly in light of the group’s current uniform of tight jeans, tattered military-style jackets, and Converse sneakers, which gave them the appearance of a homeless hipster army.

Exhaustingly intense, all the sound and fury finally built to a grand crescendo of chaos. By the time final song Spit it Out was played, Jordison was drumming at a 90 degree angle on his movable drum riser. The percussionists were throwing beer kegs at the sampler, and DJ Sid Wilson was essentially swinging from the rafters. Quite a circus and certainly memorable as the whole quaking mess was viewed from backstage.

BackstagePassDirect has passes for all the greatest shows of this season. Join today and don't miss out.

Blink-182 Summer tour

If it hadn't been for drummer Travis Barker's near-fatal airplane crash last year, Blink-182 might not be touring this summer.

But after a five-year hiatus, the rock trio -- Barker, Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge -- will embark on a nearly 50-date North American arena and amphitheater tour, beginning July 24 and wrapping October 3.

The trek will feature support on various dates from Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, All-American Rejects, Taking Back Sunday, Asher Roth and Chester French.

The rock act has also tapped stage designer Martin Phillips to help create "the most ridiculous display of lights and images we can imagine," Hoppus said in a statement. Phillips has worked on tour stage designs for such artists as Kanye West, Daft Punk and Nine Inch Nails.

Rumors that Blink-182 could reunite after its messy split in 2005 started last year after Hoppus posted a blog saying that Barker's survival and the death of Blink-182 producer Jerry Finn had put the band members back in touch.

Blink-182 confirms that it is writing new songs, but the word on the street is that this tour is about the hits.

Here's the entire US schedule:

July 24: Las Vegas (the Joint)
Aug. 4: Milwaukee (Marcus Amphitheater)
Aug. 6: Boston (Comcast Center)
Aug. 9: Wantagh, N.Y. (Nikon Theater at Jones Beach)
Aug. 12: Hershey, Pa. (the Star Pavilion)
Aug. 13: Cincinnati (Riverbend Music Center)
Aug. 14: Pittsburgh (Post Gazette Pavilion)
Aug. 15: Chicago (First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre)
Aug. 16: Omaha, Neb. (Westfair Amphitheater)
Aug. 18: Minneapolis (Xcel Energy Center)
Aug. 20: Indianapolis (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
Aug. 21: Buffalo, N.Y. (Darien Lakes Performing Arts Center)
Aug. 22: Detroit (DTE Energy Music Theatre)
Aug. 25: Holmdel, N.J. (PNC Bank Arts Center)
Aug. 27: Saratoga, N.Y. (Saratoga Performing Arts Center)
Aug. 28: Camden, Pa. (Susquehanna Bank Center)
Aug. 29: Hartford, Conn. (New England Dodge Music Center)
Aug. 30: Washington, D.C. (TBD)
Aug. 31: Wantagh, N.Y. (Nikon Theater at Jones Beach)
Sept. 2: Cleveland (Blossom Music Center)
Sept. 3: St. Louis (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
Sept. 4: Kansas City, Kan. (Capitol Federal Park at Sandstone)
Sept. 6: Denver (Fiddlers Green Amphitheater)
Sept. 7: Salt Lake City (David O. McKay Events Center)
Sept. 10: Seattle (White River Amphitheater)
Sept. 12: Sacramento, Calif. (Sleep Train Amphitheater)
Sept. 13: Mountain View, Calif. (Shoreline Amphitheater)
Sept. 14: Santa Barbara, Calif. (Santa Barbara Bowl)
Sept. 16: San Diego (Cricket Wireless Amphitheater)
Sept. 17: Irvine, Calif. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
Sept. 19: Phoenix (Tempe Beach Park)
Sept. 21: Albuquerque, N.M. (Journal Pavilion)
Sept. 23: Dallas (Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion)
Sept. 24: Houston (Superpages.com Center)
Sept. 26: West Palm Beach, Fla. (Cruzan Amphitheater)
Sept. 27: Tampa, Fla. (Ford Amphitheater)
Sept. 29: Atlanta (Lakewood Amphitheater)
Oct. 1: Charlotte, N.C. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
Oct. 2: Virginia Beach, Va. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
Oct. 3: Atlantic City, N.J. (Borgata Events Center)

Requests for passes are already flying in; don't get left out in the cold. If you're not already a BPD member, sign up today.

Member Review: The Dead

This just in from our member TheDeadest:

The Grateful Dead has been buried and resurrected many times over the last 15 years. Still reeling from the death of its spiritual force and lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia in 1995, the band has never really gone away, but it has never really been the same.

Yet, the reconstituted (and no longer Grateful) Dead – with four surviving members from its legendary ‘60s incarnation – sounded surprisingly spry before a near-capacity audience.

The night did not get off to a flying start. On the contrary, the band sounded like it was still waking up as it meandered through “China Cat Sunflower” and “Born Cross-Eyed.” But things perked up considerably when guitarist Warren Haynes salted “Built to Last” with soul inflections, abetted by sharp three-part harmonies.

The band was locked in after that, drawing heavily on rarities (“Pride of Cucamonga”) and covers (Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, the traditional “Peggy-O”) to create an adventuresome set high on energy and steeped in a sense of occasion.

There was Bob Weir’s robust take on “Wang Dang Doodle,” in tribute to Chicago blues giants Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon. And there was an encore of “Box of Rain,” the same song with which the Dead closed its July 9, 1995, concert at Soldier Field, Garcia’s final performance.

At its worst, the Dead can sound woozy and incoherent. And nobody self-indulges like this band. Its nightly 20-minute descent into “Drums and Space” is a tedious tradition that needs to die.

But at its best, the sextet presents an unconventional democracy, where there is no instrumental hierarchy. Drums and bass can float on top of the mix, guitars below, and then trade places. Often there is a sense of weightlessness about the songs, no ballast, the notes floating in free space. At other times, Phil Lesh’s six-string bass can drop A-bombs that shake sternums in the back rows.

As the parts interlocked and then came apart again, the band’s unique sonic architecture became a point of detailed fascination. At times drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart puttered around, barely audible. But then they played “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” with such exultant force that the song jumped.

Even at this late stage, the band still has the ability to surprise. Instead of relying on concert staples, it focused on some of the more obscure corners of its catalogue. Haynes brought a haunting beauty to Garcia’s “Standing on the Moon.” And Weir, spurred on by Hart’s vicious cymbal accents, turned “Liberty” into an unexpected anthem, easily the best version of the song I’ve heard the band perform.

The band members looked glad to be doing their jobs, and the audience responded in kind. It was only fitting that Weir turned over a section of the New Orleans party standard “Iko Iko” to the fans. Rattling his tambourine, the singer looked to the audience to sing a verse, and thousands of voices came through in passable Creole. Then Weir cued the band back in, and the song finished with musicians and fans in sync, reveling in the moment and in their shared history.

The Dead’s set list:

1. China Cat Sunflower
2. Born Cross-Eyed
3. Built to Last
4. Pride of Cucamonga
5. I Need a Miracle
6. Wang Dang Doodle (Howlin’ Wolf/Willie Dixon)
7. West L.A. Fadeaway
8. Liberty
9. All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)

Second set
10. Mexicali Blues (acoustic)
11. Into the Mystic (acoustic, Van Morrison)
12. Pretty Peggy-O (acoustic, traditional)
13. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (acoustic, Bob Dylan)
14. Drums/Space
15. Iko Iko (New Orleans traditional)
16. Standing on the Moon
17. Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad (traditional)

Encore
18. Imagine (John Lennon)
19. Box of Rain

TheDeadest grabbed 5 passes and had a grand old time; you could too. Join BackstagePassDirect today and get to see your faves like never before.

Get Pink in the Fall

Yet another artist with limited US tour dates is Pink. A handful of new shows have just been added to the fall North American leg of her world tour, which supports the singer's latest studio set, "Funhouse." All shows on the currently 10-city trip will include guest support from indie-pop duo The Ting Tings.

Pink heads to Australia later this month to launch a long tour stretch continuing through most of the summer. Those dates--along with information on pre-sales for the new North American shows--can be found at Pink's official website.

The singer is supporting her fifth studio album, "Funhouse," which surfaced last October. The set peaked at No. 2 on the US charts, and hit the top spot in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

The album's lead single, "So What," debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 last August, Pink's highest debuting single to date. The tune peaked at No. 1 in September, giving the singer her first solo top-seller, and second of her career after her 2001 "Lady Marmalade" collaboration with Christina Aguilera, Mya and Lil' Kim.


Tue 09/15/09 Seattle, WA WaMu Theater

Thu 09/17/09 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion At San Jose

Fri 09/18/09 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center

Sun 09/20/09 Glendale, AZ Jobing.com Arena

Wed 09/23/09 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center

Thu 09/24/09 Houston, TX Toyota Center

Sat 09/26/09 Rosemont, IL Allstate Arena

Mon 09/28/09 Fairfax, VA Patriot Center

Fri 10/02/09 Boston, MA TD Banknorth Garden

Mon 10/05/09 New York, NY Madison Square Garden Arena

Become a member of BackstagePassDirect and be the first to request passes to hang out with her backstage.

Limited Kylie Minogue

For the first time in her 20-year career, pop superstar Kylie Minogue this fall will embark on a headlining tour of North America.

Though small, the 5-date itinerary hits both coasts, kicking off Sept. 30 in Oakland, CA, and finishing up Oct. 11 in New York. The full schedule is below.

The Australian pop star, who is set to perform on NBC's "Today Show" this Friday (5/8), is supporting her 10th studio effort, "X," which surfaced stateside in April 2008. The 13-track set scaled the charts in several countries and earned the singer her fifth Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album. (Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" took home the trophy.)

"I've wanted to tour in America and Canada for years and know that fans have been waiting a long time for this," Minogue said in a press release. "I'm thrilled that the opportunity has finally arrived."

According to her publicist, Minogue has sold more than 40 million albums, sold out eight world tours and scored 50 hit singles, including "Can't Get You Out of My Head," "Come Into My World" and "Love at First Sight."


09/30/09 Oakland, CA Fox Theater

10/03/09 Las Vegas, NV Pearl Concert Theater

10/04/09 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Bowl

10/07/09 Chicago, IL Congress Theater

10/11/09 New York, NY Hammerstein Ballroom

Even tix to these shows wil be hard to get. But BPD will definitely have passes; request yours today.