Concerts
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This Memorial Day Weekend, Busta Rhymes and Jhene Aiko look to light up Las Vegas with their performances at the Palms Casino Resort as part of the launch of The Show: Sunshine Vibes Sessions.
The two concerts will begin this Saturday (May 27) at the Soak Pool with special performances by Aiko, Swae Lee, Saint Jhn and DJ Boof. The following night will feature a second concert by Rhymes, Jeremih and DJ Boof on the 1’s and 2’s.
“We are thrilled to kick off the pool season this Memorial Day Weekend at SOAK,” Steve Sagan, executive director of nightlife and daylife at Palms, said exclusively to Billboard. “SOAK Pool promises to be an ultimate poolside party paradise, offering a vibrant lineup of high-energy entertainment, fantastic music, refreshing drinks, delectable food, and endless fun.”
Last month, Rhymes performed in Vegas for Lovers and Friends and, shortly after, alongside the venerable Janet Jackson during her tour at the New York show. He also has a new album slated to be executive produced by Pharrell, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland.
“First and foremost, thank you to everyone for the birthday well wishes. They always mean so much. I am truly blessed. We continue the celebration this weekend and all year long,” he told Billboard.
Busta continued to speak on his banner year, as he recently headlined the epic HipHop50 tribute at this year’s Grammy Awards and enjoyed a sold-out performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
“2023 has been another milestone year for me, from honoring our beloved hip-hop culture with fellow icons at The Grammys to performing with Queens Janet Jackson and Mary J Blige in the same week at their respective concerts, to my first headlining, sold out, engagement at Carnegie Hall. And of course, when I got the invitations from the Kings Pharrell and Usher, I had to go and destroy the festivals “Something In The Water” and “Lovers & Friends.” As always, my family Spliff Star and DJ Scratch, have been with me tearing down every stage.
He adds, “I assure you we are just getting started. My new album is on the way, and of course, me and my longtime brothers, 50 Cent and Jeremih, are going absolutely earthquake every city starting this summer on the Final Lap Tour 2023.
Tickets range from $65 – $150 and doors will open at 11 AM Saturday morning. Fans can buy here.
The fifth annual Head in the Clouds Los Angeles Music & Arts Festival has announced the lineup for its Aug. 5-6 event. The 2023 LA headliners include DPR Live, DPR Ian, Jackson Wang, NIKI, Rich Brian, Rina Sawayama, XG, YOASOBI and special guest ZEDD. Additional performers for the West Coast iteration include TOKiMONSTA, Keith Ape, […]
Nigerian superstar Tiwa Savage will embark on a North American tour this summer, which was announced Monday (May 22). Produced by Live Nation and Duke Concept, the nine-date jaunt will start Aug. 24 at Washington, D.C.’s The Theater at MGM National Harbor and go through other major U.S. cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta and […]
Miley Cyrus likely won’t be hitting the road in support of her latest album, Endless Summer Vacation. During an interview for British Vogue‘s latest cover story, the 30-year-old superstar singer revealed that she doesn’t see herself going on tour in the near future. “It’s been a minute,” Cyrus said. “After the last [headline arena] show […]
Lizzo may have once fantasized about having Chris Evans’ baby, but those days are behind her. And now that she’s happily in love with boyfriend Myke Wright, she thinks it’s about d–n time her fans start bringing posters of him — and not cutouts of Captain America — to her shows. In a hilarious video […]
Jimmy Buffett canceled his planned concert in Charleston, S.C., on Saturday (May 20) with his Coral Reefer Band after telling fans on Thursday (May 18) that he is dealing with some undisclosed health issues. In a Facebook message to his Parrothead nation, Buffett, 76, said the show at Credit One Stadium would be rescheduled with […]
There’s a reason that Garth Brooks won entertainer of the year a record-setting seven times from the CMA Awards. It’s because he simply has few peers when it comes to live performance.
Brooks proved that again Thursday night (May 18) at the opening night of his Garth Brooks/Plus ONE residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The 2 1/2-hour performance spanned 33 songs and combined the best of his previous one-man show at The Wynn — which ended in 2014 after running for five years — and the full-band, three-year stadium tour that he completed last year that drew more than three million people.
Brooks started off solo backing himself on acoustic guitar, under the guise of saying he needed to sound check how the room sounded full of people. He opened with Bob Seger‘s “Against the Wind,” which he sang partially a cappella. While it’s understandable to focus on his overall talents as an engaging entertainer and his almost supernatural ability to connect with his audience, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that his voice is a tremendously supple and powerful one, which he proved over-and-over throughout the night. He followed with “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” from Keith Whitley, one of his other musical heroes, and his own 1995 hit, “She’s Every Woman,” before bringing on his 11-piece band for a muscular, full-bodied “Rodeo.”
For the rest of the evening, he nimbly toggled back and forth between solo and band performances in what seemed to be a spontaneous set list. While his band was in fine form throughout, they especially shone on a particularly menacing “The Thunder Rolls.” His permanent Plus One, wife Trisha Yearwood, also joined him for four songs, showing off her peerless vocals throughout, but especially on “Shallow.”
Unlike the Wynn show where he narrated a version of his life from the perspective of his youth with a sense of awe of the musical marks his early influences had left on him, this time when he referenced George Strait, James Taylor and Seger, it was as often as a peer. That includes a moving segment where he recounted how stunning it was for him to hear his holy trio sing his own songs back to him when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. It also proved a clever device to perform three of his biggest hits: “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),” “The River” and “That Summer.”
Audience members had to lock up their phones upon entry, which meant no photos, no video, and, certainly, no recording. The simple move kept everyone in the moment, but also allowed Brooks to debut a stunning new song, a dark ballad about finding pleasure in the pain, without worrying it would show up online within minutes.
But the moments of darkness were few (and included a stripped-down, emotional version of “Wolves” from 1990’s No Fences) because, as Brooks has said for decades, there is no one having more fun at his shows than him. His exuberance at being back on stage, embraced by adoring fans who gave him a long standing ovation simply for walking out before he sang a note, was palpable at every turn. Brooks joked earlier in the day that tonight would be the worst of the 27 shows in his 2023 residency; on Friday morning (May 19), he added an additional 18 shows for 2024 that go on sale later this month. If that is the case, fans attending upcoming concerts have got plenty to look forward to as opening night will be hard to beat.
See below for the full setlist from the residency’s opening night.
“Against The Wind”
Less than five hours before Garth Brooks kicks off his new Las Vegas residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Thursday night (May 18), he swears he doesn’t know what his first song will be.
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But the superstar loves flying without a net. “It’s exciting, right?” he says, talking to Billboard in the afternoon before Garth Brooks/Plus ONE opens. “But still, you’re not in this business as long as I‘ve been without having some kind of sense about you. So the net is the people that come see us. They’ve got me. They want to see me fly without a net because they’ve got me if I fall, but I think they like it as much as I do.”
And, he adds, making it up as he goes along is a chance to learn something new about himself as a performer more than 30 years in. “I don’t want to go to a gig, check the boxes and say good night. I want to come off the stage knowing something about me that I didn’t know when I came out there,” he says.
The run comes nine years after his five-year residency at Wynn’s Encore Theater concluded in 2014. Like that show, Garth Brooks/Plus ONE is largely a one-man show, but the Plus ONE gives him latitude to bring different guests up every night. His band will be seated in the audience, so when the mood strikes, he can bring them up to do a full-throated, muscular version of a song like “Callin’ Baton Rouge,” rather than a stripped-down acoustic set. Or his wife Trisha Yearwood could join, as could other entertainers. But as he also explained, the music is the ultimate Plus ONE that has been with him his whole life.
As much as he plans to hit the stage without a plan, Brooks does know that there are songs that people are coming to hear, and “99% of those are going to be Garth Brooks songs,” he says. So, unlike the Wynn show, which relied heavily on songs by artists like James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Bob Seger, who influenced him, it sounds like this show will still include vital covers since Brooks is a veritable human jukebox, but that more of the songs will come from his own voluminous catalog.
Attendees must lock up their phones and no videoing or taping is allowed during the show. Brooks says that gives him the freedom to perform previously unreleased material or songs that he is still in the process of writing. In fact, he vowed to play something brand-new the first evening. “It’s a laboratory,” he says.
He landed at Caesars after having serious discussions with a number of Las Vegas venues and a long courtship. “[Caesars executives] traveled to Nashville. We talked over dinners. We didn’t talk about business, we talked about children, talked about stuff like that. They made it sound very much that they were very interested in phone calls, texts,” he says. “They were going through some other stuff with some of their other entertainers, and when you would talk about that, their immediate response was, ‘We’re focused on you. This is a goal for us.’ It made you feel very wanted. And to be honest with you, it wasn’t an inexpensive deal for them. So they have gone above and beyond, which is very sweet, but it’s like Steve Wynn said: ‘Now all the pressure is on you.’ Now it’s up to you to get out there and hopefully make them feel it was worth it.”
Brooks has always been sensitive to ticket pricing, with his tickets to his non-Vegas shows rarely exceeding $100. But the tickets for this run go as high as $2,500 face value for the front row and are $10,000 for a pair on the secondary market. With no seat more than 145 feet from stage, the lowest ticket price in the 4,100-seat venue is $99 and tickets average out around $350. Brooks says he will continue his long tradition of “stubbing,” where crew members move fans from the farthest seats to a closer location for free.
“What I love about these guys, too, was we said, ‘Hey, look, it shouldn’t just be for the rich to enjoy. Let us still do our stub thing that we do.’ And they have allowed us to do that,” he says. “You understand that for them to make their money back, things have to happen in certain ways. But at the same time, we get to keep our same traditions as well. And my promise to everybody else, too, is if this is too expensive, I get it. We’ll do a dive bar somewhere for free. Or we’ll go play somewhere and hopefully get the ticket prices more around your thing.”
With the 2023 run of 27 shows already sold out, Brooks announced 18 new Colosseum dates for 2024 earlier Thursday. Fans who signed up through Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program for 2023 and were locked out will get first dibs on 2024 tickets. The new Verified Fan on sale date is May 31.
The National are proving that you can go home again. Again. The group, whose members were all born and raised in Cincinnati, announced on Wednesday (May 17) that they are bringing back their Homecoming festival to the Queen City. The lineup for the 2023 event will feature the “Fake Empire” group headlining both nights — Sept. 15 and 16 — with Patti Smith & Her Band, The Walkmen, Arooj Aftab, Bartees Strange, Carriers and Ballard filing out the first night’s roster.
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The second day will find them joined by Pavement, Weyes Blood, Snail Mail, Julia Jacklin, The Drin and Leo Pastel on the Icon Festival stage at Smale park on the banks of the Ohio River.
Though the sad dad quintet have scattered to the wind and all live in different cities now, their lyrics and hearts have continually pulled them back to their Southern Ohio homebase. “When we launched Homecoming in 2018, we were overwhelmed by the response from the community and by our renewed sense of connection to our hometown,” they wrote in a statement in which they promised to play a unique set each night. “It was such an exciting, memorable weekend and we’ve long hoped to bring it back. We’re honored to return to Cincinnati five years later and be joined by so many of our favorite musicians and friends.
Single-day, weekend and VIP passes will go on sale on Friday (May 19) at 10 a.m. ET.
The first Homecoming took place in April 2018 and also featured two unique National sets, along with performances by Father John Misty, Feist, The Breeders, Julien Baker, Future Islands, Alvvays, Big Thief, Lord Huron, Moses Sumney and more; a 2020 edition was scotched due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The National released their ninth studio album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein, earlier this month.
Check out the Homecoming announcement below.
Live Nation has expanded its summer concert week promotion with the announcement of Festival Weekend pricing, which will allow fans to buy $99 all-in one-day tickets to more than a dozen festivals across North America. The special price plan will kick off on Friday (May 19) at 10 a.m. ET and last through midnight on May 22, or while supplies last.
Among the 13 festivals on the list are the Roots Picnic in Philadelphia (June 2-4) featuring Ms. Lauryn Hill, Diddy, Dave Chappelle and Lil Uzi Vert, The Governors Ball (June 9-11), with Lizzo, Haim, Odesza, Lil Baby and Kendrick Lamar the Afro Nation Afrobeats fest in Miami (May 27-28) with Burna Boy, Wizkid, Rema, Fireboy DML and more.
Other festivals getting the $99 treatment are Adjacent (Atlantic City, May 27-28), Lavender Wild (Toronto, June 4), Broccoli City (Washington, DC, July 15-16), FairWell (Redmond, OR, July 21-23), TidalWave (Atlantic City, August 11-13), Catbird (Bethel, NY, August 19-20), One Fine Day (Philadelphia, Sept. 9), FORMAT (Bentonville, AR, Sept. 22-24), Sound on Sound (Bridgeport, CT, Sept. 20-Oct. 1) and Greenville Country (Greenville, SC, Oct. 20-22); the offer is available for a limited weekend and on a first-come, first-served basis.
The $99 all-in price includes all fees upfront, with taxes applicable by city and state.
Live Nation previously announced the return of $25 all-in tickets for more than 3,800 shows across North America this year. The weeklong program that rolled out earlier this month offered limited-time low-dough tickets specials for shows by more than 300 acts, including Janet Jackson, Fall Out Boy, Don Toliver, Maroon 5, Shania Twain, Snoop Dogg and many more.