Rock
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Foo Fighters match Shinedown for the most top 10s in the 14-year history of Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, as “Rescued” bounds in at No. 3 on the April 29-dated ranking.
“Rescued” starts with 4.9 million audience impressions earned in the April 14-20 tracking week, according to Luminate.
That count was accrued over just two days, as “Rescued” was released April 19.
“Rescued” is the second song to debut in the top three of Rock & Alternative Airplay in 2023, following Linkin Park’s “Lost,” which launched at No. 1 on the Feb. 25 tally and has remained atop the list since — it tallies its 10th week on top on the latest list.
Foo Fighters now boast 15 top 10s on Rock & Alternative Airplay, dating to the chart’s 2009 inception. That ties the band with Shinedown for the most top 10s, with Shinedown’s 15th, “Dead Don’t Die,” currently at No. 5 (3.9 million impressions).
Most Top 10s, Rock & Alternative Airplay:
15, Foo Fighters
15, Shinedown
13, Cage the Elephant
13, Imagine Dragons
13, twenty one pilots
11, The Black Keys
11, Muse
10, Weezer
Should it reach No. 1, “Rescued” would mark Foo Fighters’ record-extending 10th chart-topper. The next-closest acts — Cage the Elephant, Green Day and Twenty One Pilots — have six apiece.
Foo Fighters’ most recent No. 1, “Making a Fire,” crowned the survey for seven weeks in 2021. In between “Fire” and “Rescued,” they also charted with “Love Dies Young,” which peaked at No. 3 in March 2022.
Concurrently, “Rescued” starts at No. 18 on Alternative Airplay and No. 20 on Mainstream Rock Airplay.
The track also bows at Nos. 7, 23, 24 and 33 on the multimetric Hot Hard Rock Songs, Hot Alternative Songs, Hot Rock Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs tallies, respectively. In addition to its radio audience, “Rescued” earned 744,000 official U.S. streams and sold 1,000 April 19-20.
That download count sends “Rescued” to a No. 1 debut on Alternative Digital Song Sales, marking Foo Fighters’ first leader in the ranking’s 12-year history. Previously, the band’s bests were No. 3 peaks with “My Hero” in 2022 (after originally becoming a hit in the late 1990s) and “Run” in 2017.
“Rescued” is the lead single from But Here We Are, Foo Fighters’ 11th studio album, due June 2. The Dave Grohl-fronted band’s first LP since 2021’s Medicine to Midnight is its first since the 2022 death of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins, for whom a replacement has not yet been named.
The 2023 Tribeca Festival announced the star-studded lineup for its gala events and the opening, closing and centerpiece selections on Thursday (April 27). This year’s fest will kick off on June 7 with the North American premiere of Kiss the Future, a documentary following a group of underground musicians and creatives during the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo and the 1997 U2 concert celebrating the liberation of the Bosnian capital.
The doc, produced by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Sarah Anthony — and featuring U2’s Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton — will officially open the 12-day event’s theme of artists-activists.
“We know U2’s marquee is helpful in getting the lives of these local heroes to a wider audience, but even at my most puffed up I couldn’t have imagined our tiny role being given so much care, attention, and screen time by Nenad Cicin-Sain,” U2 singer Bono said in a statement. “If defiance is the essence of romance, then the people of Sarajevo are the most romantic figures. Viva Sarajevo!”
Damon added that he and childhood friend and producer/writing partner Affleck are proud that Kiss the Future was selected to open this year’s festival. “We are grateful to the people of Sarajevo and to U2 for giving us the opportunity to help tell this special story,” he said in a statement. “Though this event happened almost 30 years ago, we feel it has strong relevance to today’s world, serving as a powerful reminder that human creativity can provide a powerful antidote to even the most horrific of situations.”
The Centerpiece Gala will spotlight the NY premiere of Disney/Pixar’s Elemental, as well as musical documentaries about Carlos Santana (Carlos), Cyndi Lauper (Let the Canary Sing) and French Montana (For Khadija), with each artist performing after the screenings. Megan Thee Stallion will also be on hand for a Storyteller’s conversation on June 14.
“Music is an instrumental form of storytelling, and the Tribeca Festival is thrilled to weave dynamic performances into our Gala events. Our lineup features the best of soul, rock & roll, pop, and hip-hop,” Tribeca Festival Director and VP of Programming Cara Cusuamno said in a statement. “We hope our audiences are inspired by activism in art and riled up by the electrifying acts paired with the screenings.”
This year’s festival will take place from June 7-18 in New York and feature 109 films, including documentaries about Alicia Keys, Gogol Bordello, Milli Vanilli, Gloria Gaynor, Biz Markie, the Indigo Girls and Tierra Whack.
While Bob Dylan has painted a handful of album covers and released several books of drawings over the years, the singer-songwriter’s fervent fans have had few chances to see original art pieces from his hand up close and personal.
But lo and behold! Fans in the New York City area will soon have an opportunity for a close encounter with some odds and ends drawings done by Dylan circa the 1967 recording sessions for the legendary The Basement Tapes album (released in 1975). And if you have a spare $60,000, you could be the one bringing it all back home.
Somewhat improbably, these captioned drawings – done on the blank side of a brown paper bag when Dylan was recording at Big Pink in Saugerties, N.Y. – will be on hand at the 63rd annual ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which returns to the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan from April 27-30.
The drawings, like the artist himself, are unusual. One depicts a man with a guitar waving and shouting a variation on a Basement Tapes lyric — “Long Distance Operator, This call is Not For Fun!”; another shows what the seller describes as “robot guitar machines”; and yet another features a visage not unlike the one that Dylan painted for the cover of 1970’s Self Portrait.
The story of how the drawings ended up at a book fair is just as unusual as the artwork – though significantly less mysterious. In 2022, Gabe Boyers, a dealer in antiquarian music manuscripts, art and books, was contacted by a man whose late sister maintained a friendship with Levon Helm of The Band during the heady Basement Tapes days. “[She was] in the middle of things with The Band, Eric Clapton and Dylan,” explains Boyers. After inspecting the materials, Boyers – whose gallery Schubertiade Music & Arts (at “B” Dry Goods) is selling the drawings – says he was struck by the way these pieces provided “an incredible impression of this moment and time.” Some of the materials he viewed included “calendars where she meticulously records which drugs they were taking on which day.”
The drawings, on the other hand, are a bit less meticulous. “Like Dylan and his lyrics – they’re difficult to pin down,” he says.
One thing that wasn’t difficult to establish, however, was the validity of the connection to Dylan. The previously seller’s late sister, who died tragically young, had an established history with The Band and Dylan during the period.
“There’s an incredibly deep provenance history that puts her in this room in a well-documented way,” he says. Not only that, but her brother had previously sold some of her personal items from that period via Sotheby’s, meaning the venerable auction company had already vetted items from her collection. Even so, Boyers – who has been doing authentication services for universities and libraries for nearly two decades – made a point to show the drawings to several major Dylan archivists, who confirmed the authorship. “You can tell instantly it’s the same hand, the same quirky confidence.”
You can gawk firsthand at that quirky confidence starting April 27, when the piece will be “very much on display” at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. “The fair is an incredible opportunity for people to come see things that are normally in museums,” says Boyers, who is also selling a Beethoven manuscript with Ludwig van’s first thoughts on Symphony No. 9.
Elsewhere at the four-day event, music history lovers can see the design archive of Alex Steinweiss, the man who essentially invented album cover art in the 1930s as Columbia Records’ first art director (that collection is being sold by James Cummins Bookseller). Boyers notes that while not everyone has tens of thousands of dollars to drop, the fair offers plenty of items that go for hundreds of dollars.
That price point doesn’t, of course, include the 60k Dylan drawing – but that isn’t just any item. “There’s a lot of fake stuff on the market,” Boyers says. “The opportunity to get things that are undeniably from a certain time and have a strong provenance…. It’s not just a rare item. We know exactly when this was created, who it was made for, and who the other person’s handwriting is on it — she was in that room. It’s a special piece.”
A May 28 concert by Roger Waters that was slated to take place in Frankfurt, Germany that was canceled after city council members called the former Pink Floyd singer/bassist “one of the world’s most well-known antisemites” is not slated to go on as scheduled.
German public broadcast outlet Deutsche Welle reported on Monday that an administrative court in Frankfurt ruled that neither the city nor the state of Hesse had the right to cancel the show at the Frankfurt Festhalle. As owners of the concert’s promoter, Messe Frankfurt, the court said the state and city were obligated to “make it possible for Waters to stage the concert” as contractually agreed, despite their concerns over Rogers’ previous public statements about Israel.
“The court on Monday said that although Waters’ show obviously borrows symbolism linked to National Socialism, it could not see that he was glorifying or qualifying Nazi deeds or identifying with Nazi racial ideology,” Welle reported. “Nor was there any indication that he would be using any type of Nazi propaganda during the concert.” It is against the law in Germany to display Nazi symbols or memorabilia.
The court said that to deny Waters access to the site — on the spot of what was a Jewish detention camp during WWII, where 3,000 Jewish men were held on Kristallnacht (“Night of the Broken Glass”) in Nov. 1938 before being sent to their deaths — would infringe on his free speech rights.
At press time a spokesperson for Waters had not returned a request for additional comment.
“The background to the cancellation is the persistent anti-Israel behavior of the former Pink Floyd frontman, who is considered one of the most widely spread antisemites in the world,” the city council said at the time of the cancelation in a statement. “He repeatedly called for a cultural boycott of Israel and drew comparisons to the apartheid regime in South Africa and put pressure on artists to cancel events in Israel.” Waters has denied that he is an antisemite.
The JTA reported that the city of Frankfurt made reference to the historic significance of the concert hall — which it partly owns — and said it was cancelling the show over Waters’ support of the controversial BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions). BDS is a Palestinian-led movement that calls for a boycott of Israel to force the nation’s government to change its policies toward Palestinians.
The JFA additionally noted at the time that Waters concerts have featured a flying pig balloon featuring a Star of David (as well as a number of other corporate logos and symbols) and that he’s compared the actions of the Israeli government to that of South Africa under apartheid and Nazi Germany as well as questioning Israel’s right to exist.
The court conceded that it might be in “especially poor taste” to allow Waters, 79, to perform on the sacred site, but concluded that such a show would “not be injurious to the human dignity of those people.”
In Sept., Waters canceled planned shows in Krakow, Poland amid similar outrage over his stance on Russia’s unprovoked, yearlong war in Ukraine, which he has said was the fault of Ukraine and NATO.
Metallica’s 72 Seasons debuts atop multiple Billboard charts dated April 29, including the Top Rock & Alternative Albums survey.
In its first tracking week (April 14-20), Seasons earned 146,000 equivalent album units, according to Luminate. Of that sum, 134,000 units were via album sales.
It’s Metallica’s fifth No. 1 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums, which began in 2006. The rockers first ruled with Death Magnetic in 2008 and then with 2016’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct (the band’s last proper LP prior to Seasons) and 2020’s S&M2 with the San Francisco Symphony, along with a first week at No. 1 in 2021 for 1991’s Metallica upon its 30th anniversary.
The new set’s 146,000-unit start marks the best single-week sum on Top Rock & Alternative Albums this decade. It’s the biggest since Tool’s Fear Inoculum soared in with 270,000 units on the Sept. 14, 2019, ranking.
Seasons is also Metallica’s fifth No. 1 on both Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums.
The set bows at No. 1 on Top Album Sales with its 134,000-unit sales count, becoming Metallica’s eighth leader dating to 1991’s self-titled album. On Vinyl Albums, it’s likewise No. 1 thanks to 43,000 first-week vinyl copies sold, marking the group’s sixth champ, tying the band with The Beatles and Jack White for the second-most, after Taylor Swift with nine.
On the all-genre, mult-metric Billboard 200, Seasons debuts at No. 2, behind Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which earned 166,000 units. The band adds its 12th top 10 on the chart, a run that began with …And Justice for All in 1988.
Concurrently, multiple songs from Seasons reach Billboard song charts, with the entire album’s tracklist infusing Hot Hard Rock Songs. It’s led by the title track and current radio single, which leaps 12-2 thanks to 2.7 million radio audience impressions, 2.4 million official U.S. streams and 1,000 downloads sold. “Shadows Follow” is next at No. 6 (1.8 million streams).
Twelve songs at once on Hot Hard Rock Songs is the most since the chart’s 2020 inception, surpassing Deftones‘ 10 songs on the Oct. 10, 2020, ranking.
“72 Seasons” jumps 8-6 on the latest Mainstream Rock Airplay survey. It’s Metallica’s 26th top 10, placing the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers in a tie with Van Halen for the sixth-most since the chart began in 1981. Preceding single “Lux Æterna” reigned for 11 weeks beginning in December, while fellow teaser song “Screaming Suicide” (not promoted to radio) spent one week on the tally at No. 40 in February.
The Project
Blondshell arrived April 7 on Partisan via Knitting Factory. and included the artist’s 2022 debut single “Olympus.”
The Origin
Sabrina Teitelbaum wanted to be a singer since she was a kid growing up in Manhattan. In 2015, she moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California’s Popular Music Program, and eventually launched a solo pop project called Baum. But it wasn’t until she wrote the broody and slow-burning “Olympus” that her career clicked, and Blondshell was born. Producer Yves Rothman encouraged her to write more songs in the same raw and rock-inspired style, which she recalls felt “intimidating” at first. But the songs, most of which make up Blondshell, tumbled out quickly. “It was just obvious to me that this stuff was more who I am,” she says now.
The Sound
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Teitelbaum was raised on rock greats like The Rolling Stones and is a big fan of The National (she says the band’s black-and-white album art for Trouble Will Find Me inspired her own debut cover). At the same time, having grown up in the 2000s, she was listening to pop icons like Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Gwen Stefani, “and all these people who had higher belting ranges,” she recalls — adding that for a long time, she thought that she had to sing that way, too.
It took a song like the confessional “Sepsis,” one of her favorite songs to perform live, to make her rethink that approach. “It’s just in a good place for my voice,” she says of the track. “And when I started writing the album, particularly with ‘Sepsis,’ I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t have to do that. I’m just gonna sing in the most comfortable part of my voice.’ It’s fun to sing that one because it’s just easy.”
The Record
Blondshell had a “relaxing celebration” when her album arrived, performing at Amoeba on release night and heading to the beach the following day. Blondshell debuted at No. 88 on Billboard’s Top Current Album Sales chart, becoming her first entry on any tally. Of signing with an indie label, she says “I didn’t wanna press that button that was like, ‘This is exactly who I’m gonna be for the rest of my career.’ I really wanted the freedom to change that up … I’ve been thinking about, ‘What did I bring in as references for this album?’ And it was a lot of 90s guitar driven music. I am always gonna have that as a reference, because that’s the music that I love.”
The Breakthrough
Though Blondshell only debuted in 2022, the artist says getting to this point – where in recent months she’s played her favorite venue The Fonda and made her late night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon – has required years of work: “First [it was], ‘How do I even get on Spotify? How do I meet producers and how do I go to sessions?’ Just years of step-by-step. And then, ‘What do I wanna sound like as a performer? What do I want my show to look like?’
“I was getting kind of scared the last couple years because I was like, ‘I don’t know what I would do in a long term kind of way if it wasn’t music,’” she recalls. “I think people put so much pressure on musicians, especially women, to know exactly who you are as an artist at such a young age, and to find success and all these ideas — like, ‘If you’re not having success by the time you’re like 25, then it’s not gonna happen.’ All these messages that got sent while I was growing up were kind of freaking me out for a period of time.”
The moment that started to shift, she says, was when she played her first show as Blondshell last summer: “That felt like a big moment, because I put ‘Olympus’ out and I think people hadn’t heard that kind of music [from me]. Some of my friends hadn’t heard it, people I had worked with. And then I got to be like, ‘See, I’ve been working really hard at this thing and getting this live show ready,’ and I got to show people.”
The Future
Blondshell is already excited for her next album, on which she wants to be more experimental, while still rooted in rock. She cites PJ Harvey as an artist who’s released successful but “weirder, progressively” indie-rock albums over the course of her career. “I wanna just play around with different structures and stuff like that,” she says.
She’s also taking note of who she believes to be stellar vocalists. “I feel like there’s a lot of artists right now that are really good live,” she says. “That’s the thing I’m looking at in other artists who are ahead of me or further along in their career.” She mentions Ethel Cain and Willow in particular, whose Coachella performances she keeps seeing clips of online. She also mentions a superstar she has been inspired by since she was a kid: Miley Cyrus. “I love her,” says Blondshell. “I was just watching videos of her singing yesterday and it takes so much work to sound that good and to be that consistent.”
The Piece of Advice Every New Indie Artist Needs to Hear
“While you’re in the process of making the music, don’t think about how you’re gonna put it out. Don’t bring the business parts of it into the actual writing. I would say leave those elements – and also leave your expectations about whether or not people will connect to it – outside.”
The Indie Artist/Band You’re Currently Obsessed With
“I like Wednesday a lot. Listen to ‘Formula One.’”
The Most Exciting Thing In Music Right Now
“I see a lot of singer-songwriters making indie feel more mainstream right now. And I think guitar music becoming popular again is sort of part of that. I also feel like it’s kind of like, indie sleaze is back. I think people are craving that energy. But I don’t know, I just feel like there’s more space for different kinds of music to be popular on a more mainstream level right now.
But more importantly, there being more room for other types of music than just three genres. And [knowing] your references can be very different. I think people might be surprised that I absolutely love Miley Cyrus. There’s a lot of very indie artists who love her. I saw her on the street once, I had my sister’s dog and she said, ‘Can I say “hi” to the dog?’ And I was like, ‘You’re Miley Cyrus.’ I was with my family and my dad was like, ‘Who is that? You’re blushing.’ I was like, ‘Are you f–king serious? It’s Miley Cyrus, and yeah, I’m blushing. You don’t have to call me out.’ It was kind of iconic of him, actually.”
The latest edition of the Nu-Metal Madness 2 tour featuring Crazy Town and (hed)p.e. was thrown into chaos this week after Crazy Town singer Seth “Shifty Shellshock” Binzer and guitarist/singer Bobby Reeves came to blows following a show in Myrtle Beach, CA over the weekend. As seen in a viral video, the band members who were touring as Crazy Town X, got into a bloody brawl after their show at The Boathouse on Saturday night.
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The fight was reportedly sparked by Binzer not coming out until the final song of the “Butterfly” group’s set. A YouTube video (warning: clip contains threats of sexual and physical violence) of the purported scuffle shows Binzer punching and kicking Reeves as the guitarist lays on the ground attempting to shield his face as an agitated Binzer shouts, “who has it, who has it?… you’ll give me my money or you’re never gonna f–king… you’re gonna steal my money? You robbed me!”
Reeves, his face bloodied, attempts to tell Binzer that he doesn’t have his money and at one point Binzer extends his hand to the guitarist to help him up as the two men square off face-to-face and Reeves makes a series of escalating violent threats against Binzer’s family. The guitarist then punches Binzer in the face as the pair exchange kicks and blows while Binzer repeatedly tells Reeves he loves him while demanding his guarantee for the gig.
While a spokesperson for the band could not be reached at press time, Reeves posted an Instagram Story on Tuesday (April 24) from Houston in which he sported cuts and bruising on his face and said, “me and Shifty got in a little scuffle, but it’s all good, we’re brothers,” lifting up his dark glasses to reveal two swollen black eyes. “No big deal,” he adds. “Love you Shifty too.”
The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reported that Boathouse management declined to comment on the altercation. But (hed)p.e. singer Jared Gomes released a video statement on Tuesday in which he said Crazy Town had been booted off the tour following the incident. “[We] Had to kick Crazy Town off the tour. We’re not saints, by any means, and (hed)p.e. has done some crazy s–t,” he said. “I’m not passing judgement on Crazy Town or Seth or anything like that. But whatever has gone on with us, we’ve always tried to come with a good rock show.”
Gomes added, “Because of what’s going on with Seth and Crazy Town right now — Seth needs help. We can’t just sit by while he’s on the road, battling demons to the death. He needs to get off the road and deal with that s–t. You’ve seen the video. If it was just a fistfight between band members, maybe I could be the first one to mediate some s–t like that. But this is a lot deeper.”
The next stop on the tour is slated to take place tonight (April 26) at The Vixen in McHenry, IL.
See Gomes’ statement below.
Freddie Mercury was a man of extravagant tastes and gestures whose private, off-stage life was a mystery to most during his lifetime. But this fall Sotheby’s will pull back the curtain on the late Queen singer’s private oasis, his sumptuous Kensington, West London home Garden Lodge during a series of exhibitions and auctions displaying its glittering contents.
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Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own will give fans a first look at the star’s never-before-seen private collection of stage costumes, handwritten lyrics, fine art, precious objects and personal effects in touring exhibitions that will hit New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong in June and then a full takeover of Sotheby’s London galleries in August, followed by six auctions in September.
Among the one-of-a-kind items slated for auction are Mercury’s crown, a replica of St. Edward’s Crown — which will be worn by King Charles III at his upcoming coronation — as well as his fake fur, red velvet and rhinestone cloak worn for the finale rendition of “God Save the Queen” during his last tour with Queen in 1986. Bidders can also take a shot at Mercury’s unseen handwritten manuscript for the working lyrics to “We Are The Champions,” as well as the handwritten working lyrics to “Killer Queen” and a lavish military-style black silk and velvet Sgt. Pepper-ish jacket created for the singer’s legendary 39th birthday party drag ball in 1985.
“On acquiring Garden Lodge in 1980 – a beautiful, light-filled Georgian-style brick villa originally built for an artist and his sculptor wife in the early 20th century – Mercury set about creating a home that was at once grand and intimate, full of theatre and richly furnished with beautiful works of art,” reads a description. “It was a place wholly of his own making, a home to which he could retreat, and where – surrounded by the abundant art and objects he carefully sought out over the course of years – he could entertain and create in a way that only he knew how.”
For three decades, the Lodge has been left almost exactly as Mercury left it when he died in Nov. 1991 at age 45, filled with Victorian paintings, as well as works on paper, glass art and luxurious fabrics he acquired on the road in Japan. Among the other items up for auction are a tiny Tiffany silver mustache comb, pink star-shaped glasses similar to the ones he wore in the “We Will Rock You” video, several notebooks of his drawings, the 1975 Martin acoustic guitar used to write and record “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and works of art by Tissot, Picasso and Matisse.
The month-long Sotheby’s exhibit in London will take over 16,000 square feet of gallery space, filling it with more than 1,500 items lovingly curated by one of Mercury’s closest friends, Mary Austin. “For many years now, I have had the joy and privilege of living surrounded by all the wonderful things that Freddie sought out and so loved,” she said in a statement about the effects that will be displayed in a series of immersive galleries devoted to different aspects of Mercury’s life.
“But the years have passed, and the time has come for me to take the difficult decision to close this very special chapter in my life. It was important to me to do this in a way that I felt Freddie would have loved, and there was nothing he loved more than an auction,” she added about the display that will open on August 4 and close on Sept. 5, which would have been the singer’s 77th birthday. “Freddie was an incredible and intelligent collector who showed us that there is beauty and fun and conversation to be found in everything; I hope this will be an opportunity to share all the many facets of Freddie, both public and private, and for the world to understand more about, and celebrate, his unique and beautiful spirit.”
The London show will be followed by six dedicated auctions and a live evening sale on Sept. 6, where a cross-section of the most significant items will be offered; that will be followed on Sept. 7 and 8 with two more live auctions, one focused on Mercury “On Stage” and another to his life “At Home.” A portion of the funds raised will go to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the Mercury Phoenix Trust.
You can see the full catalog, the collection book and dates of the exhibitions and auctions here.
Kelly Clarkson made quite the statement on Tuesday’s (April 25) episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show with her Kellyoke cover of Rag’n’Bone Man’s “Human.”
“Maybe I’m foolish/ Maybe I’m blind/ Thinking I can see through this/ And see what’s behind/ Got no way to prove it/ So maybe I’m lyin’/ But I’m only human after all/ I’m only human after all/ Don’t put your blame on me/ Don’t put your blame on me,” she growled while wearing a printed dress in shades of navy, burnt orange and maroon.
“Human” was Rag’n’Bone Man’s first hit single from his 2017 debut album of the same name. While the song gave the British singer his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 74, it was a much more substantial chart heavyweight in his native U.K., landing at No. 2 on the Official Singles Chart. (The single also became a top five hit on both Billboard‘s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Airplay charts.)
During the episode, the coach of The Voice welcomed Meghan Trainor and her husband Daryl Sabara to reveal the “Mother” singer is expecting another boy, just a couple of years after they shared the sex of their older son Riley on the show as well.
Recently, Clarkson has used her ever-popular Kellyoke segment to debut a live performance of her new single “mine” from her forthcoming 10th studio album Chemistry. Other song selections have included Coldplay’s “Magic,” Journey’s “Faithfully,” Dionne Farris’ “I Know,” Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” and more.
Watch Clarkson perform Rag’n’Bone Man’s “Human” below.
U2 announced the dates for their upcoming residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere at the Venetian venue on Monday morning (April 24). The veteran UK Rock and Roll Hall of Famers will kick off the U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere run on Sept. 29, marking their first live run of gigs in four years.
The band first revealed that they would be performing at the cutting-edge building during a Super Bowl commercial in February, with singer Bono and guitarist The Edge peeling back the creative process behind the run in a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. The Sphere gigs will take place on Sept. 29, Sept. 30, Oct. 6, 7 and 8.
In the interview, the pair roll up to the enormous rounded building, the largest free-standing structure on the Las Vegas Strip as Lowe describes the venue as a new Wonder of the World. “There’s nothing like it, it’s light years ahead of everything that’s out there,” Edge says as he shakes hands with the team finishing work on the arena, the only place where the group will perform songs from 1991’s Achtung Baby.
The allure, according to Bono, is that unlike most arenas and stadiums major bands play, the Sphere is built for music and art, not rowdy sports contests, complete with a photo-real highest-possible resolution series of screens that will envelop attendees. “So this building was built for immersive experiences in cinema and performance,” he says, with Edge noting that the sound has been designed as a priority from day one. In fact, unlike most arena shows, when you go see a gig at the Sphere there are no speakers, Bono says, because the entire building is a speaker that Edge notes envelops you in a “completely immersive” sound.
“Depending on where you are in the venue you’ll get your own very unique show,” the Edge promises, describing how the venue will allow the band to deliver Atmos-level sound in a live setting.
Fans can register now for the Verified Fan presale here; fans who previously signed up for Verified Fan for UW are automatically registered for the chance to join the presale. Registration for Verified Fan will close on Wednesday (April 26) at 10 a.m. ET. Fans selected to get an access code will be able to participate in Verified Fan presale starting on Thursday (April 27). Ticket prices begin at $140 and will reflect all-in pricing, which means the listed price is the full out-of-pocket cost including taxes and feeds. According to a release, the large capacity of the Sphere will allow for 60% of tickets to be priced under $300.
In a statement, Bono, Edge and bassist Adam Clayton – drummer Larry Mullen Jr. is sitting out the dates, with Bram van den Berg filling in — said, “U2 hasn’t played live since December 2019 and we need to get back on stage and see the faces of our fans again. And what a unique stage they’re building for us out there in the desert… We’re the right band, ACHTUNG BABY the right album, and Sphere the right venue to take the live experience of music to the next level… That’s what U2’s been trying to do all along with our satellite stages and video installations, most memorably on the ZOO TV Tour, which ended in Tokyo 30 years ago this fall.”
Guitarist The Edge added that the Sphere — which includes such futuristic technology as a 16K x 16K LED display inside the main venue bowl that wraps up, over and around the audience to create a fully immersive experience — is more than just a new venue, but also a “gallery,” with U2’s music slated to be projected all over the walls.
“The beauty of Sphere is not only the ground-breaking technology that will make it so unique, with the world’s most advanced audio system, integrated into a structure which is designed with sound quality as a priority; it’s also the possibilities around immersive experience in real and imaginary landscapes,” Edge said of the 17,500-capacity building with multi-sensory 4D video technology. “In short, it’s a canvas of an unparalleled scale and image resolution and a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We all thought about it and decided we’d be mad not to accept the invitation.”
For now, the band has only announced the initial run of shows. But in speaking to Lowe, Bono suggested that depending on the audience’s reaction and their experience on stage, “I think it’s going to be hard to get us out of here.”
The U2.com presale is open now through Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET, while the general onsale (if any tickets remain) will begin on Friday (April 28) at 10 a.m. ET on Ticketmaster.
Watch the trailer for the Sphere shows and the Lowe interview below.