Tampa Calling

Some shots from last night’s Green Day show at the forum. More will be featured in a follow-up review of the show that will be posted sometime tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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Exciting news folks. Due to an apparent overwhelming demand, Leonard Cohen (pictured, photo credit: Lorca Cohen) brings his world tour back to North America and adds some dates, including a surprising two-date Florida leg that features the artist at the BankAtlantic Center in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday, October 17, and the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa on Monday, October 19. (Wonder what he’s doing in the Sunshine State between dates) Tickets sale details will be released Monday, August 3…

Here’s the release

Los Angeles, CA – July 22, 2009 – To the delight of his legions of fans, Leonard Cohen will once again return to the U.S. this fall for the final leg of his critically acclaimed 2009 World Tour. Since taking the stage earlier this year at New York’s Beacon Theatre—his first stateside performance in more than fifteen years—Mr. Cohen has enchanted audiences, earning rave reviews and sold-out concerts across the globe. The highly anticipated 15-date trek kicks off October 17th at BankAtlantic Center in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and culminates on November 13th in San Jose, CA, which is the fourth Northern California date of the tour. Tickets for the newly added concerts will go on sale beginning Monday, August 3, 2009. Additional tour information is available at www.LeonardCohen.com and www.AEGLive.com. (Complete tour date additions listed after the jump) Read the rest of this entry »

Last time Miley Cyrus played Tampa Bay it set off a Ticketgate, with moms of young daughters up in arms about being screwed out of the opportunity to buy tickets. Many of them dropped several hundreds of dollars as to not run afoul with their progeny.

Let’s hope there’s not another ticket fiasco this time. Actually, the best thing that could happen is that Miley-mania has calmed down the extent that MILFs aren’t breaking the household budget to take 11-year-old young Brittany to see her heroine.

Here we go:

Miley Cyrus will perform at the St. Pete Times Forum on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 7 p.m.

More important, though:

Tickets for this event go on sale next Saturday, June 13th at 10am only at www.ticketmaster.com/mileycyrus and by Ticketmaster’s charge-by-phone number 800-745-3000. Tickets are priced at $39.50, $59.50, and $79.50. Prices do not include service charges.

Barely a month ago, I finally witnessed Iron Maiden live. It literally took half my life to see them. I documented the journey, from the show’s announcement through its conclusion. While nothing could top my Maiden experience, it seems the Metal Gods continue smiling down on me nonetheless.  After all, you can’t mention Iron Maiden without bringing up Judas Priest.

Is it possible? Maiden and Priest playing Florida in the same year?

Concert details and video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Just in from the St. Pete Times Forum:

Green Day will play the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa on Mon., August 3. Tickets go on sale Friday, May 8 at 10 a.m.

Green Day are touring in support of their long-awaited eighth studio album, 21st Century Breakdown, which will be released globally by Reprise Records on Friday, May 15.

Green Day recently performed 21st Century Breakdown in its entirety during a series of club shows for hometown fans in the San Francisco Bay Area. In its review of a show at Oakland’s Fox Theater, Rolling Stone commented that the band, augmented by guitarists Jason White and Jeff Matika and keyboardist Jason Freese, had the “Quadrophenia-like hang of 21st Century Breakdown’s classic rock melodies and lifetime-punk drive down solid” and that the album is “rock opera in which the rock always comes first.” Read the rest of this entry »

A little more than halfway through their set at the St. Pete Times Forum last night, Fleetwood Mac played “Say You Love Me.” A Christine McVie song. She is the only member of the re-assembled (yet again) Fleetwood Mac who opted out — she departed, apparently for good, in 1998 — and to these ears her presence was sorely missed.

Photo: Jamie Ostrand

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham traded verses on “Say You Love Me,” and although it was nice they included the song, this version lacked the airiness of the original pop gem. Buckingham played the brief guitar solo note-for-note, which made the performance seem obligatory.

“Say You Love Me” was also a reminder of all the McVie songs Fleetwood Mac did not play last night. And seeing as Chrissie was always my favorite of the combative quintet, to me the concert was left lacking.

Fleetwood Mac — which also included drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, two sidemen and three female backup singers — ran through a compendium of their mostly impressive songbook, touching on some obscure stuff (“I Know I’m Not Wrong”) but mostly sticking to such recognizable tunes and monster hits as “Dreams,” “The Chain,” “Monday Morning,” “Gypsy,” “Sara,” et al.

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Yep, she really did just say that.

Britney Spears got caught with her mic on while leaving the stage for a wardrobe change during her concert last night at the St. Pete Times Forum. Not realizing the mic was still live and says, “My pussy is hanging out!”

Video and audio proof below the jump:

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This just in from Woody, our PR pal at LiveNation concerts:

AN EVENING WITH FLEETWOOD MAC
COMES TO ST. PETE TIMES FORUM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22ND
ON SALE MONDAY, JANUARY 26TH

The “Unleashed” Tour, beginning on March 1 in Pittsburgh, is an epic cross-country trek featuring 44 shows in major markets. The tour will include all of the Mac’s many greatest hits from over the course of the band’s extraordinary career. Fleetwood Mac, the multi-Grammy winning, multi-platinum Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees are back on the road for the first time in five years following several successful solo projects.

Tickets for the Live Nation produced tour are $149.50, $79.50 and $49.50, and go on sale to the public on January 26th at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster outlets.

The twin pianos — one black, one white — stationed in the St. Pete Forum conference room should’ve offered a pretty solid clue. But the rumor at the news conference was that the Forum was unveiling a Britney Spears tour date.

Instead, Tampa Bay Lightning owner Oren Koules stood at the podium just past 11 a.m. and announced that the venue would host Billy Joel and Elton John’s Face 2 Face Tour on Thurs., March 5, 7:30 p.m.

Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster, livenation.com or the Forum box office. They range in price from $179 to $54.

The Joel/John touring collaboration, which dates back to 1994, has been called by Billboard magazine, “the most successful touring package of all time.”

This tour will follow the familiar pattern: The two titans will open shows with a series of duets on twin pianos, then each artist performs a set with his own band, after which the entire aggregation joins for a big encore.