SXSW 2009

From March 13 to March 22, the South by Southwest Festival was in full swing in Austin, Texas. While many bands performed, here are some of the reported highlights.

- Indie rock band The Decemberists performed their upcoming album The Hazards of Love in its entirety. The album has been viewed as a rock opera in the vein of Tommy.

- Jane's Addiction, who recently reunited and will hit the road with Nine Inch Nails this year, played a ten song set in the strange venue of a former supermarket. The group ripped through several hits from their first decade, ignoring their post-Ritual de lo Habitual material. The setlist included "Mountain Song," "Stop!" and "Been Caught Stealing."

- Metallica played a 90 minute greatest hits set that surprisingly didn't include Enter Sandman. Probably one of the strangest factors of the show was the band's opening act. Instead of a traditional band playing, three contest winners played Guitar Hero: Metallica tracks.

- Other acts that performed at the show included Kayne West, Ben Harper and the Relentless7, Devo, Fleet Foxes, Ra Ra Riot, Silversun Pickups, The Duke Spirit, The Morning Light, The Used, and Tori Amos.

Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction Announce Tour Dates

Trent Reznor announced the tour dates he's worked out with Jane's Addiction so far. It sounds like there could be more dates confirmed in the future. As it stands, the tour will begin in May in Florida before working its way across the U.S. over the next month. The date tickets go on sale and the price have not been announced yet. Here are the tour dates:

May 8 - West Palm Beach, FL @ Cruzan Amphitheatre
May 9 - Tampa, FL @ Ford Amphitheatre
May 10 - Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
May 14 - Albuquerque, NM @ Journal Pavilion
May 15 - Phoenix, AZ @ Cricket Wireless Pavilion
May 16 - Chula Vista, CA @ Cricket Wireless Amphitheater
May 18 - Las Vegas, NV @ The Pearl
May 20 - Irvine, CA @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
May 22 - Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
May 26 - Englewood, CO @ Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
May 27 - Kansas City, MO @ Starlight Theatre
May 29 - Chicago, IL @ Charter One Pavilion (NIN Only)
May 30 - Noblesville, IN @ Verizon Wireless Music Center
May 31 - Clarkston, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre
June 2 - Toronto, ON @ Molson Amphitheatre
June 3 - Darien Lake, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheatre
June 5 - Camden, NJ @ Tweeter Center At The Waterfront
June 6 - Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
June 7 - Wantagh, NY @ Nikon at Jones Beach Music Theater
June 9 - Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion
June 10 - Burgettstown, PA @ Post-Gazette Pavilion
June 12 - Charlotte, NC @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

It looks like a pretty good trek but I wish they would have chosen somewhere other than Jones Beach for the NY show. It's pretty tough for anyone without a car to get there. For all you Nine Inch Nails fans out there, Reznor has stated that this will be the last NIN work he does for some time. The band will be going on hiatus soon so go to these shows if you get the chance. It may be the last of Trent you see for a while.

21st Century Breakdown: the news for weeks of 2/8 and 2/15/09

Alright, it's been a couple of weeks since my last update. Sorry about that. My internet connection has repeatedly been crapping out and I've been busy with college-related activities. Before I get to news, I would just like to say that I watched the Grammys. U2, Radiohead, and Paul McCartney were the best performances. Chris Martin really needs someone to tell him he can't dance. Allison Krauss/Robert Plant won too many awards. Finally, I'd like to say that Radiohead got robbed in a lot of categories, especially album of the year. They deserved that award. Warning: this update will be long.

- Blink-182 announced at the Grammys that they would be reuniting for an album. I don't know how this will work since they already didn't look like they wanted to be together while they announced their reunion.

-Green Day also had an announcement to make at the Grammys. Their new album, 21st Century Breakdown will be released in early May with an arena tour to start in July.

- Live Nation and Ticketmaster officially announced their merger last week. To me, this is an extremely bad idea for the concert goers. The Live Nation-Ticketmaster company will pretty much now have a monopoly on concert tickets. Not good at all.

- Ozzy Osbourne has canceled OzzFest 2009 in order to have more time to work on his new solo album. Now I'm wondering why he can't just have someone else organize it and simply not perform this year. I'm sure the fans can live a year without Ozzy at OzzFest.

- U2 has booked David Letterman's Late Show for 5 straight days, from March 2nd to March 6th.

- Peter Gabriel has dropped out of performing his nominated track, "Down to Earth," at the Oscars. He refuses to perform because they Academy wanted him to only perform about a minute of the song as part of a medley. M.I.A. is unlikely to show up as well since she has recently given birth. Looks like the Oscars are running out of performance options here.

- Blind Faith, the group containing the duo of Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, will be hitting the road this summer. The tour is to start on June 10th at the IZOD Center in New Jersey and end on June 30th in L.A.

- Robert Plant and Allison Krauss are back in the studio, working on a follow-up to Raising Sand.

- Nine Inch Nails will be touring with Jane's Addiction later this year. Dates are expected to be announced in a couple of weeks. Trent Reznor also stated that it may be some time before a new NIN project.

- The Sasquatch! Music Festival revealed that Kings of Leon, Jane's Addiction, and Ben Harpr & Relentless7 will headline this year's festival on May 23, 24, and 25, respectively. Other groups scheduled to perform are Nine Inch Nails, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Animal Collective, TV on the Radio, Peter, Bjorn, and John, Fleet Foxes, and Santogold.

- Coldplay have announced the dates for a summer American leg of their world tour. The tour will begin on July 10th in Portland and end on August 9th in Tampa.

- Kings of Leon are also hitting the road in North America, starting on April 19th in Boston and ending May 21st in San Francisco.

- The title of Grizzy Bear's new album has been revealed. It's called Veckatimest and will be released in May.

- Slipknot will headline this year’s Download Festival along with The Prodigy, Korn, and Motley Crue. The festival will take place at Donington Park, Derby from June 12th to 14th.

- Limp Bizkit have officially reunited after their 8-year hiatus because "we decided we were more digusted...with the state of heavy popular music than we were with each other." All I can say is that my digust has just been revived.

- Concert tickets that go on sale this week (in the tri-state area):
-> Blue October on May 1 at the Webster Hall, on sale on 02/21 at noon
-> Primal Scream on March 29 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, on sale on 02/20 at noon

- Rock album releases this week (always Tuesday unless stated otherwise)
-> Years of Refusal by Morrissey
-> Common Existence by Thursday
-> Sargarmartha by The Appleseed Cast
-> The Century of Self by ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
-> Pins and Panzers by Plushgun