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It’s hard, if not impossible, to out-goth Robert Smith. But on Monday night (Dec. 4), Team Niall’s Nini Iris did her level best to bring all the spooky vibes to her cover of The Cure’s 1989 mope rock ballad “Lovesong” on The Voice.
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The 27-year-old Tbilsi, Georgia native who made it to the live shows on the Georgian version of The Voice in 2012 and then moved to New York in 2016 — where she went from being a cabaret singer to a professional wedding singer — has been on a serious roll since the beginning of the playoff rounds last month.
But on Monday night she kicked it to a new high with her moving, emotive Cure cover. Accompanied by a string quartet and pianist, Iris stood atop a square platform midstage wearing a midnight black dress, long lace gloves and a matching choker and belted out the song’s keening lyrics over the moody arrangement.
Adding a bit of Adele-like soul to the darkly bouncy song from the Cure’s Disintegration album — which became the band’s highest-charting U.S. single when it hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in Oct. 1989 — Iris climbed into her sky-high register to sing the track’s’s haunting refrain: “Whenever I’m alone with you/ You make me feel like I am home again.”
As the music swelled and Iris’ voice took on a gritty growl, she became more animated and held the final “I will always love you” for an extra beat as mentor Horan closed his eyes and watched with pride. “And the Grammy goes to” he joked, dubbing the performance “absolutely spectacular.”
The stunning performance came on the same night that season-long frontrunner Ruby Leigh, 16, posted yet another impressive performance for Team Reba when she sang McEntire’s 1980 single, “You Lie.” With the season 24 grand finale just two weeks away, the competition got real on Monday night when the top 12 semifinalists finally competed for America’s votes.
Other impressive performances from the episode included Team Reba’s Jacquie Roar’s roaring version of Lainey Wilson’s “Wildflowers and Wild Horses,” Team Gwen Stefani’s Kara Tenae doing an elegant cover of Keyshia Cole’s “Love” and Team John Legend singer Lila Forde’s mellow ramble through the Barbie soundtrack Indigo Girls folk rock classic “Closer to Fine.” The show also featured spots from Team Gwen’s Tanner Massey and BIAS, Team Niall’s Huntley and Mara Justine, Team Legend’s Azán and Mac Royals and Team Reba’s Jordan Ranier.
Watch Nini Irish sing “Lovesong” on The Voice below.
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The Red Hot Hili Peppers are hitting the road again in spring 2024 for another round of dates on their Unlimited Love tour. The extension of the veteran punk funk band’s 2022-2023 outing will including a slate of North American dates scheduled to kick off on May 28 with a show in Ridgefield, WA at the RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater.
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And they are, of course, bringing along some very special friends to help celebrate, including opening acts Kid Cudi, Ice Cube, Ken Carson, Otoboke Beaver, Seun Kuti & Egypt80, Wand and IRONTOM.
The 16 new Live Nation-promoted dates will also include stops in Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Tampa, Virginia Beach, Cincinnati, Toronto and St Louis, where the trek is scheduled to wind down at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre on July 30. The band previously announced a run of 2024 shows, including a Feb. 17 gig at the Venue at Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln, CA, a Feb. 20 show at the Yaamava’ Theater in Highland, CA and a Feb. 23 show at the Innings Festival in Tempe, AZ.
Tickets for the new dates will be available starting with a Citi presale beginning Tuesday (Dec. 5) at 10 a.m. local time through 10 p.m. local time on Dec. 7 here. An artist presale will start at 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday (Dec. 6) with additional presales through Thursday (Dec. 7) in advance of the general on-sale kick off on Friday (Dec. 8) at 10 a.m. local time here.
The Chili Peppers released Return of the Dream Canteen — which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top Album sales chart upon release — in Oct. 2022, six months after dropping the Unlimited Love album, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
Check out the 2024 North American Unlimited Love dates below.
May 28 – Ridgefield, WA @ RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater +
May 31 – Quincy, WA @ The Gorge +
June 2 – Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheater +
June 5 – Salt Lake City, UT @ USANA Amphitheatre =
June 7 – Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater ^
June 18 – West Palm Beach, FL @ iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre *
June 21 – Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre ~
June 26 – Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park ~
June 28 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach ~
July 2 – Burgettstown, PA @ The Pavilion at Star Lake =
July 5 – Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center *
July 12 – Buffalo, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheater ^
July 15 – Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage ^
July 22 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center #
July 25 – Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center @
July 30 – St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre @
+ With Ken Carson and IRONTOM
= With Kid Cudi and IRONTOM
^ With Wand and IRONTOM
* With IRONTOM
~ With Ice Cube and IRONTOM
# With Seun Kuti & Egypt80 and IRONTOM
@ With Otoboke Beaver and IRONTOM
% Not a Live Nation Date
Grammy-winner Olivia Rodrigo was praised as one of the most important songwriters of her generation by St. Vincent at Friday night’s Variety Hitmakers ceremony, where she was presented with the Storyteller of the Year award.
“In order to be a good storyteller, one must—to quote Olivia herself — pay attention to things most people ignore. Olivia sees the cracks and contradictions in herself and others and makes the ineffable understandable and transformational for her listeners,” St. Vincent said. “Her honest songs about the impossible task of growing up have liberated so many young people fighting and fumbling their ways through the same experiences. But it’s not merely paying attention that matters to the craft of songwriting. It’s also how you observe and how you listen.”
Vincent said one of the things that makes Rodrigo’s songs so alluring to fans is that they consider them to be their personal rallying cries thanks to the “Vampire” singer’s openness and compassion. “Her authenticity — not an affect, not a brand — allows her listeners to step inside her songs as their complete selves: struggling, searching, celebrating, just living. Just being,” Vincent continued. “Olivia’s songs pull off the magic trick of sounding like all of us at once, but also uniquely just like her. I call that a sly generosity, which is a beautiful thing to witness and to hear, and it’s one of the reasons I’ve so enjoyed getting to know Olivia over the past few years.”
Searching for words to describe Rodrigo, 20, St. Vincent landed on calling her a “precious baby angel muffin… but if a precious baby angel muffin was tough as nails and cool as hell and f–in’ loved the Breeders. She is shockingly talented, whip smart, and to me, the most important combination, curious and kind. These attributes make her great and will make her a great storyteller for years to come. Olivia’s listening, she’s asking, she’s interrogating the cracks in herself and in humanity. But because of her empathy, what she brings to the surface in her songs are the small frailties and the slivers of joy — those threads that make up our every single day. She pays attention to the things most people ignore, and makes them not just seen, but makes them shine. So I’m happy to call her a friend.”
Clearly moved, Rodrigo thanked Vincent and said her tribute made her want to cry. “I think she’s the most talented, kindest, most wonderful person I’ve ever met and I’m so inspired by her constantly and I’m very lucky to call her a friend,” Rodrigo said of her inductor. The singer also talked about writing “Can’t Catch Me Now,” from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, saying that “telling stores through songwriting has been my favorite thing to do for as long as I can remember. I write to figure out how I feel, to move through my emotions, and to commemorate and honor seasons of my life.”
She added that even though songwriting is one of her favorite things to do in the world, “I wouldn’t say it’s always been effortless for me by any means. Especially making my most recent album, I had so many voices in my head and I felt so much pressure to please everyone with the music I was making.”
Late Pogues singer Shane MacGowan will be laid to rest on Friday (Dec. 8) in Nenagh, County Tipperary in Ireland, not far from the family farm he grew up on. According to RTE, the funeral will be open to the public, allowing friends, fans and family to say farewell to the beloved vocalist/songwriter who died on Thursday at 65.
The “Fairytale of New York” starwho had battled a series of major health issues in recent years, died of pneumonia in a hospital, his wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, told the New York Times. MacGowan, who would have turned 66 on Christmas Day, had been battling viral encephalitis before his death.
Clarke told RTE that after months in the hospital, MacGowan was discharged on Nov. 22 and sent home to spend time with friends and family. “He was trying very hard to breathe,” Clarke said. “He wasn’t ready to give up. He wasn’t ready to stop fighting — but his body did it for him.” She said that a “constant stream of visitors” came to visit MacGowan over his final months, including U2’s Bono and The Edge, singer Imelda May, Irish playwright/filmmaker Jim Sheridan and Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie, among others.
Clarke also confirmed that MacGowan completed an album before his death and that it “sounded good… he took great delight in the music he made.”
According to RTE, the funeral will begin on Friday morning when the cortege will leave Nenagh and travel to Dublin, where the procession will move across the city to St. Mary of the Rosary church. The singer’s remains will then be returned to Tipperary and cremated, according to the Irish Independent, with this ashes to be scattered across the river Shannon, the longest river in Ireland, which MacGowan sang about on the song “The Broad Majestic Shannon” from the Pogues landmark 1987 album, If I Should Fall From Grace With God.
MacGowan will be returned to the river he wrote about so eloquently in the song featuring his patented sad-eyed naturalistic imagery. “So I walked as day was dawning/ Where small birds sang and leaves were falling/ Where we once watched the rowboats landing/ On the broad majestic Shannon,” he sang on the track.
Irish President Michael Higgins is scheduled to represent the nation at the funeral, which is expected to also be attended by Bono, the remaining members of the Pogues and other Irish luminaries; U2 are slated to play a residency show at Sphere in Las Vegas on Friday, so it’s unclear if Bono will appear in person at the funeral.
MacGowan’s passing was honored by a broad cross section of musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Garbage, the Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, Nick Cave, Jason Isbell, and U2, who performed “A Rainy Day in Soho” at their Vegas residency over the weekend. In a rare public statement, fellow chronicler of whiskey-soaked, diamond-in-the-dirt characters Tom Waits penned a moving tribute along with his wife/co-songwriter Kathleen Brennan.
“Ah, the blessings of the cursed. Shane McGowan’s torrid and mighty voice is mud and roses punched out with swaggering stagger, ancient longing that is blasted all to hell. A Bard’s bard, may he cast his spell upon us all forevermore,” they wrote.
See some of the tributes below.
Ah, the blessings of the cursed. Shane McGowan’s torrid and mighty voice is mud and roses punched out with swaggering stagger, ancient longing that is blasted all to hell. A Bard’s bard, may he cast his spell upon us all forevermore. pic.twitter.com/Xpc1wYnkhv— Tom Waits (ANTI-) (@tomwaits) December 1, 2023
Kiss will live on as digital avatars following its final concert at Madison Square Garden in New York.
During the encore of their last show on Saturday (Dec. 2), the legendary rockers — co-founders founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons as well as guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer — made a surprise announcement that they will continue on as digitized versions of themselves going forward.
“Kiss Army, your love, your power, has made us immortal!” vocalist/guitarist Stanley said in a video revealing the digital characters as the virtual band launched into a performance of “God Gave Rock and Roll to You.” “The new Kiss era stars now!”
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After the concert, part of the Kiss’ End of the Road farewell tour, the quartet shared a two-minute video on YouTube teasing their next chapter.
“The future is so exciting,” Simmons says amid behind-the-scenes snippets of the band wearing motion capture suits to develop their high-tech avatars. Stanley adds, “We can live on eternally.”
Kiss’ avatars were created by George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, in partnership with Sweden’s Pophouse Entertainment Group, according to the Associated Press. The companies recently collaborated on the ABBA Voyage show in London, a virtual concert performed by the Swedish pop group.
“Kiss could have a concert in three cities in the same night across three different continents. That’s what you could do with this,” Pophouse CEO told the AP.
In a roundtable interview, Stanley noted that Kiss “deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are,” adding, “It’s exciting for us to go the next step and see Kiss immortalized.”
Simmons pointed out that the forthcoming digital band will be able accomplish things the original members couldn’t dream of doing.
“We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before,” the bassist said. “The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”
Watch Kiss’ “New Era” promo video below.
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Noah Kahan made his Saturday Night Live debut on Dec. 2, performing songs from his latest album, Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever). The Vermont-born singer-songwriter, who snagged a best new artist nominee at next year’s Grammys, opened with his Post Malone collaboration “Dial Drunk” and closed with his breakthrough song “Stick Season,” which […]
U2 is remembering fellow Irish musician Shane MacGowan. The veteran U.K. Rock and Roll Hall of Famers paid tribute to the late Pogues singer with a moving rendition of the Celtic band’s “A Rainy Day in Soho” during their Las Vegas residency on Friday (Dec. 1) at the Venetian’s Sphere venue. “Sing with us, for […]
It’s been more than 27 years since Sublime performed its final show with Bradley Nowell, but recent moves by the late frontman’s family have paved the way for the band’s possible return with Nowell’s son Jakob Nowell as the famed Long Beach punk-ska-reggae trio’s next generation singer.
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Jakob Nowell — who was 11 months old when his father died in 1996 — has been performing and touring for more than a decade, and this year signed a record deal with Epitaph Records for his group Jakob’s Castle and made a surprise appearance with Stick Figure at Coachella. On Dec. 11, he will perform at a benefit concert for Bad Brains frontman H.R. at the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles alongside Sublime’s original members, bassist Eric Wilson and drummer Bud Gaugh, for the first time ever. The trio are not calling themselves Sublime for the benefit show, but Jakob’s manager Kevin Zinger with Regime Music Group and musician-turned-executive Joe Escalante have already been selected by the original band members, along with Bradley Nowell’s wife (and Jakob’s mom) Troy Dendekker Nowell, to manage the rights and intellectual property for Sublime.
Kevin Zinger
Fabrice Henssens
Zinger and Escalante have been hired to manage the “legacy assets, the licensing and all the business in Sublime going forward for Jake, Troy, Bud and Eric,” Escalante tells Billboard. “The guys plan to jam together in support of H.R. at the Teragram Ballroom on Dec. 11. Beyond that we’re not prepared to make any announcements.”
Zinger is a veteran music executive and documentary filmmaker whose clients include House of Pain, Tower of Power, Everlast and Steele Pulse. Escalante is bassist for the famed Orange County punk band The Vandals, as well as a music executive and Hollywood showrunner.
News of a relaunched Sublime has generated significant interest from festival talent buyers who have already begun submitting offers for festival bookings, Zinger tells Billboard. But for now, he says, the three men remain focused on rehearsing for the Dec. 11 show.
Joe Escalante
Aki Yamazaki
“We’re patiently waiting and doing the right thing,” says Zinger. “If the vibe’s there, the vibe’s there.”
Wilson is also a member of Sublime with Rome, a popular touring outfit led by singer Rome Ramirez that plays songs from Sublime’s catalog as well as Ramirez’s originals. The name Sublime with Rome was created as legal a compromise between Ramirez, Wilson and Troy Dendekker Nowell in 2010 after Nowell sued to stop the men from touring under the name Sublime.
Further complicating matters for Sublime relaunch with Jakob Nowell is that Sublime With Rome have a New Zealand tour and a number of big festivals booked in 2024;, as does Jakob’s Castle, who’s opening for G Love & Special Sauce on a tour running through the end of March.
Tickets are still available for Positive Mental Attitude: A Benefit For HR of Bad Brains at the Teragram Ballroom on Dec. 11, priced at $30 apiece. There is also a GoFundMe set up to benefit H.R. here.
It’s been more than half a century, but The Beatles are back at No. 1 on a Billboard airplay chart. “Now and Then” rises 2-1 on the Adult Alternative Airplay tally dated Dec. 9.
It’s The Beatles’ first No. 1 on the survey, which began in 1996. The band previously peaked at No. 11 with “Free as a Bird” that year.
The last time the group notched a No. 1 on a Billboard radio chart was 1970, when “Let It Be” (the Fab Four’s sole other airplay leader) ruled Adult Contemporary for four weeks beginning that April.
Of course, The Beatles boast their share of chart-toppers elsewhere, including a record 20 No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100. Their final ruler to date also came in 1970 with two-week leader “The Long and Winding Road”/“For You Blue” that June. They have also earned a record 19 No. 1s on the Billboard 200 albums chart and rank at No. 1 on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Artists chart.
The Beatles break the record for the most time between a first appearance on Adult Alternative Airplay and a first No. 1, as “Free as a Bird” ranked on the inaugural chart, dated Jan. 20, 1996.
Concurrently, “Now and Then” jumps 29-25 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 1.4 million audience impressions, up 5%, according to Luminate.
On the most recently published Hot Rock & Alternative Songs list (dated Dec. 2), “Now and Then” placed at No. 14, after reaching No. 2. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 2.4 million official streams and sold 18,000 downloads and physical singles combined in the U.S. Nov. 17-23.
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“Now and Then” is billed as The Beatles’ final song. It was recorded as a demo in 1977 by John Lennon and finished at last by surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, among others, after multiple attempts via new technology to extract Lennon’s vocals from the original demo, along with guitar parts from George Harrison. It’s included on the reissues of the group’s 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 compilations, initially released in 1973 and re-released Nov. 10.
As previously reported, “Now and Then” debuted at No. 7 on the Nov. 18-dated multimetric Hot 100, becoming The Beatles’ 35th top 10 – extending their record for the most among groups. It also expanded their span of Hot 100 top 10s to 59 years, nine months and three weeks – the longest excluding holiday fare, dating to their first week in the top 10 with their iconic U.S. breakthrough single “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in 1964.
All Billboard charts dated Dec. 9 will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, Dec. 5.
When you’re the greatest live rock band to ever do it, you clearly give the people what they want. So it’s no surprise that the Rolling Stones are releasing a live deluxe edition of their new Hackney Diamonds album. The refreshed version will feature seven songs recorded live at the band’s surprise show at New […]