Several New Announcements

Officially tagged as the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, RodeoHouston is an annual multi-day event which always tries to mix up the genres, although leaning heavily towards country.

Here’s the lineup w/dates for 2013:

Feb. 25 – Toby Keith
Feb. 26 – Gary Allan
Feb. 27 – Alan Jackson
Feb. 28 – Zac Brown Band
March 1 – Mary J. Blige
March 2 – Brantley Gilbert
March 3 – Demi Lovato
March 3 – Austin Mahone
March 4 – Styx
March 5 – Lady Antebellum
March 6 – Dierks Bentley

Backstage passes are available for single-day only.

We also have confirmed four dates for the "tag team" of The Black Keys and The Flaming Lips.

Those dates are:

April 28 – Kansas City, Mo., Sprint Center    
April 30 – Pittsburgh, Pa., Consol Energy Center    
May 2 – Atlanta, Ga., Aaron’s Amphitheatre At Lakewood    
May 3 – Nashville, Tenn., Bridgestone Arena

Lastly, Green Day has re-set some dates that were supposed to begin this month but were postponed. Here are the new ones:

March 28 – Rosemont, Ill., Allstate Arena
March 29 – Moline, Ill., I Wireless Center
March 31 – Pittsburgh, Pa., Consol Energy Center
April 1 – Rochester, N.Y., Blue Cross Arena
April 3 – Philadelphia, Pa., The Liacouras Center
April 4 – Fairfax, Va., Patriot Center
April 6 – Uncasville, Conn., Mohegan Sun Arena
April 7 – Brooklyn, N.Y., Barclays Center
April 9 – Providence, R.I., Dunkin' Donuts Center

If you ant to get backstage and meet your favorite artists and bands, BackstagePassDirect is your one stop source. Why not become a member today?

Member Review: The Black Keys

Byzantine Bill, a longtime BPD member sent this to us:

This was a night to celebrate good old rock n’ roll delivered to perfection and with plenty of style by The Black Keys.

They opened with the barnburner, Howlin’ For You, from their 2010 breakthrough disc, Brothers, and never really let up for the next hour and 25 minutes, showing off their musicianship and really feeling the music.

They pulled no punches on such standouts as the harder-edged Same Old Thing, Thickfreakness, and I Got Mine; a trio of fun dance songs from their 2011 album, El Camino, Dead and Gone, Gold On The Ceiling and Lonely Boy, and the sexy, soulful Girl Is On My Mind, I’ll Be Your Man, Your Touch, Ten Cent Pistol and Tighten Up.

And when they trotted out the epic acoustic-then-electric El Camino number, Little Black Submarines, they recalled both Jethro Tull and Jimi Hendrix.

How is this possible?

Then a giant disco ball descended before a three song encore which kicked off with Everlasting Light -prompting a crowd clap-a-long - and it seemed like the perfect sweet and fluffy icing on a really rich cake.

It’s always hard to believe that just two people, often backed by bassist Gus Seyffert and keyboardist John Wood, can make such a glorious-sounding racket but they can and do.

“Come on, let’s get moving,” said Auerbach, off the top and he seemed to be talking as much to himself and Carney as the audience.

Turned out there was no need for a pep talk, this duo only has one speed and that’s fully switched on, committing to each other and each and every song, and then projecting that chemistry outwards.

The connection between the band and the fans was palpable.

“We love coming here,” Auerbach told me backstage over a cold one.

And I loved havin' them.

SET LIST:

Howlin’ for You

Next Girl

Run Right Back

Same Old Thing

Dead and Gone

Gold on the Ceiling

Thickfreakness

Girl Is on My Mind

I’ll Be Your Man

Your Touch

Little Black Submarines

Money Maker

Strange Times

Nova Baby

Ten Cent Pistol

Tighten Up

Lonely Boy

ENCORE:

Everlasting Light

She’s Long Gone

I Got Mine

Thanks BB, sounds like it was a great show.

The Fall is fast approaching with lotsa great acts and artists. If you haven't signed up yet to become a member and request backstage passes, now's a good time to do it.

Another East Coast Fest Announced: Firefly

Firefly Music Festival is hitting the East Coast for its inaugural year on July 20, 21 and 22 in Dover, Delaware. The festival will take place at The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway, located in close proximity to Philadelphia, New York City, Washington D.C. and Baltimore.

Headliners include The Killers, The Black Keys and Jack White alongside more than 40 national acts, such as Death Cab for Cutie, John Legend and The Flaming Lips.

We're currently working our the details to provide passes to members. Don't forget, first come, first served.

El Camino Support Tour for The Black Keys

The Black Keys will hit the road for their first leg of 2012 North American tour dates in March in support of their just released album El Camino, the first to be recorded in the band’s new hometown of Nashville.

With sepcial guests Artic Monkeys, here are the dates and venues:

3/2/12 - Cincinnati, OH - U.S. Bank Arena
3/3/12 - Detroit, MI - Joe Louis Arena
3/4/12 - Columbus, OH - Schottenstein Center
3/6/12 - Portland, ME - Cumberland County Civic Center
3/7/12 - Boston, MA - TD Garden
3/9/12 - Washington, DC - Verizon Center
3/10/12 - Philadelphia, PA - Wells Fargo Center
3/12/12 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
3/16/12 - Indianapolis, IN - Conseco Fieldhouse
3/18/12 - Grand Rapids, MI - Van Andel Arena
3/19/12 - Chicago, IL - United Center
3/20/12 - Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena
3/23/12 - Norfolk, VA - Constant Convocation Center
3/24/12 - Charlotte, NC - Bojangles Arena

More dates to follow; request your backstage passes today.

Bonnaroo 2011 Lineup

This year, it's Eminem, Arcade Fire, Widespread Panic, The Black Keys, Robert Plant & Band Of Joy, Lil’ Wayne and Buffalo Springfield among the bands and artists appearing at this year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival.

The complete list is quite impressive. At the time of this writing, no day-to-day lineups or stage assignments have been revealed.

Bonnaroo was in last year's Top Ten requests and we don't expect it to be any different this year. So, make your requests to BackstagePassDirect now!

Members Review Lollapalooza

The following is a compilation of mini-reports send to us from several BPD members who spent 3 days @Lollapalooza:

The Black Keys duo of guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney forged their reputation with a spare but potent Led Zeppelin-meets-White Stripes sound that was tailor-made for their compact blues-rock tunes. Those songs framed the hour set, but the highlight came in the middle when they brought out a bass player and keyboardist to flesh out the material from their terrific new Brothers album. That album embraces elements of R&B and psychedelia in addition to blues-rock, and songs like She's Long Gone, Ten Cent Pistol and Next Girl benefited from the fuller instrumentation.

Newly established stars Arcade Fire confidently opened their headlining set on Sunday night with Ready To Start from their just-released The Suburbs album — and found that many in the crowd already knew the lyrics. They followed with tunes from their first albums, including No Cars Go, giving their dueling violinists and accordion player a workout. The delicate Rococo from Suburbs found frontman Win Butler strumming an acoustic and singing in a Neil Young-inflected voice. The crowd wanted anthems, however, and the Canadian ensemble obliged with Neighborhood (Tunnels). Butler dedicated the majestic Crown of Love to The National, with whom they toured and who preceded them on the Lollapalooza bill.

Green Day's 2½-hour set Saturday was more off-Broadway than punk rock, unsurprising since its music has long been tinged with pop and theatrics. Hits from the two-decade-deep repertoire shared the set list with two medleys of rock classics (including Hey Jude, Iron Man, Highway to Hell and Satisfaction) — all punctuated by fireworks and jets of flame. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong led the proceedings effortlessly, from openers Song of the Century and 21st Century Breakdown through the extended encore, highlighted by American Idiot and Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). The feel-good ending sent the set 15 minutes over the city's strict 10 p.m. curfew, but no one, least of all Armstrong, seemed to care.

In America, the compelling dance songs of French quartet Phoenix are often used to pump up sales of cars and viewership of movies and TV shows. Saturday night they were even more effective in pumping up tens of thousands of their adoring fans, who looked to be mostly electrified young women. Vocalist Thomas Mars and mates delivered most of their keyboard-driven pop-rock hits (the bulk from last year's Grammy-winning Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) in a brisk smart show that never lagged. Though they're devilishly handsome, the band members attended to business and didn't waste time preening (Mars did wade into the crowd near the end, however). The band had been slotted to play for 90 minutes but left the stage after just 55. Before jokes about the French work ethic could circulate, however, they reappeared and delivered a three-encore bonbon: an acoustic version of Air's Playground Love; an older dance number, If I Ever Feel Better; and of course a joyous 1901.
 
Austin-based Spoon, slotted at 6:15 p.m. on one of the main stages, may be the ideal pre-sundown band. They rock, mildly and wittily, and engage in a roughly equal number of detours into pop sweetness and distorted vocal and guitar effects. Leader Britt Daniel has a boyish, beach-boy look and an earnest voice that's best suited to delivering emotional lyrics, and the band sounds neither angry nor mellow, hovering mostly in the moderately anguished realm.

During their 75-minute set the quartet sounded most engaging when augmented by a horn section, on songs like You Got Your Cherry Bomb, Jonathon Fisk and The Underdog. On one of the more intricate numbers, My Mathematical Mind, Daniel sank to his knees and held his guitar in front of an amp a la Hendrix, but wound up in an echo-laden cul de sac. The set list spanned 1998s A Series of Sneaks (Advance Cassette) and the new Transference (Written in Reverse and Got Nuffin'), hitting emotional peaks with I Summon You and Don't Make Me a Target. The audience, mellowed by another day of perfect conditions, was more inclined toward swaying than fist-pumping, and Spoon fed the mood deftly.

What's left for Lady Gaga to reveal? By the end of her two-hour, 18-song, epic performance Friday, she had laid it all out on the stage — her beliefs, her multitude of musical influences, her skin, her brazen vulgarity, her athleticism and her soul. The staging of the story line — Lady leads her troupe on a nightmarish journey to a Monster's Ball— was over the top and well-choreographed, and it projected well in the vast outdoor setting. But it was the few quieter moments that surprised the most. Sitting at the keyboard for Speechless and the new You and I from her in-the-works album, she revealed a lusty, more-than-serviceable voice reminiscent of the saloon-singing style of Billy Joel. Some may also have been surprised by the heavy-metal influences that augment the David Bowie-esque glam in songs such as Fame and Boys Boys Boys. But by the time of closer Bad Romance, surprise had given way to awe.

Not everyone was caught up in Gaga mania, though it may have seemed that way. New York indie rockers The Strokes, reunited after being on unofficial hiatus since 2006, drew a respectable crowed to the north end of Grant Park at the same time Gaga commanded the south end. Their set drew heavily from their 2001 debut This Is it. They opened with New York City Cops, a song that was pulled from that debut just before its release. "I think they sound great," says Ryan Labery, 31, of Chicago. "I stopped by Gaga to see the spectacle, but I had to come back to The Strokes." 

Apparently, the thing to do was to toggle back and forth between the back and the front. Regardless, BPD members had one hoot of a time.

Join us today and you can too!