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Tuning up for a spring North American tour, Leonard Cohen played his first show on American soil in 15 years last night (Feb. 19) at New York’s Beacon Theatre. The three-hour performance featured all of Cohen’s classics, including "Suzanne," "Bird on the Wire" and "Hallelujah."

Cohen, 74, broke a 15-year hiatus from touring in 2008 with shows in Canada, Europe and New Zealand. His AEG-promoted North American tour will begin April 2 in Austin, Texas, and run through June 2 at Red Rocks outside Denver. He will also make a previously announced appearance on April 17 at the Coachella festival in Indio, Calif.

In what was just the second show at the newly reopened Beacon, Cohen dazzled the sold-out crowd with a career-spanning set, backed by an ace six-piece band and three female vocalists.
He frequently thanked the audience for its devotion, and the crowd ate up Big Apple references in songs like "Chelsea Hotel" and the funky "First We Take Manhattan."

Cohen was in fine, deep voice throughout, dropping to his knees to sing "Hallelujah" and dabbling in guitar and synthesizer throughout the performance.

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Originally expected in April, Dave Matthews Band’s as-yet-untitled new RCA album will now arrive June 2. The group has also announced its annual summer tour, beginning May 27 in Darien Center, N.Y.

The dates will follow a previously announced spring run, which kicks off April 14 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Support acts for the summer shows include Robert Randolph, Femi Kuti, the Hold Steady, Umphrey’s McGee, Old Crow Medicine Show and Switchfoot.

Rumors suggest the band may play Boston’s Fenway Park on May 29-30, but no announcement has yet been made.

Meanwhile, DMB plans to zip over to Europe for a quick tour during late June and early July. For the band’s full itinerary, visit its Web site.

The new DMB album was produced by Rob Cavallo. A number of songs have been played live since the summer of 2007, including "Round and Round," "Cornbread," "#27" and "Falling Off the Roof," but it is unknown if they will appear on the upcoming project.

Source: Billboard.com

In a chart week encompassing Grammy boosts and Valentine’s Day sales, Taylor Swift’s Big Machine effort "Fearless" returns to the top of The Billboard 200. The set moved 92,000 copies on a 44% sales jump, resulting in its nine non-consecutive weeks at No. 1. The last album spend more time at the top was Santana’s "Supernatural," which enjoyed 12 weeks at No. 1 in 1999 and 2000.

Selling 77,000 on a whopping 715% increase, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ "Raising Sand" (Rounder) zooms 69-2 following its album of the year win at the Grammys. The set debuted at No. 2 in late 2007 with 112,000 and has now sold 1.26 million to date.

Coldplay’s "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" (Capitol rebounds 31-8 with 62,000 (+271%); the album generated three Grammys, including song of the year for "Viva La Vida." Best new artist winner Adele’s Columbia debut "19" climbs from 27-10 with 57,000 on 218% bump, and the "Grammy Nominees 2009" compilation posts a 114% increase to 61,000, resulting in a 12-9 jump.

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Welsh vocalist Duffy was the big winner at the 2009 BRIT Awards, taking home three trophies tonight (Feb. 18) at London’s Earls Court. Duffy, whose debut album, "Rockferry" (A&M/Universal), was the U.K’s top seller in 2008, won BRITS for British female, British breakthrough act and British album.

Collecting her first award for British female, she commented, "It’s a good job my mother didn’t have a boy." She beat rivals M.I.A., Adele, Beth Rowley and Estelle in that category.

For her final award, for British album, Duffy was tearful as she accepted it from fellow Welsh singer Sir Tom Jones. She also performed "Warwick Avenue" at the ceremony.

The awards show, aired live on ITV1, was opened by U2 performing its new single "Get on Your Boots." Bono sang on a platform in front of a giant screen showing images of the British union flag and the Irish flag.

Nashville rock band Kings Of Leon won the international group award as well as the international album BRIT for "Only by the Night" (Hand Me Down/Sony Music Entertainment). The current Billboard cover stars acknowledged the importance of the British market to their success.

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Okay, we’re completely back online now.  The sessions, with the new feeds, are on iTunes now

It was a challenge to upload them all.  In the next few days I’m going to add a player to the right hand side of the site (most likely to the welcome message box).  So if you don’t want to download the sessions you can just listen in your browser

Paramore have a list of priorities — demoing their new record, rehearsing for their upcoming tour with No Doubt and, uh, finding something to eat.

In a blog post on the band’s official site, frontwoman Hayley Williams writes about the progress of all three … with a special focus on the status of Paramore’s much-anticipated new album and her gustatory struggles.

"We decided not to go to our practice space today. Each of us are at our respective homes writing our own stuff to bring to practice tomorrow. Doubtful we’ll all be successful," she wrote. "I’m still finishing lyrics to some of the music demos we’ve already recorded. Some perdy good shtuff here!
"I’m stuck here at home," she continued. "There’s nothing to eat here but one pack of ramen. No, really."

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It went deeper than rap, and in many people’s minds, it crossed the line of hip-hop battling. On Wednesday, 50 Cent released a dis video on ThisIs50.com called "A Psychic Told Me," in which he threatens DJ Khaled and his mother.

In the clip, 50 is sitting down in the studio, writing a poem, then the footage switches to a house that he claims belongs to Khaled’s mom. Later, 50 says he knows where DJ Khaled lives and all but takes responsibility for the DJ’s car tires recently being slashed. Then the video shows some men in Thisis50.com T-Shirts arriving at Khaled’s mother’s purported workplace. The woman they claim is the DJ’s mother is asleep at a desk, as the cameraman zooms in on photos of Khaled and Fat Joe. At the end of the video, 50 declares he has "less compassion than the average human." He crumples the poem he was working on, a ThisIs50.com logo comes on the screen and there is the sound of gunshots.

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NASHVILLE – If anyone had any doubt that touring is where the money is in today’s music business, a look at Billboard’s top moneymakers of 2008 should hammer the point home.

Regardless of genre, retail sales or radio play, each of the 20 acts on the moneymakers list toured last year. For almost all of them, touring generated the most revenue. And in a year when recorded-music sales declined yet again, many earned more at the box office than ever before.

Madonna was No. 1 on the list with $242.2 million. She had the 50th-best-selling album in the country and ranked 14th on the list of digital track sellers — but had the highest-earning 2008 tour.

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This singer-actor’s sophomore major label disc comes four years after its initial release date. Whatever the hold-up, the Texan wunderkind, now 19, has grown into her voice, bringing subtlety and resonance to womanly tunes such as "Lover Man" and "My Baby Just Cares For Me." Her rich, graceful sound is a cross between Tierney Sutton and Christina Aguilera, and hitmaker David Foster has her dishing up jazz-flavoured pop big-band style on standards such as "You’ve Changed" and the title track. She’s been called a female Michael Bublé, which isn’t far off the mark.

Source: The Star.ca

Fifty-five is hardly old age, but it would appear old enough to get Robyn Hitchcock thinking about a few things.

Goodnight Oslo, the beloved British acid-folkie’s second album with the Venus 3 – guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Scott McCaughey and drummer Bill Rieflin, all poached from the extended R.E.M. family – is rife with allusions to death, time passing and the wilder nights of Hitchcock’s youth. He’s said the creepy title track was inspired by a speed-fuelled romp in Norway many years ago with his old Soft Boys bandmate Morris Windsor (who guests here, along with the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy and Harvey Danger’s Sean Nelson).

"Saturday Groovers" relishes in smelling "the smoke from the lungs of the Saturday groovers" with jubilant, T. Rex-like swagger, then situates the reminiscence in a present fraught with "heart disease and gout." "16 Years" turns a cold eye upon "16 years when all I got was high." The lingering "Your Head Here," meanwhile, could be staring down into a friend’s casket and confronting the inevitable: "Life is all I own / You walk a thousand miles and you’re alone."

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