Live Entertainment Blog

 Spoon continues to be one of most critically acclaimed rock bands in today’s music scene as their 2010 release, Transference, has already earned praise from rock press. Transference is the most recent record in a long line of great albums Spoon has released since their formation in 1993 in Austin, TX. If you want a good introduction to the band order their Austin City Limits performance as it’s one of the best episodes of the PBS program I’ve seen. Songwriter Britt Daniel has a knack for writing songs that have a great uniqueness about them while maintaining their pop sensibilities. Band mates Eric Harvey, Rob Pope, and Jim Eno always seem to create the right blend of rhythm and melody to serve Daniel’s tunes. After long being one of music most under-appreciated bands their 2007 release, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, broke Billboard’s Top 10 and hitting the #1 spot on the Indie charts. All signs point to “Transference” being just another step forward into spotlight for Spoon as the band keeps putting out great music.

The Canadian band Nickelback has been getting better for a long time and they are more popular than ever before. You might even know their music from the radio. Their album Dark Horse reached #1 on the charts for quite awhile. And they are among the best alternative bands on the circuit right now and rank right up there with the Beatles as one of the biggest foreign bands ever in the US. I was able to find where you can get Nickelback tickets for their current tour. It’s expected to be their most popular tours yet, with great songs like I’d Come for You, Never Gonna Be Alone and others most likely on tap. But don’t worry; all your favorite songs are certain to be on the playlist too! Get some tickets and enjoy the show!

The new Nick Jonas performances are going quite well. This is a show that is much more entertaining than many people had anticipated. There have been some big changes in the world of the Jonas Brothers of late. This is a singer of the top caliber who can really bring some of the best music to life and he’s proving it with The Administration. Many of the songs are his own and just didn’t fit the model of the Jonas Brothers. They will be able to put some of the best music forwards when they return to the stage in a few more months. The Administration experiment is just going to be a quick trial run. But they are impressing critics of many different shades and they tell us that the new tour is great because they can see the musician evolving in some very significant and exciting ways. Hopefully Jonas will continue to improve and his solo plans work out well.

One of the big bands of the grunge rock movement, Soundgarden, seems to be planning to get back together after over 13 years apart. It’s not clear if this will be a long-term reunion or just a little nostalgia fest. I suppose it depends on how it turns out in the concert ticket sales. But it’s a lot of fun for those of us who followed them back in the 90s because we’ll get to hear their great songs live once again and from the actual musicians. Maybe they’ll even put out some new music for the first time since back then. The band seems absolutely ready and excited to do these performances, though they’ve all been in music much of the intervening time. They’ve been working for other bands like Pearl Jam and other big names. It’ll be fantastic to see them together again after all these years!

If you thought they’d done everything, you were wrong. The Addams Family has become a musical now! It’s a little bit hard to imagine what the Addams would possibly sing about, don’t worry. Remember, the cartoons and the show were comedies and it’s always a lot of fun to watch them again. With Nathan Lane, Carolee Carmello and several other great performers in the cast, this looks to be one of this year’s highlights. For the moment, the show will be performed in Chicago as a tryout to the upcoming Broadway run. This gives them a chance to workshop it and it will also give you the chance to see them at a lower cost and you can, in fact, be part of the process of developing the show into a strong piece.

Mariah Carey is returning to the tour! It’s been awhile since we saw her in concert, but it’s going to be amazing. Over the last year or two, the only big news that we heard about her was her feuds with other performers, most notably with Eminem. We will, however, be excited to see her perform her newest songs onstage starting just next week. The tour runs through the end of February, though other dates could be announced at anytime! Are you excited to see her in action? Hurry and pick up your Mariah Carey tickets, because I’m very sure that these are going to be some of the most popular concerts at the beginning of the year. No matter if you want to see her in New York, DC, Chicago, or any other major city, and minor cities too, you will get to experience your favorite performer in action!

The lead singer of Weezer, Rivers Cuomo, has been in the hospital for awhile now. The band was in an accident with their bus and Cuomo was taken into doctors’ care. He is going to be fine. The band has cancelled the rest of their schedule for the current tour so that he can fully recouperate. The pictures of the bus were quite frightening, but he has already put out statements about his condition and it all looks ok, considering how bad it could have been. We seem to have seen more stories about rock bands’ buses going off the road recently; hopefully this is just a weird fluke rather than some kind of trend. Either way, Weezer will probably be back out on the road sometime next year.

Just in the last week or so, there was a big new performance of Second City as an anniversary celebration. It brought back a lot of the company’s most famous members who started making hilarious comedy together once again. It was a one or two night event, but a lot of people really enjoyed it. People like Bill Murray, Alan Arkin, Stephen Colbert and other members of America’s comedy pantheon have come from this comedy group. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to see another performance like that or some kind of retrospective recording of the whole history of the group. It’s been 50 years since they founded to troupe, but it has never been better! Keep watching for the next set of comedians to come out of it for the long future. In the meantime, have a lot of fun!

When Guns and Roses takes the stage again, you know it’s going to be good. They had been among the top bands back in the late 80s and early 90s and some time before that too and now they’re back. It’s a good show according to the fans who went to see it. They are playing songs just as well as they did before and they’re proving that they’re a real class act. Axel, the main guy, is still working hard, changing costumes a lot and singing intensely throughout the show. This is a concert that you shouldn’t miss. After all, they might well retire again after the current set of shows, so you might miss your chance forever if you don’t get there. We have been hearing a lot about this schedule for awhile, but now it’s finally underway and the reviews are nearly universally top of the line!