State Champ Radio Concerts
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Icehouse has canceled its upcoming performance at the Sydney Opera House as band leader Iva Davies battles with the “ongoing aftereffects” of COVID-19.
The ARIA Hall of Fame-inducted act postponed a pair of performances last month, part of the Great Southern Land 2022 – The Concert Series, due to ill health.
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First, a show Nov. 19 at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl was put on ice, when Davies contracted the novel coronavirus.
“We have very strict protocols around our travel and performance schedule but somewhere I contracted COVID-19 despite all my vaccinations,” Davies said at the time.
“I am devastated to have to postpone the concert but the impact of the infection means that I am having difficulty breathing and certainly couldn’t manage to sing a full show.”
A week later, the ‘80s legends scrapped its concert Nov. 26 at Brisbane’s Riverstage.
“Despite getting good care from my doctor since I was diagnosed with COVID-19, my condition hasn’t improved,” Davies explained in a statement, issued Nov. 24. “As with so many other COVID sufferers, the effects of the infection are lasting a lot longer than I hoped. The difficulties I am having with breathing mean that I cannot sing for the duration of an Icehouse performance.”
Question marks lingered on whether Davies would be fit for next Monday’s (Dec. 12) performance at the forecourt of the iconic Sydney venue.
Then, on Wednesday (Dec. 7), Icehouse and promoter Live Nation announced the show would not go on.
“I am so very, very sorry to have had to cancel this show. Any of you who know my history will be aware of how special my relationship with the Opera House is,” Davies writes on a social post.“From the age of 14 I walked past it once a week to attend my oboe lessons at the Conservatorium when it was still a building site, little knowing that at 18 I would be playing in the orchestra in the new Opera Theatre for the first operas performed there.” He continues, “I performed on the Concert Hall stage as an oboist as well. I sang in two ballets that I composed for the Sydney Dance Company that opened in the Opera Theatre. And then, of course, there was the performance on the forecourt of the 25-minute extended piece ‘The Ghost of Time’ based on ‘Great Southern Land’ which led to the countdown into the new Millennium for Sydney.”
The Melbourne (Feb. 11, 2023) and Brisbane (Feb. 18, 2023) shows has been rescheduled. The Sydney show, however, is wiped out due to no alternative date being available, a statement confirms.
Icehouse is one of Australia’s post-punk gifts to the music world. Emerging fully-formed as Flowers, Davies and Co. dropped Icehouse in 1980, an album stacked with gems that haven’t lost any of their lustre, including “We Can Get Together,” “Walls” and “Can’t Help Myself.”
Davies adopted the band Icehouse and had an instant classic with the synth-powered album Primitive Man, which this year celebrates its 40th anniversary. It’s lead track “Great Southern Land” is an unofficial anthem of this country, and “Hey Little Girl” cracked the U.K. top 20, peaking at No. 17 (album track “Street Café” charted at No. 62).
A U.S. breakthrough would come with the 1987 album Man of Colours, which yielded two top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 – “Crazy” (No. 14) and “Electric Blue” (No. 7).
Icehouse was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006.
Kenny Chesney was king of the road among country artists in 2022. The touring titan led all country acts reporting to Billboard Boxscore by grossing $135,046,047 from 41 stadium and arena shows on his Here and Now tour.
The total was also enough to land him at No. 9 on the all-genre Billboard Boxscore year-end tally. Additionally, he drew the highest attendance among country acts, attracting 1.3 million people. Chesney last topped the tally in 2018 with $114.3 million from 42 shows on his Trip Around the Sun stadium tour that drew 1.3 million people. (A limited 21-date arena tour in 2019 grossed $19.2 million.)
The Here and Now Tour included dates originally scheduled for 2020 and then 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic caused cancellations and postponements.
“We had missed each other so much,” Chesney tells Billboard of his fans. “I think we’d almost forgotten how good it was, and once we got there and felt that love – both off the stage and from the people – the word was out. We always have crazy great audiences, but this year, No Shoes Nation wanted to be there, to share the moment in a way where we were making up for those years we couldn’t come together and rock.”
Chesney’s manager Clint Higham agrees, telling Billboard, “The people of No Shoes Nation are such intense fans, the being together after four years created its own energy and momentum. We found ourselves adding seats in so many markets to try to meet the demand because whether it was the people who’d held their tickets for over 1,000 days in many cases or the people buying those new tickets who felt the buzz and wanted to be there, it was a whole new level of demand based on what Kenny gives people.”
Coming in at second place — and No. 11 on the all-genre chart — Morgan Wallen grossed $128,718.950 from 66 shows on his first full arena outing. Wallen dominated the album charts as well: In September, his Dangerous: The Double Album broke the record for the most nonconsecutive weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 by a singular artist with 86 weeks, surpassing the 85 weeks tallied by Peter, Paul & Mary’s self-titled album in 1962-1964.
Chris Stapleton, who led the tally last year with $33,884,658 from 32 shows, came in third in 2022 with a gross of $83,080,631 from 69 shows.
Country icon George Strait played only 10 shows to roll into fifth place, grossing $50,048,167 from 263,285 fans.
Fellow legend Reba McEntire was the only woman to make the top 10, grossing $27,506,847 from 27 shows. The outing has been extended into 2023 and will include her first headlining Madison Square Garden show.
BamBam is heading to the Philippines to lead a lineup of international acts for the forthcoming Wavy Baby Music Festival next month.
Billboard can exclusively reveal that the Thai-born singer-rapper joins fellow K-pop star Sunmi, as well as R&B singer Pink Sweat$, as the final headliner for Careless Music’s Wavy Baby Music Festival taking place at the North Reclamation Area of Mandaue City of the Philippines’ province of Cebu.
BamBam joining as a headliner makes the musician trio somewhat of a family affair as BamBam and Sunmi are both signed under Korean management label Abyss Company, while Sweat$ produced and co-wrote Bam’s latest single “Slo Mo.”
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Careless Music’s Wavy Baby Festival is the brainchild of James Reid, the Filipino singer-songwriter who launched his Careless record label in 2017 that’s signed artists like California singer-songwriter Destiny Rodgers and singer-actress Nadine Lustre. Way Baby’s lineup also includes Rogers as well as Korea’s rock-pop band The Rose, Australian electronic music duo Bag Raiders, L.A.-born producer DJ Yultron, and some of the Philippines’ breakout bands like Ben&Ben.
Wavy Baby Festival takes place from Jan. 13-14, 2023, to coincide with the religious Sinulog-Santo Niño Festival celebrations that typically take place in Cebu every year in January. COVID-19 concerns canceled Sinulog festivities for the past three years, but 2023 will mark its long-awaited return alongside the debut of Wavy Baby.
Early bird tickets are still currently on sale for the next three days. The full artist lineup is below.
James ReidBamBamSunmiPink Sweat$IssaMassiahLeshaJoliannaThe RoseBen & BenDestiny RogersDJ YultronBag RaidersDecember AvenueFrancoA-TeamSOSAugust WahhThe SundownMandaue NightsSepiatimesThree Legged MenWonggoys
Independent booking agency Ground Control Touring has set up a series of concerts in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago to benefit abortion funds.
On Jan. 23, the Lodge Room in LA, Bowery Ballroom in NY and Schubas in Chicago will all host a special night of music and festivities dubbed Ground Control Touring Presents: Abortion Funds Benefit Series. One hundred percent of proceeds will go to Noise For Now, a non-profit specializing in reproductive justice, which will allocate the funds raised to local independent abortion clinics and abortion funds in each region.
New York’s Bowery Ballroom will host Anysia Kym, Beach Fossils (DJ set), Discovery Zone, Downtown Boys, Duendita, Hannah Jadagu, Horsegirl, Ian Sweet, Katy Kirby, Liz Cooper, Mary Jane Dunphe, Weeping Icon, Wet (stripped down) and Yumi Zouma (DJ).
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In Los Angeles, fans can check out Ah-Mer-Ah-Su, Automatic, Barry Johnson of Joyce Manor (DJ set), Charlie Hickey, Current Joys (solo), Dummy, Fashion Club, Hunx and His Punx, Maral, Mary Lattimore, Riki, Tatiana Hazel and Warm Drag, with visuals by Zack Rodell.
The Chicago performance will include Akenya, Bnny, Finom, Godly the Ruler, Grelley Duvall, Post Animal (DJ set) and V.V. Lightbody.
Each show will also feature raffles, while LA and NY will have special guests. Additional artists are also expected to be announced soon. Tickets go on sale Dec. 7 at 10 a.m. local time and can be found here.
Launched in 2017, Noise For Now enables artists and entertainers to connect with and financially support grassroots organizations that work in the field of reproductive justice. To date, it has worked with 340 artists and entertainers to raise $1 million for partner organizations, with $500,000 distributed in 2022 alone.
Was 2022 the worst “best year ever?” By some measures, the concert business had its most successful year. From Nov. 1, 2021, to Oct. 31, 2022, the top 10 tours grossed a combined $2.2 billion in ticket sales, according to Billboard Boxscore, 36% more than they did in 2019, the previous full year of touring, and more than four times the $519 million they took in during the pandemic-limited 2021.
Some of this growth follows an existing trend. Since 2013, the live business has grown steadily between 5% and 10% a year, thanks to international expansion and an increasing number of megatours. In 2013, eight acts took in over $100 million at the box office — Bon Jovi, P!nk, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones and the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson show.
But the business also experienced a sharp uptick this year, driven by a combination of pent-up demand, a number of big tours and inflation. Sixteen tours crossed the $100 million mark, and the number of concert tickets sold in the first three quarters of 2022 was up 37% over 2019, according to Live Nation’s most recent quarterly report.
The bad news, however, is twofold: More work for fewer employees in the wake of pandemic layoffs, plus rising costs for staffing, production and travel, threaten to erode profits. “We are working harder than ever just to try and make sure we don’t lose any ground,” says Jim Cressman, founder and owner of Canadian independent promoter Invictus Entertainment.
Cressman and Live Nation executives say that fans also seem to be changing their concertgoing habits by waiting longer to buy tickets. About 30% of tickets for this year’s Lollapalooza festival in Chicago were purchased five days or fewer before the event, according to Live Nation. It’s a concerning trend for promoters and tour organizers who have become accustomed to scaling event costs up and down based on projections from early sales. Fans are also getting wise to the fact that ticket prices, especially on the secondary market, tend to drop over time.
The names of the top 10 tours won’t surprise anyone who follows the industry. No. 1 is Bad Bunny, who did two tours during this time frame: El Último Tour del Mundo, which ran from February to April and grossed $116 million, and World’s Hottest Tour, which brought in $246 million from August to the end of the Billboard Boxscore touring year; it will run until Dec. 10. The tour dates within this time frame, as well as isolated hometown shows in Puerto Rico, grossed a combined $373.5 million, the third-highest year-end total in Boxscore history after Ed Sheeran’s $429.5 million in 2018 and The Rolling Stones’ $425 million in 2006.
This is the first year that each tour in the top 10 grossed over $100 million and the top five each took in more than $200 million. Some of that is due to higher ticket prices: Bad Bunny tickets cost an average of $201, while tickets to Sheeran’s No. 1 2019 ÷ (Divide) shows cost an average of $86; the average ticket price of a top 10 tour was $130.76, up from $114.29 in 2019. Some of that growth comes from inflation, of course, while some is from a shift to higher ticket prices in order to capture revenue that once went to the secondary market. “The spending levels are really the same,” says Live Nation Global Touring chairman Arthur Fogel. “It’s just that artists are capturing more of it than ever before.”
Farther down the Top Tours chart, the growth also stays consistent. The top 40 tours grossed a total of $4.6 billion, up from a total of $3.5 billion in 2019, a difference of 32%
The New Scorecard
This year, Billboard Boxscore created a new chart to rank tours by number of tickets sold, not just revenue, although that information had already been included. And although promoters were concerned earlier in 2022 that touring market oversaturation would mean concerts drew fewer fans, the chart actually shows the opposite — major concerts attracted larger audiences without cannibalizing other shows. In 2022, a combined 17.1 million people saw the top 10 attended tours, up 21% from a combined 2019 attendance of 14.1 million. This year also marked the first time that 19 of the top 20 attended tours drew over 900,000 fans.
The top 10 tours also represent one of the youngest lists in recent years, with an average headliner age of 49.3, as opposed to 51.2 in 2019 and 54.6 in 2021. The oldest act was The Rolling Stones — Mick Jagger and Keith Richards will both be 79 by the end of the year, and Ron Wood is 75. The youngest acts were Harry Styles and Bad Bunny, both of whom turned 28 this year.
As in years past, Live Nation dominated the business, exclusively promoting half of the top 20 — which grossed a combined $1.5 billion — as well as Bad Bunny’s stadium shows, in collaboration with Cárdenas Marketing Network, and some shows for My Chemical Romance and Paul McCartney. AEG Presents follows with a handful of global tours, including Elton John, that combined accounted for $843 million. CMN powered Bad Bunny at No. 1 and Daddy Yankee at No. 13, while Mercury Concerts led the Latin American dates for Guns N’ Roses. Sheeran, at No. 3, was promoted by a mix of buyers throughout Europe.
On the agency front, the leader is Creative Artists Agency, with eight acts in the top 20: Styles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, the Eagles, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber and My Chemical Romance. Wasserman Music had four clients in the top 20 — Sheeran, Coldplay, Kenny Chesney and Billie Eilish — while UTA had two: Bad Bunny and Guns N’ Roses.
Three of the top tours — John, McCartney and The Rolling Stones — have global touring deals with AEG but don’t have a traditional booking agency deal. WME had only one artist in the top 20 with Daddy Yankee. So did the Neal Agency, started in February by Austin Neal, son of longtime WME agent Kevin Neal. Austin formed the agency to represent Morgan Wallen, who took a hiatus from touring after his use of a racial slur was caught on video in 2021. Wallen grossed $128 million in 2022 from 66 shows.
Axl Rose has addressed recent reports that a woman was hurt at a Guns N’ Roses concert in Australia when she was hit by a microphone thrown by the singer.
In a post on Twitter Friday night (Dec. 2), the Guns N’ Roses frontman announced that he would no longer toss his mic into the crowd, something he says he’s done to close the show “for over 30 years.”
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“It’s come to my attention that a fan may have been hurt at r show in Adelaide Australia possibly being hit by the microphone at the end of the show when I traditionally toss the mic to the fans,” Rose wrote. An article published by the Adelaide Advertiser earlier in the week reported a concertgoer named Rebecca Howe claims she was left with two black eyes and a bruised nose after being hit in the face with Rose’s mic in Adelaide on Tuesday (Nov. 29).
“If true obviously we don’t want anyone getting hurt or to somehow in anyway hurt anyone at any of r shows anywhere,” Rose’s statement continued. “Having tossed the mic at the end of r show for over 30 years we always felt it was a known part of the very end of r performance that fans wanted and were aware of to have an opportunity to catch the mic.”
He noted, “Regardless in the interest of public safety from now on we’ll refrain from tossing the mic or anything to the fans during or at r performances.”
“Unfortunately there r those that for their own reasons chose to frame their reporting regarding this subject in a more negative n’ irresponsible out of nowhere light which couldn’t b farther from reality,” added Rose. “We hope the public and of course r fans get that sometimes happens. A BIG THANKS to everyone for understanding.”
See his note below.
BLACKPINK in your area! After launching their hotly anticipated Born Pink World Tour in Seoul, the girl group headed to North America for a run of 14 concerts that ended Nov. 19 and 20 with back-to-back shows in Los Angeles.
Taking over Banc of California Stadium, Jisoo, Rosé, Lisa and Jennie shut it down time and time again over the course of their two-hour set, electrifying the stadium full of ecstatic Blinks with hits like “Kill This Love,” “How You Like That,” “Whistle” and “Pink Venom.”
Whether they were running through fan favorites like “Savage Love” and “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du” or live-debuting Born Pink album cuts like “Typa Girl” and “Tally,” the idols demonstrated that their live show has only gotten better and more refined since the release of their debut LP The Album in 2020 and their 2021 online concert BLACKPINK: The Show.
Each of the members also shone during their own solo sets, with Jisoo bringing out Camila Cabello to duet on the latter’s 2019 single “Liar,” Jennie teasing a yet-to-be-released track with a shadowy dance number, Rosé delivering a one-two punch with “On the Ground” and Born Pink solo cut “Hard to Love,” and Lisa combining her pole-dancing prowess and undeniable star power on “Lalisa” and “Money.”
Below, Billboard was on the ground for BLACKPINK’s two L.A. shows. Click through for some of the best photos from the concerts.
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Las Vegas entertainment is back in full swing, with some of today’s biggest stars — from Adele and Miranda Lambert to Katy Perry and Usher — taking the stage for their own residencies.
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However, because there are so many shows available, finding the perfect one can be a bit overwhelming. To make things easier, we’ve compiled a list of all the currently announced Las Vegas residencies, where they’ll be taking place and, of course, where to buy tickets.
See below.
December 2022:
Dec. 2 – 31: Adele at Caesars Palace (Buy tickets here or here)
Dec. 2 – 10: Luke Bryan at Resorts World Theatre (Buy tickets here)
Dec. 2 – 11: Aerosmith at Park MGM (Buy tickets here or here)
Dec. 3 – 11: Miranda Lambert at Zappos Theater, Planet Hollywood (Buy tickets here or here)
Dec. 16 – 17: Ray Romano & David Spade at Terry Fator Theatre, Mirage (Buy tickets here or here)
January 2022:
Jan. 20 – 28: Adele at Caesars Palace (Buy tickets here or here)
February 2022:
Feb. 3 – 25: Adele at Caesars Palace (Buy tickets here or here)
March 2023:
March 3 – 25: Adele at Caesars Palace (Buy tickets here or here)
March 24 – 30: Miranda Lambert at Zappos Theater, Planet Hollywood (Buy tickets here or here)
March 24 – 31: Maroon 5 at Dolby Live, Park MGM (Buy tickets here or here)
April 2023:
April 1 – 9: Miranda Lambert at Zappos Theater, Planet Hollywood (Buy tickets here or here)
April 1 – 8: Maroon 5 at Dolby Live, Park MGM (Buy tickets here or here)
May 2023:
May 18 – 28: Garth Brooks at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace (Buy tickets here or here)
June 2023:
June 1 – 23: Garth Brooks at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace (Buy tickets here or here)
July 2023:
July 28 – 29: Maroon 5 at Dolby Live, Park MGM (Buy tickets here or here)
August 2023:
August 2 – 12: Maroon 5 at Dolby Live, Park MGM (Buy tickets here or here)
Miranda Lambert has extended her Miranda Lambert: Velvet Rodeo The Las Vegas Residency through the end of 2023, with the addition of 16 new shows that will take place in July, November and December 2023.
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The residency, held at Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, highlights Lambert’s catalog of chart-topping songs as well as deep album cuts, bringing in music from her self-titled 2001 debut, through her current album Palomino, which is nominated for a Grammy for best country album (she has previously won the best country album Grammy for her projects Wildcard and Platinum).
Lambert previously told Billboard about taking inspiration from residencies from Brooks & Dunn, Shania Twain and George Strait.
“What I learned from those shows alone was that you’re in Vegas because you built a catalog, so play the songs that people know and love from you. That’s really what I’m sticking with. Sometimes on the road or with new record cycles, we get all wrapped up in our new songs, but there’s a certain amount of trust the fans put in this catalog.”
Tickets for the new slate of shows goes on sale Friday, Dec. 9 at 10 a.m. PT, while fan club members will have access to a presale beginning Monday, Dec. 5 at 10 a.m. PT.
See the additional 16 shows for the Miranda Lambert: Velvet Rodeo The Las Vegas Residency below:
July 2023: 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22
November 2023: 30
December 2023: 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 14, 16
With over 20 year of being in a band, The 1975 has nothing but love and admiration for one another. So much so, they sometimes share and showcase their love for each other through public displays of affection.
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During The 1975’s San Francisco show at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Tuesday (Nov. 29), love was in the air by the time fan favorite track “Robbers” rolled around in the band’s set, which saw frontman and lead singer Matty Healy stealing a brief, yet passionate smooch from bassist Ross MacDonald during the famous pause in the song’s dramatic outro.
“And I’ll shoot him if it’s what you ask / But if you’d just take off your mask/ You’d find out everything’s gone wrong,” Healy sings, before pulling in MacDonald for the kiss and playfully pushing him away to belt, “Now everybody’s dead/ And they’re driving past my old school.”
MacDonald seemed to enjoy Healy’s affections, taking to Instagram later on Tuesday to share a cinematic snap of the moment to his account, captioning it, “The luckiest girl in the world.” Fans were understandably in awe of the moment, with one user commenting they “don’t know if I’m jealous of you or matty” and another fan stating they “wish i was matty healy for once in my life.”
Healy and MacDonald’s kiss is just one of many antics that have occurred during the band’s At Their Very Best tour — last week, the vocalist kissed a fan onstage, also during “Robbers,” and in previous stops during the North American trek made waves for eating raw meat onstage.
The 1975 has a total of seven dates left in the North American leg of its At Their Very Best tour, with stops in Portland, Seattle, Toronto and more before concluding on Dec. 17 at Pittsburgh’s UPMC Events Center.
See MacDonald’s photo and fan captured moments of the kiss below.
