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Lil Wayne won’t be playing the Super Bowl halftime show at this year’s game in his hometown, but Weezy will be one of the headliners (with the Roots) of the 2025 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The iconic event that will host more than 5,000 acts on 14 stages from April 24-May 4 on the Fair Grounds Race Course announced this year’s lineup on Wednesday (Jan. 15), which will also feature headliners Pearl Jam, the Dave Matthews Band, Luke Combs, Lenny Kravitz and Kacey Musgraves.
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Other acts booked for this year’s predictably eclectic edition include: Santana, John Fogerty, Burna Boy, HAIM, Cage the Elephant, Laufey, Bryson Tiller, Harry Connick, Jr., Patti LaBelle, Trombone Shorty, My Morning Jacket, Gladys Knight, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Cheap Trick, Babyface, Diana Krall, Goose, The Revivalists, Big Freedia and many more.
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Louisiana residents have the chance to snag lower prices for weekend passes and single-day tickets now, with non-resident weekend passes and VIP packages already available already and single-day tickets slated to go on sale at a later date; fans need to set up an account with AXS.com to purchase tickets, with more information available here.
Among the other acts slated to take the stage this year are: Banda MS, Irma Thomas, Tank and the Bangas, Branford Marsalis, Kamasi Washington, The Wailers with Julian Marley, Ledisi Sings Nina, PJ Morton, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Maze Honoring Frankie Beverly, James Bay, Margo Price, Rickie Lee Jones, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, Morris Day and the Time and others.
Check out the full lineup below.
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If you want to experience the new Bad Bunny album you will have to take a trip to the Island of Enchantment. He has announced a residency in Puerto Rico, and the first couple of shows are open to only locals.
As spotted on Variety, the promotional roll out for performer’s newest project DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (transl. I Should Have Taken More Photos, shortened to DTMF) will shine a light on his hometown. This week, he announced a 21-date residency in Puerto Rico. Titled “No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí” (I Don’t Want to Leave Here), a lyric from his hit “El Apagón,” the series will take place at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico. To ensure that residents don’t get priced out, the first nine shows (July 11 to July 27) will be exclusive to those that live on the island.
On Monday (Jan. 13), Bad Bunny released a promotional trailer to his social media accounts announcing the Puerto Rico residency. Here he is seen walking past framed posters of his previous tours and explaining that while he has visited several countries he has yet to visit some on his bucket list and return to some cities he has not returned to in many years. At the end of his walk he says that he is returning home and would like his fans to meet him at his “Casa” (trans. House) and unveils the framed tour posted for the residency.
According to an AI-powered playlist name generator Playlist Name AI, Google searches for the term “Bad Bunny Tour” have surged 809% while “Puerto Rico Flights” have increased by 191% since the announcement.
You can read more about the No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí tour here.
Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome is set to host a benefit concert to help rebuild the communities affected by the devastating fires raging across the city. FIREAID, advertised as “an evening of music and solidarity,” will take place on Jan. 30.
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Ticket information and performers will be announced in the coming days.
The event, produced by the Azoff family alongside Live Nation and AEG Presents, donate proceeds toward an organization created to rebuild Los Angeles infrastructure, as well as support displaced families and advance fire prevention technologies and strategies.
The catastrophic fires started earlier this week in the Pacific Palisades on the west side of Los Angeles, and quickly spread to other areas over the next few days, including Altadena, Studio City and Runyon Canyon. As of Friday, most of the fires were not contained and new ones, including one in Granada Hills, continued to ignite.
Estimates are that up to 350,000 people have been evacuated with more than 9,000 structures destroyed. The fires are among the costliest natural disasters in the United States, with estimated damages to be up to $57 billion, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The music industry has been hard hit with more than 100 executives and artists losing their homes. Several have noted their losses on social media, including attorney Laurie Soriano and publicists Kim Grant and Lesley Zimmerman, as well as Zachary Cole Smith of the L.A. band DIIV. A document with more than 120 names of those who have lost their homes has been circulating with links to GoFundMe accounts for those who have set them up.
Additionally, a number of other resources are available for those who have lost their homes or need assistance in other ways. MusiCares and the Recording Academy have launched the Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort to support music professionals impacted by the crisis, making a combined pledge of $1 million to kick off the efforts. People who have worked in the music industry for more than five years may qualify for immediate assistance, including up to $1,500 in financial aid and $500 in food vouchers.
The 2025 Boston Calling Festival will feature headlining sets from Luke Combs and Megan Moroney, Fall Out Boy, Avril Lavigne, Dave Matthews Band and Vampire Weekend. The three-day Memorial Day (May 23-25) throwdown at the Harvard Athletic Complex will also usher in some new changes this year aimed at easing crowding and providing more shade and free water for fans.
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Joining Combs and Moroney on the first night will be: Sheryl Crow, T-Pain, TLC, Thee Sacred Souls, Wilderado and Mike. Night two will find FOB and Lavigne sharing the stage with Cage the Elephant, The Black Crowes, All Time Low, James Bay, The Maine, Lucius and Valley, among others. The final night will pair DMB and Vampire Weekend with Sublime, Public Enemy, Remi Wolf, Goth Babe, Rager Against the Machine and solo guitarist Tom Morello, The 502s, Spin Doctors and IDK How But They Found Me, and more.
According to CBS News, after some complaints from some fans last year about overcrowding, BC has made some structural changes to the event’s footprint this year, including merging the main Green and Red stages. “We’ve invested in a world-class rotating stage system to provide better views, more space to roam, and enhance audio/video experience for everyone,” read a Facebook post announcing the staging news. Other changes include a decrease in some ticket prices, the return of the Indoor Arena, where fans are invited to take a break in an air-conditioned indoor space (with programming to be announced soon), as well as the addition of more free water stations.
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A presale will kick off on Wednesday (Jan. 8) at 10 a.m. ET, with lowest-price tickets available for two hours (10 a.m.-12 p.m.); you can sign up for it here.
See the full lineup poster below.
The Weeknd‘s Q4 career moves have proven the pop star has remained dedicated to finishing the year strong before kicking off 2025 with a bang: He performed a one-night-only stadium show in São Paulo, Brazil in September and released three singles that he debuted during the show: “Dancing in the Flames,” the Billboard Hot 100 No. 3 hit “Timeless” with Playboi Carti and “São Paulo,” featuring Anitta. In October, he took over a handful more stadiums in Melbourne and Sydney during his rescheduled Australian tour. And the following month, he announced his sixth studio album Hurry Up Tomorrow will be released on Jan. 24, and he’ll perform another one-night-only stadium show at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl the day after.
And somewhere in the middle of all of this, The Weeknd also became the artist with the most songs to hit one billion streams on Spotify, with 24 songs in the Billions Club. And nearly 2,000 of his top listeners on Spotify got to relive those hits during Spotify’s first-ever Billions Club Live concert at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar on Tuesday evening (Dec. 17).
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“It’s a little holiday gift for the OG XO fans supporting me since day one,” he said while blue strobe lights kicked off his 70-minute set. “2024 is almost done. But 2025, we got some new s–t coming out. New album, new tour, new movie. New everything!” His upcoming album Hurry Up Tomorrow, which is the third and final installment of his After Hours / Dawn FM trilogy, will be supported by a psychological thriller film of the same name that will mark the singer’s feature-starring debut.
It’s poetic that the Canadian-Ethiopian superstar (real name Abel Tesfaye) is closing this chapter of his career the same way he started it over a decade ago, with a trilogy of cohesive projects. Outside of his big-picture ideas, he finds clever ways to thread together little details from his entire discography. The popular idiom “this house is not a home,” for example, is a common lyrical theme, which The Weeknd references not only in the 2020 After Hours title track he performed but also dating back to “Twenty Eight” from his 2011 debut mixtape House of Balloons. But for someone as beloved as him, The Weeknd feels right at home on stage even during the remarkably intimate show.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been at a venue like this. Feels like back in the Kiss Land tour or Trilogy tour,” he reflected. “Maybe after the stadium tour, we might go back in time and we might do smaller venues.”
He tapped his frequent collaborator Mike Dean — whom The Weeknd jokingly blamed for his minor coughing fit because he was “hitting that f–king bong all night” — to steer the set “wherever you wanna take it,” before the hip-hop superproducer’s eerie synths introduced Metro Boomin‘s “Creepin,’” featuring The Weeknd and 21 Savage. The Weeknd later summoned his drummer Ricky Lewis to play “Popular,” the platinum-certified hit with Madonna and Carti from his 2023 HBO drama series The Idol. It’s one of two songs from the show to hit one billion Spotify streams, with the other being “One of the Girls” with JENNIE and Lily-Rose Depp. Then, he called on his guitarist Patrick Greenaway to cue the next song — and Greenaway’s scene-stealing shredding summoned “Heartless.” The Weeknd had multiple opportunities to bring out special guests, considering 13 of the 24 songs in the Billions Club are collaborations, but the unprecedented concert felt more suited for his solo victory lap rather than an all-star relay race.
“Oh s–t, this hit a billion?!” he marveled as “Reminder,” from his 2016 album Starboy started playing. The Weeknd warned the crowd of the song’s gunshot background sound during the chorus, a conscious reminder his concertgoers have picked up on from his previous shows. And while this one’s circular stage setup was much simpler than his ornamented stadium show designs, it didn’t stop The Weeknd from making the night memorable: Yellow spotlights flickered as he sang the “I just wanna see you shine ’cause I know you are a stargirl” outro from his and Lana Del Rey‘s “Stargirl Interlude,” and they later twinkled to recreate the grandiose ballroom feel of “Earned It” from the 50 Shades of Grey film. And red strobe lights provoked the sinister aura of his 2015 Hot 100 chart-topper “The Hills” from Beauty Behind the Madness.
He asked if any of his ballads had hit one billion Spotify streams to slow down his set, but the singer was taken aback by the siren-like synth intro of his Gesaffelstein-featuring “I Was Never There” from his 2018 EP My Dear Melancholy, classifying it as more of a “power ballad.” After his 2012 debut single “Wicked Games” (“I know that song didn’t hit a billion, but I felt like I had to do it. It’s necessary, at least one House of Balloons song,” he said matter-of-factly) and “Die For You” — which experienced a TikTok-fueled resurgence six years after its release and produced the Hot 100 No. 1 remix with Ariana Grande — The Weeknd wanted to “pick up the pace” and Daft Punk‘s fuzzy disco-pop production from “I Feel It Coming” instantly got the audience in a groove.
After what felt like the ultimate finisher with “Blinding Lights” — the first song to hit four billion Spotify streams as well as the top Hot 100 song of all time — The Weeknd teased his Hurry Up Tomorrow era by singing a snippet of an unreleased song he’s teased during previous shows, reportedly titled “In Heaven.” “In 2025, everything is fine. In 2025, everything will be fine. I’ll come back for you, XO. But until then, hurry up tomorrow! Hurry up tomorrow! Hurry up tomorrow! Hurry up tomorrow!” he bellowed.
Check out the full set list from The Weeknd’s Spotify Billions Club Live concert below.
“Call Out My Name”
“Moth to a Flame”
“After Hours”
“Lost in the Fire”
“Creepin’”
“Popular”
“Starboy”
“Heartless”
“Reminder”
“Stargirl Interlude”
“One of the Girls”
“The Hills”
“Often”
“I Was Never There”
“Wicked Games”
“Earned It”
“Die For You”
“I Feel It Coming”
“Can’t Feel My Face”
“Save Your Tears”
“Blinding Lights”
Encore:
“Timeless”
“São Paulo”
Maluma is already celebrating milestones for 2025 with the announcement of his Bogotá en el Mapa concert, he shared on Monday (Dec. 16). Set to take place in May at the Nemesio Camacho El Campín Stadium, the Colombian artist will host the first-ever 360 concert at the venue that holds nearly 40,000 people. “On May […]
The Roots are taking it all the way back to ’95. The legendary hip-hop crew and Tonight Show house band announced the line-up for their 2024 Roots Picnic Experience, which will take place at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on June 8, 2025.
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The show, “A Roots Picnic Experience: The Class of ’95,” highlighting a roster of classic acts from the mid-1990s will feature a set from the hosts, as well as performances from Lil’ Kim, Redman & Method Man, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, DJ Quik, Raekwon, E-40, Goodie Mob, Havoc (of Mobb Deep) and others. The group brought their annual event to Los Angeles for the first time this June, where they were joined by Nas, Jill Scott, Lil Wayne, Trombone Shorty, J. Period, Fantasia and many more for a show titled “Hip-Hop Is the Love of My Life.”
Tickets for the 2025 Hollywood Bowl show will go on sale on Wednesday (Dec. 11) at 10 a.m. PT. In the announcement, the group also promised their hometown fans that they shouldn’t fret, they’ll be back home next year for the event that launched in 2007. “DON’T WORRY PHILLY, WE’LL BE BACK FOR YOU IN 2025.”
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In a statement, drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson said, “Well: 1995 was our true arrival. Nineteen eighty-seven was the Year of the Creative Adhesive, the year that tied together Tariq’s world and my world in high school, and 1991 was the Year of the Green Light, the year we gave ourselves permission to take our resources and passion and pursue our dream. But 1995? That was the Year It All Came Together, the year when our first major release, Do You Want More?!!!??! was sent into the world. Hip-hop was an entirely new ballgame back then, on an entirely new playing field. Those were the days when there were still things like mainstream terrestrial radio, bloated video budgets, and creativity at both the regional and the global levels. Those were the days that produced classic album after classic album, unleashing countless new ideas about art. Those were the days when the world was our oyster. This is the story of those days.”
Some of the greatest names in new wave, punk, electronic and alternative rock will come together on June 22 in Milton Keynes, U.K. for the inaugural Forever Now festival.
The one-day even will feature sets from dance minimalists Kraftwerk, as well as “Rebel Yell” singer Billy Idol, punk veterans the Damned, Public Image Ltd and the Jesus & Mary Chain. The bill will also include former Smith guitarist and solo star Johnny Marr, the Psychedelic Furs, The The, the Happy Mondays, Bauhaus singer and solo performer Peter Murphy, Berlin and Theatre of Hate at what a release described as a “cultural phenomenon of the darker underbelly of creativity, from new wave to post-punk, psychedelia and alt-rock.”
The event is a sister act to the U.S.-based Cruel World festival, which will fill the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA on May 17 for a day-long concert featuring New Order, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, the Go-Go’s, Devo, OMD, Death Cult, Garbage, Madness, She Wants Revenge, Alison Moyet and more.
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Additional acts slated for the U.K. show include: Chameleons, UKDecay, the Motels and She Wants Revenge. Fans can sign up for a Dec. 5 pre-sale now here; the general onsite will open at 10 a.m. on Dec. 6. In a statement, promoter AEG Presents said, “From the fashionably dark to the fiercely unconventional, all are welcome to revel in a day of unforgettable music and community. This is a festival where nostalgia meets discovery, where new and devoted fans unite, and where forever truly begins now.”
In addition o music on two stages, the U.K. show will feature a third stage, the Echo Chamber, which will be curated by music journalist John Robb and feature interviews, panel discussions and artist conversations.
Check out the announcement below.
Luis Miguel took his spectacular 2023-24 world tour to a new level on Saturday (Nov. 30), on what was a historic night for the Mexican superstar during his debut at the GNP Seguros Stadium in Mexico City. It was the first of two consecutive nights at the venue, and it also marked the beginning of the end of the highest-grossing Latin tour of all time, according to Billboard Boxscore figures.
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With all tickets sold out and an attendance of 65,000 people, as reported by the promoter Ocesa, it was one of the most massive concerts of the famous performer ever recorded in the country. The dubbed “Sol de México” is expected to repeat the feat on Sunday (Dec. 1).
The singer magnified the show he has been presenting on the tour — which began in the summer of 2023 at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires, Argentina — to match a venue as imposing as the GNP Seguros Stadium, with huge screens that allowed attendees to appreciate every detail of the show from any angle.
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Known for his obsession with perfection in his productions, Luis Miguel’s concert also surprised attendees with the quality of the audio, which showcased his voice potently. Visibly pleased, the performer appeared on the impressive stage elevated by a platform, impeccably dressed in his classic black suit, white shirt, black tie, black patent leather shoes and black silk socks.
It was the beginning of an unforgettable and magical night for the star and his fans, who sang along to each of Luis Miguel’s songs throughout the performance — those that have catapulted him as one of the greatest Latin stars. Saturday’s repertoire was not much different from what he has presented at other shows on the tour, with pop hits, including “Será Que No Me Amas,” “Amor, Amor, Amor,” “Suave,” “Culpable o No,” “Hasta Que Me Olvides” and “Dame,” as well as a segment dedicated to boleros with songs like “Como Yo Te Amé,” “Solamente Una Vez,” “Somos Novios” and “Todo y Nada.”
One of the most celebrated moments came with the traditional mariachi segment and the special dedication to his beloved Mexico, with the classics “Guadalajara,” “La Bikina” and “La Media Vuelta.” With a pyrotechnics show and the legendary “Cucurrucucú Paloma” — a Mexican huapango-style song written by Tomás Méndez in 1954 — Luis Miguel ended his show with a big ovation from his loyal audience.
After Sunday night’s show at the GNP Seguros Stadium, the artist has two more performances in Mexico’s capital, at the Arena Ciudad de México, on Dec. 8 and 10. Both dates are the result of the rescheduling of his Oct. 23, 24 and 28, which Luis Miguel had postponed due to unspecified health problems.
Although the singer had chosen Mexico City to close a spectacular world tour that grossed $318.2 million and sold 2.2 million tickets in its first 146 concerts, as reported in September by Billboard Boxscore, this week he surprised his fans by announcing on his Instagram Stories that the tour will instead end on Dec. 17 in Buenos Aires, at the Campo Argentino de Polo.
The excitement began on the plane: a half-dozen girls and young women exchanging notes on outfits (“You’re doing Lover?” “I’m doing Midnights!” “I’m going as Miss Americana”), making and trading friendship bracelets and even a few headed to the country without tickets, hoping for a day-of miracle. It continued at the bars and restaurants the […]