Live Entertainment Blog

As soon as they finish up the European tour,US fans will be able to buy Kiss tickets for their “Hottest Show on Earth” Tour that runs until September. Although remaining members Paul Stanley (age 58) and Gene Simmons (age 60) are no longer young kids, Kiss isn’t getting less ambitious. The ever loquacious Simmons told the media, “I want this world to be called Planet KISS”. Kiss has sold more than $100 million records worldwide in their forty year career. Original members Ace Frehely and Peter Criss rejoined the band for the world Reunion Tour from 1996-2000 that racked in $46 million. Simmons and Stanley now tour with drummer Eric Singer and lead guitarist Tommy Thayer. The US Tour begins with Kiss’ show in Cheyenne, Wyoming at Cheyenne Frontier Days on July 23rd.

In the 1990’s, alternative rock band Jane’s Addiction were one of the most popular bands in the country, but for the last decade band members Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro spent most of their time on various side projects. With new bassist Duff McKagan playing his first show with the band, Jane’s Addiction played a secret show at music venue Bardot in Los Angeles. The band cranked out eight songs to the delight of 150 audience members. The set list included hits like “Pigs in Zen”, “Ain’t No Right”. “Ocean Size”, and a new song “Old Soulmate”. The band is presently recording a new album with McKagan adding the bass. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see Jane’s Addiction at Perry’s Lollapalooza this summer.

Twenty two year old pop star Rihanna will have a busy summer this year. Her announced “Last Girl on Earth Tour” will be her biggest headlining tour to date yet, playing across the United States in July and August. American fans will have to wait until then to buy Rihanna tickets, because the Barbadian R&B hit maker will be in Europe from April 16th-June 5th.  Rihanna is destined to sell out arenas on both sides of the Atlantic, but she is also making stops at the Rock in Rio Festival in Madrid this summer and on the Lilith Fair Tour as well in Salt Lake City on July 12th. Rihanna is also on top of the charts currently with her single “Rude Boy” off her 2009 release Rated R.  Rihanna has achieved so much in her young career so far that one can only think that things will be even bigger for the Def Jam recording artist in 2010.

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!