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.

Billie Joe Armstrong and 12-year-old fan Giovanni Sosto, from Costa Rica, share some stage time during “Know Your Enemy.”

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)

While the acclaimed singer/songwriter/poet is currently dazzling crowds across Europe, his fall return to the U.S. will mark the final engagements of the intimate, superbly crafted concert tour. Encore performances have been added in a number of cities, including New York for a fourth and final show; Philadelphia for one of the last concerts ever at the soon-to-be-closed Wachovia Spectrum; as well as a third concert in Chicago, IL.

The second North American leg will extend Cohen’s phenomenal series of concerts, which have been overwhelmingly received both at home and abroad. Countless five-star reviews have followed the tour across the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. As the London Daily Telegraph plainly stated, it is “an extraordinary night of music,” while the UK’s Champion Newspapers remarked that concertgoers “were more reverential to the great man…and appeared to hang on his every word.” The Liverpool Daily Post stated that Cohen “seemed to be more a man worshipping than simply singing hits…the care with which he shaped, uttered and offered each word gave the song a sacred, prayer-like quality.”

Mr. Cohen’s current band features Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters (background vocals), Roscoe Beck (musical director & bass), Neil Larsen (keyboards & Hammond B3 accordion), Bob Metzger (electric, acoustic & pedal steel guitar), Javier Mas (bandurria, laud, archilaud, 12-string acoustic guitar), Rafael Gayol (drums, percussion), Dino Soldo (sax, clarinet, dobro, keys).

In conjunction with the tour, Columbia Records released Leonard Cohen’s Live In London on March 31, 2009. The CD and DVD release contains a musical chronicle of the legendary musician’s historic July 17, 2008 concert at London’s O2 arena.

Leonard Cohen 2009 North American Tour – Second Leg

Sat, Oct 17, 2009 Ft. Lauderdale, FL BankAtlantic Center

Mon, Oct 19, 2009 Tampa, FL St. Pete Times Forum

Tue, Oct 20, 2009 Atlanta, GA Fox Theatre

Thu, Oct 22, 2009 Philadelphia, PA The Wachovia Spectrum

Fri, Oct 23, 2009 New York, NY Madison Square Garden

Sun, Oct 25, 2009 Cleveland, OH Allen Theatre

Tue, Oct 27, 2009 Columbus, OH Palace Theatre

Thu, Oct 29, 2009 Chicago, IL Rosemont Theatre

Sun, Nov 01, 2009 Asheville, NC Thomas Wolfe Auditorium

Tue, Nov 03, 2009 Durham, NC Durham Performing Arts Center

Thu, Nov 05, 2009 Nashville, TN Tennessee Performing Arts Center (Andrew Jackson Hall)

Sat, Nov 07, 2009 St. Louis, MO Fox Theatre

Mon, Nov 09, 2009 Kansas City, MO The Midland by AMC

Thu, Nov 12, 2009 Las Vegas, NV The Colosseum® at Caesars Palace®

Fri, Nov 13, 2009 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion at San Jose

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.

Judas Priest hits the St. Pete Times Forum on August 16. This is awesome because I don’t have another drive to Ft. Lauderdale in me!

Priest will emulate the recent old-songs-only Maiden tour by performing the classic British Steel album in its entirety.  Bonus - as if you needed one: Whitesnake will provide support.

Priest last visited Tampa while opening for, and vastly outshining, the reunited Black Sabbath at Ozzfest ‘04. Frontman Rob Halford’s stage presence was definitely lacking. He moved slowly and deliberately around the stage, and perched like a vulture to sing. His voice, however, was as strong as in Priest’s heyday. K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton delivered their trademark dual guitar melodies. And drummer Scott Travis‘ steady double-kick injected new life and ferocity into the band’s classic material as he has since he joined the band prior to Painkiller.

Unlike my Maiden experience, I’ve seen Priest twice before – once with Tim “Ripper” Owens, the tribute-band singer whose story inspired the godawful film Rock Star, and once with Halford – but I’m still excited! The band re-visiting British Steel will be a treat. It’s not the album I would have picked, but it’s what introduced the band to their American audience. Besides, anything that distracts Priest from their mediocre post-reunion material, particularly the ridiculous Nostradamus concept album, is appreciated.

“Breaking The Law” from Rising In the East (2005)

“A Touch of Evil” from Rising In the East (2005)

“Hell Bent For Leather” from Live Vengeance ‘82 (1982)

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.”

21st Century Breakdown is Green Day’s first studio album since 2004’s two-time Grammy Award-winning punk-rock opera American Idiot, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, spawned five hit singles and went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide.

Tickets are priced at $22.25 and $46.75. They go on sale this Friday, May 8 at 10 a.m. at the MCDONALD’S BOX OFFICE at the St. Pete Times Forum and all Ticketmaster Outlets including FYE. To order tickets by phone, call Ticketmaster at 800-745-3000. Prices do not include service charges.

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.

Overall, the band delivered a competent performance. It featured some rousing spots: “Tusk,” “Second Hand News,” a Buckingham/Nicks duet of “Never Going Back Again”). It dragged in spots: “Sara,” the dreary “Storms,” a rote “Rhiannon.” Notice the latter are all Stevie Nicks showcases. Rarely has a pop singer gleaned more success from a set of pipes that are as texturally unpleasant as Nicks’. During the Forum show, she avoided high notes as if they were poison ivy, choosing instead to rephrase lines downward.

Buckingham is walking proof that you can still be very much a SoCal dude at 59. Trim, sharply dressed in painted-on black jeans and a short leather jacket — and still sporting cheekbones that could cut glass — he preened and made a few lofty pronouncements to the crowd. Pretty precious.

But give him this: The fellow can play guitar. During a mid-set, acoustic segment, he killed on “Big Love,” raining arpeggios over the crowd. At the mic, he reached for the tough notes, although sometimes he ended up yelping more than singing. That’s nothing new, actually.

One last observation: Big acts really seem to be perfecting the art of arena concert production. Last night, the sound was crisp and at an ideal volume (loud enough to deliver rock punch; not so loud you had to plug your ears). Two big screens, high-definition big screens, hung from the rafters about a quarter of the way into the crowd. So each time Buckingham played a guitar solo, I could simply turn my head to the left and watch his fingers go at it — in hi-def. Nice.

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:

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.