Touring
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German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk are going on tour next spring, announcing on Thursday (Dec. 5) a 25-city North American run that starts on March 6 in Philadelphia. The trek includes the group’s previously announced performances at Coachella 2025. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Ticket for the […]
Charli XCX gives her all on stage, but it comes with a cost.
In a new video interview with Variety posted Wednesday (Dec. 4), the 32-year-old pop star opened up about suffering nerve damage from how intensely she performs, noting, “I find touring really hard emotionally.”
“I find the stage — especially these days — to be a very angry place for me,” she continued. “I’ve done a lot of physical damage to my body from performing, and I’m often in a lot of pain when I perform. Physically, I have nerve damage in my neck from things I’ve done on the stage.”
Charli is currently gearing up for a run of 2025 dates in support of her critically acclaimed album Brat. This year, she hit the road with Troye Sivan for their joint Sweat trek, an arrangement the “Von Dutch” artist called “a lot easier and less of an emotional battle for me.”
“For me to give a performance I feel is good enough, I have to really physically throw myself around and that makes me very upset when I do it,” she added. “It’s kind of this hellhole, but being with Troye softens that a lot.”
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The video comes alongside a feature interview with Variety, in which the musician opened up about the surprising success of Brat, her insecurities and more. At one point, she shared that her “Sympathy Is a Knife” remix collaborator Ariana Grande gave her advice on multiple fronts, including kick-starting her acting career and hosting SNL. (The “Yes, And?” singer helmed the show in September, followed by Charli in November.)
Charli also recalled bonding with the Wicked star over the “Sympathy Is a Knife” lyrics. “She had a lot to say,” the “365” artist said of Grande, who “gravitated” toward the track, according to Charli. “We went back and forth on the lyrics, talking about all the knives that we both felt in this industry.”
Watch Charli open up about her nerve damage above.
In 2025, the Grateful Dead will celebrate 60 years since its inception. But even after six decades, the long, strange trip continues — and business is still booming. Founding members Bobby Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart are all resolute: They’re not retiring anytime soon, and the Dead’s world is very much alive and kicking.
In January, Weir will stage the second edition of “Dead Ahead,” the destination concert event in Riviera Cancun, Mexico, that features different lineups of supporting musicians; this year, he’ll be joined by his Dead & Company compatriots Jeff Chimenti and Oteil Burbridge, his Wolf Bros bandmates Don Was and Jay Lane and other guests including Sturgill Simpson, Brandi Carlile and Goose’s Rick Mitarotonda.
And, on Dec. 4, Dead & Co. — the touring ensemble formed by Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart, alongside Chimenti, Burbridge and John Mayer — announced it will reprise its Dead Forever residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere in 2025. The 18 shows, slated to take place from March to May, follow the band’s 30-date run at Sphere in 2024, which grossed $131.8 million. (Kreutzmann played with Dead & Co. from 2015 to 2022 but sat out its 2023 final tour and 2024 Sphere residency; a representative for Dead & Co. confirmed Kreutzmann will not perform with the band at Sphere in 2025.)
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“It’s a marvel in terms of what you can do visually with it during a show,” Weir tells Billboard. “It was an interesting challenge for us — but I thought we met it.”
“Very cool, very cool, Sphere, very cool,” Hart says with excitement. “It’s an overpowering sensory experience.” The venue, which can incorporate haptic feedback into its seats, was a revelation for the longstanding “Drums/Space” segment of Dead shows that he leads: “I’m going down to 16 [Hz] cycles, 17, 18 — that’s where the Lord lives,” says Hart, who has long studied the connections between music and neurological function, referencing a frequency of brain waves. “That raises consciousness. That’s where the good stuff is.”
Meanwhile, Kreutzmann has reinvigorated the Dead’s catalog — and mixed in tunes by artists from Talking Heads to Little Feat — in recent years by enlisting rotating crews of exciting younger talent in ensembles Billy & The Kids and Mahalo Dead, including Billy Strings, Tom Hamilton (Joe Russo’s Almost Dead), Daniel Donato (Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country) and Aron Magner (The Disco Biscuits).
“Why do I like the younger musicians?” he posits, before answering himself with a hearty laugh: “They’re more alive than I am!”
Here’s what else fans can potentially expect from the band’s members in the near future.
A Bittersweet Reunion?
Weir, Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann honored the Dead’s golden anniversary in 2015 with five Fare Thee Well stadium shows that were billed as the final time the four would perform together. (They were accompanied by Bruce Hornsby, Jeff Chimenti and Phish’s Trey Anastasio.) But Weir reveals that before Lesh’s October death, they were considering doing it again: “We had some plans,” he says. “We were talking about the possibility of reconvening and playing, just the four of us. It would have been real interesting, when Phil was still with us, to try to do that.” Kreutzmann says he’d still “do that 60th in a second,” though he adds, “Phil wanted to do it, too. He had a dream that he was going to get to play with us three one more time. And that didn’t happen — but that’s how it goes.”
A ‘Special’ Anniversary Release
Rhino Entertainment — which celebrated the band’s 50th anniversary in 2015 with an 80-disc 30 Trips Around the Sun box set that collected 30 unreleased Dead shows, one from each year it was active — has a surprise in store for GD60. “We’ve been working on something that we feel is special and commensurate with an anniversary as big as this,” says David Lemieux, the Grateful Dead’s legacy manager and archivist. “Mark [Pinkus, Rhino president] and I got on the call about a year ago [to begin working on it], and when we started talking about it, we both couldn’t contain our joy.”
Publishing (In) House
Amid the recent spate of publishing catalog sales by rock legends, “I haven’t even thought about” selling the Dead’s, Weir says. “I’m not entirely sure I’m anxious to sell it. But at the same time, if the price was right and somebody with that amount of financial wherewithal had that amount of motivation to buy it, I’d have to talk to him.” Reveals Activist Artists Management founding partner Bernie Cahill: “We’ve been approached and that’s been a conversation, but it’s not something the band’s pursuing at all.”
Still Truckin’
“What great musician ever retires?” Weir says when asked if he’d ever quit the road. “Do it as long as you can. Never give it up ever, ever,” Hart says. And Kreutzmann is even bolder: “I’m going to play forever.”
This story appears in the Dec. 7, 2024, issue of Billboard.
A sustainability initiative focused on festival-wide power use at San Francisco’s Portola in September resulted in the avoidance of using roughly 6,053 gallons of diesel fuel, a rep for the festival tells Billboard. This number is equivalent to taking 3,873 cars off the road for one day, according to AEG.
This was the first year the initiative was implemented at Portola, which hosted its third annual event at San Francisco’s Pier 80 Sept. 28-29. The project was a joint effort by the festival’s producers, AEG and Goldenvoice, along with battery system designer Overdrive Energy Solutions, the Music Decarbonization Project from music industry sustainability advocacy group REVERB and AEG’s longtime energy partner, CES Power.
At Portola, a team made up of reps from each company implemented a cutting-edge hybrid energy system that used solar and grid power in conjunction with advanced battery technology and Tier 4 generators, which are built with emission control measures, to provide power.
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Overdrive deployed 37 battery power-stations across the festival grounds, powering a significant portion of the festival. This project marks a major expansion of Overdrive’s work with AEG/Goldenvoice, with the companies first working together at Coachella 2023 on smaller-scale energy needs.
“It feels like we’ve taken a giant leap forward this year,” Goldenvoice’s vp of festival production Dre Hanna says. “We’ve been doing small bits and pieces for two years, but this year — and the progress I feel like we’re making specifically on this show and proving to our vendors, artists and departments that we can do this and that the show is better for it — I think that [the use of these systems] is going to pick up [across our events] pretty quickly.”
The battery system entirely powered Portola’s Ship Stage for both days of the festival. While many batteries used at festivals must be charged by diesel generators throughout the day, at Portola, use of the Tier 4 generator made it possible to charge batteries for two-and-half hours each day after the festival ended.
This charging required 260 gallons of diesel fuel, which is 2,730 gallons (or 91%) less than that used by standard festival battery systems. Goldenvoice purchased 100% renewable diesel for the generators, with the system ultimately reducing CO₂ emissions at the Ship Stage by 21.1 metric tons, compared to the emissions there would have been if the stage had employed standard generator. CES, meanwhile, provided other more traditional power sources for the event.
The difference wasn’t just in fewer emissions, but the elimination of the diesel fumes that typically emanate from generators. And because these batteries make no sound, they also eliminated the typical backstage noise pollution caused by a generator.
“It is 100% better,” Hanna told Billboard backstage at Portola. “It’s so quiet back here, and our team doesn’t have to fuel a generator each morning.”
According to Overdrive Energy Solutions founder Neel Vasavada, the company’s batteries have 99% fewer emissions than the standard diesel generators that have long been used to power festivals. They also use 90-95% less diesel fuel.
Overall, the project at Portola resulted in the avoidance of 48.8 metric tons of CO₂ emissions, a number equivalent to the amount of carbon annually sequestered by 58 acres of U.S. forest.
As battery technology advances — with the electric vehicle industry helping drive this evolution — batteries are an increasingly popular solution for sustainably powering large-scale music events. In August, Lollapalooza became the first festival in the U.S. to power its mainstage entirely by battery, reporting a 67% reduction in both fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions over prior years, when batteries had not been used.
While Hanna says Lollapalooza’s accomplishment helped increase industry-wide confidence that batteries are reliable enough to use even at the biggest stages, Vasavada notes that the system implemented at Portola was “very different” from those used to power Lollapalooza and other events.
“[This equipment] is not made for rock and roll music events,” he says. “These batteries were built for industry and for disaster relief, but it’s never been optimized for temporary portable power or for situations where you don’t have a grid. That’s what Overdrive has done.”
Overdrive Energy Solutions’ previous festival work includes implementing batteries at two years of Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion near Austin, Tex., along with events including West Virginia’s Healing Appalachia and Maryland’s All Things Go.
Portola 2024
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Hanna reports that Goldenvoice’s use of battery power is expanding. The company’s Harvest Moon, which happened Oct. 5 in Lake Hughes, Calif., was powered entirely by batteries and solar-fed grid power. Goldenvoice’s Camp Flog Gnaw – which happened at L.A.’s Dodger Stadium in November – used a hybridized battery and generator system at two of its three stages, also employing a combination of grid power, batteries and solar to power entire sections of the festival. (That initiative was once again a joint project from AEG/Goldenvoice, CES Power, Overdrive Energy Solutions and REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project). Hanna calls it “Goldenvoice’s cleanest energy festival to date.”
As battery technology advances and becomes more widely available, the cost of deploying these systems remains a key prohibitor to their widespread adoption. (Energy prices vary between shows based on factors including vendors, owned vs. rented equipment, trucking rates, available grid power and more.)
But Hanna says that generally, improved power planning internally, combined with creativity and collaboration with power vendors, “is already leading to more competitive pricing on battery systems. The data we’re gathering from each show is helping us find efficiencies that prove hybridizing power can be as cost effective as generators and the fuel they consume.”
And given that battery systems provide event producers with precise data about how much power they actually consume and truly require, Hanna says that ultimately “we’re going to be able to be more efficient and cost effective, because at the end of the day we can’t spend more.” REVERB, a 501c3 nonprofit that’s focused on sustainability in the music industry for 20 years, made the 2024 Portola power system possible by subsidizing a portion of its cost. The organization estimates that each year, U.S. festivals burn the equivalent of 46 million miles driven by gasoline powered vehicles.
As far as when these clean energy systems will entirely replace carbon-emitting generators at festivals, Hanna believes that moment is on the horizon. “it’s not next year. But is it in five years? Maybe. We are heading in that direction as quickly and as efficiently as we can.”
Dorset’s End of The Road Festival has announced its first lineup for 2025’s event, confirming that Father John Misty, Sharon Van Etten, Caribou and Self Esteem will headline.
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Next year’s edition will take place at Larmer Tree Gardens in the south of England on Aug 29-31, 2025. The festival premiered in 2006 and has been held every year since (except 2020 due to the COVID pandemic).
Joining them on the lineup will be: Mount Kimbie, Black Country New Road, GOAT, Geordie Greep, Tropical F–k Storm, Moonchild Sanelly, Ela Minus, Throwing Muses, Emma-Jean Thackray and more. See the full lineup below.
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Tickets for the event are on sale now from the festival’s official website. More announcements are set to be made about the lineup and across the festival’s literature and arts offerings. Previous headliners at the event have included IDLES, Future Islands, Fleet Foxes, St Vincent, Vampire Weekend and more.
Father John Misty recently released his sixth studio, Mahashmashana, which landed on the Billboard 200 at No. 161. Sharon Van Etten, meanwhile, has written and recorded her upcoming album with her touring band The Attachment Theory, and will release the self-titled debut Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory on February 7 via Jagjaguwar.
Self Esteem’s performance is the first show announced in 2025 for the British pop artist, who saw considerable success with her second LP, Prioritise Pleasure, and its ensuing live tour. Electronic producer Caribou released his sixth album, Honey, earlier this year, which included collaborations with generative AI across the vocal performances.
Jon Pardi is set to bring his neo-traditional, honky tonk country sound to venues across the country on his headlining Honkytonk Hollywood Tour in 2025, with the 16-date trek launching April 25 in Lubbock, Texas.
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The trek will visit arenas and amphitheaters across the United States and Canada, with support from “Wild As Her” hitmaker Corey Kent on select dates, and Kassi Ashton, who earlier this year released her debut album Made From The Dirt.
Pardi released his most recent album, Mr. Saturday Night, in 2023, but since then he’s released the Luke Bryan collaboration “Cowboys and Plowboys,” as well as “Friday Night Heartbreaker,” which reached No. 34 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart earlier this year.
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To date, Pardi has earned five Country Airplay chart-toppers, including “Head Over Boots” and “Last Night Lonely.” Mr. Saturday Night earned a nomination for album of the year from the Academy of Country Music.
Tickets for the shows go on sale Friday, Dec. 6 at 10 a.m. local time. An exclusive, early-access presale begins at 9 a.m. local time on Thursday, Dec. 5 at jonpardi.com.
See the full dates for Pardi’s Honkytonk Hollywood Tour below:
April 25: Lubbock, Texas @ United Supermarkets Arena
April 26: Las Cruces, N.M. @ Pan American Center
May 15: Tucson, Ariz. @ Tucson Arena
May 16: Prescott Valley, Ariz. @ Findlay Toyota Center
May 29: Toledo, Ohio @ Huntington Center
May 30: Indianapolis, Ind. @ Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park
May 31: Evansville, Ind. @ Ford Center
June 5: Highland Heights, KY @ Truist Arena
June 6: Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Petersen Events Center
June 7: Allentown, Pa. @ PPL Center
June 11: Regina, SK @ Brandt Centre
June 12: Lethbridge, AB @ VisitLethbridge.com Arena
June 14: Kelowna, BC @ Prospera Place
June 18: Idaho Falls, ID @ Mountain America Center *
June 20: Airway Heights, WA @ BECU Live at Northern Quest Amphitheater *
June 21: Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater *
TBA and Kassi Ashton
LONDON — As international president of Oak View Group (OVG), Jessica Koravos has a clear vision of how she wants the U.S.-based facility management and development firm to grow its already rapidly expanding global business.
“We’re trying to be the best venue operators, offering the best entertainment experiences in the world,” she says confidently. “That’s what our goal is.”
Just over six months ago, OVG’s long-planned pivot to international markets took an embarrassing stumble with the repeatedly delayed launch of Co-op Live – the United Kingdom’s biggest indoor music venue and the firm’s first major project outside the United States.
When the official opening for the 23,500-capacity arena, located in Manchester, was pushed back by three weeks following a series of highly publicized delays — including part of a ventilation system falling from the roof just prior to a show by rapper A Boogie wit da Hoodie – Co-op Live became the butt of jokes on social media and generated a slew of negative headlines.
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“It looked worse in the media than it felt on the ground,” reflects Koravos, half a year on from the venue’s troubled launch. “In the grand scheme of things, when you have been working on a project for five years, spent £400 million ($505 million) on it and it’s three weeks late, there’s a long-term perspective that says: ‘This is not the end of the world.’ When you look at it in the context of other big infrastructure projects in the U.K. I don’t think it’s going to go down in history anywhere on the list of problematic deliveries.”
Co-op Live eventually opened its doors May 8 with a headline show by local rock group Elbow. Since then, the venue has quickly become established as a key destination in the European touring circuit, selling over one million tickets and staging over 60 shows to date, including stopovers by Pearl Jam, Nicki Minaj, Liam Gallagher, Keane, Janet Jackson, Charli XCX and the Eagles‘ five-night sellout run – the group’s only U.K. dates on its farewell tour.
A general view of the Co-op Live arena as Elbow performs the inaugural live show at Co-op Live on May 14, 2024 in Manchester, England.
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In November, Co-op Live hosted the MTV European Music Awards (EMAs), featuring performances from Benson Boone, Teddy Swims, Tyla and Busta Rhymes, which had a global digital reach (excluding broadcast) of over 7 billion, according to the venue’s post-event analysis. Upcoming shows at the arena include Paul McCartney, Slipknot, Cyndi Lauper and Sabrina Carpenter.
Co-op Live is one of seven new arenas that OVG has built and opened in the last two years, including the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, UBS Arena in New York and Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs, Calif. The fast-growing firm, co-founded in 2015 by former AEG CEO Tim Leiweke and ex-Live Nation chairman Irving Azoff, which operates more than 400 buildings globally, also has arenas under development in Nigeria, Canada and Wales, and is “actively looking” for opportunities to further expand its global footprint, says Koravos.
This fall saw the launch of a new division, OVG Stadia, headed by Chris Wright, dedicated to growing the company’s global stadium business. Its remit includes identifying international markets to develop and build new multi-purpose stadiums, as well as expanding OVG’s roster of stadium clients, which includes London’s Wembley Stadium, Scotland’s Murrayfield Stadium, Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego and the historic Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas. The company is additionally pursuing arena development and partnership opportunities in the U.K., Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
“That showcase of Co-op Live is very helpful and we have a lot of other cities [around the world] now saying, ‘Can we have one of those?’” says London-based Koravos, who served as president of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group and formerly held senior roles at AEG Live and AEG Europe before joining OVG.
Ballooning construction costs means “it’s easier said than done,” she cautions, “but we’ll find a way.”
Koravos declines to discuss Leiweke’s publicly stated aim of building a new music arena in London, saying only that there are “announcements to come in the U.K. and continental Europe.”
In the meantime, Oak View Group is looking to grow its share of the live music business by making its full suite of venue services, including hospitality, management, booking, marketing, facility development and sponsorship sales, available to non-OVG affiliated venue owners and third-party operators in Europe, like it already does in the U.S.
To support the rollout, OVG International has bulked up its executive team with recent appointments including former Co-op Live interim general manager Rebecca Kane Burton as executive vice president of venue management and Michalis Fragkiadakis as vice president of hospitality strategy, responsible for driving forward OVG’s food and beverage business following last year’s acquisition of U.K.-based hospitality provider Rhubarb Hospitality Collection. They will be supported by Sam Piccione, international president of sales, Alex Reese, commercial and brand strategy director, and Gary Hutchinson, vice president of booking and commercial partnerships.
“We take pride in the fact that we think about third party business in the same way that we think about our own,” says Koravos. She points to OVG completing “$5 billion worth of naming rights and sponsorship [deals] in the last three years” as evidence of the “industry-leading expertise” that it is offering to venues and live music businesses. Current venue service clients outside North America include football clubs Birmingham City FC, Real Betis and AS Roma, Manchester-based arts venue Aviva Studios and Lloyd Webber Theatres.
“There are lots of facilities, arenas and stadiums all around Europe who would like to host concerts and that’s something that we’re trying to help to see if we can open up more markets for music internationally,” says Koravos. “Our goal is not to win all the contracts and to be everywhere. It’s to be with the right partners that share our values.”
Zayn Malik canceled a solo gig in Newcastle, England just minutes before showtime on Tuesday night (Dec. 3). In the past few weeks the former One Direction member has embarked on a solo tour throughout the U.K., his first headline run of shows since leaving the pop group in 2015. Metro reported that an announcement […]
Fresh off teaming up for a pair of tracks on Kendrick Lamar’s GNX album, K. Dot and SZA are joining forces for the co-headlining 2025 Grand National Tour. Presented by Live Nation, pgLang and Top Dawg Entertainment, the North American trek featuring the former TDE running mates is set to invade 19 stadiums across the […]
In 2025, Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas will set out on the group’s first tour together in a decade when The Arcadia 2025 Tour finds the storied group performing 73 dates across the United States and Canada.
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The new slate of tour dates starts with a two-night stint at The Louisville Palace in Louisville, Ky., on April 17-18. The tour dates continue through late September, with stops in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Oklahoma City, San Diego, and Nashville. The trek will feature special guest Willie Watson, a co-founder of Old Crow Medicine Show. Two decades into his career, Watson recently released his self-titled solo album in September.
Alison Krauss & Union Station are also set to release new music next year, marking the group’s first new release since 2011’s Paper Airplane, which earned a Grammy for best bluegrass album.
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“I’m so grateful to get to make music again with my comrades of 40 years,” Krauss said in a statement. “They’ve always accomplished incredible work individually and have been constantly traveling because of it. We’re very inspired to experience this new exciting chapter in the band’s history.”
This new chapter also features a lineup shift for the group, with the addition of vocalist-guitarist Russell Moore, who is best known for his work as frontman for IIIrd Tyme Out. Moore replaces Union Station’s former member Dan Tyminski. Moore has earned six male vocalist trophies from the International Bluegrass Music Awards, making him the most awarded male vocalist in the history of the IBMA Awards. He’s also led IIIrd Tyme Out to seven IBMA vocal group of the year honors. Moore will join longtime Union Station members Ron Block (banjo, guitar, vocals), Barry Bales (bass, vocals) and newly inducted Bluegrass Hall of Fame member Jerry Douglas (Dobro, lap steel, vocals).
“To say I’m excited about recording and touring with Alison Krauss & Union Station would be a huge understatement,” Moore said in a statement. “After 40 years of playing music full-time and leading my own group for 34 years, this opportunity is among the few things at the top of the list that my music career has offered me. My hopes and desires are to fill this spot in AKUS with the same professionalism, precision, and thoughtfulness as other members who have held this position before me, and I’m looking forward to the ‘ride’!”
Tickets for The Arcadia 2025 Tour will go on sale to the general public on Friday, Dec. 6, with presales available from Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 10 a.m. local through Thursday, Dec. 5, at 10 p.m. local time.
See a list of the group’s tour dates for 2025 below: