What are yours?
The festival is back for its fifth year with a star-studded lineup to promote awareness of gender equality, environmental and poverty issues. Please note original ticketing is free, subject to organizers conditions.
“Radio City, you all ready to have a good night?” Meghan Trainor asks at the top of her sold-out show at New York City’s famed venue in a recent performance. “All my ladies scream one time!” Then, a deafening roar of adolescents overpowers the 22-year-old pop star on stage — a banshee wail that was as loud as an AC/DC or My Bloody Valentine concert.
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Since the release of her breakout “girl power” anthem “All About That Bass” in 2014 and scoring a Grammy for Best New Artist in 2016, Trainor has shown herself to be one of pop’s most likable and seemingly down-to-earth stars. She’s accrued a devoted fan base of young female fans who love and adore her. Sure, she doesn’t have the gravitas of Beyoncé or Adele. But the professional songwriter-turned-recording artist does have bona fide chops. Meghan Trainor got her start writing for the likes of Hunter Hayes, Rascal Flatts, and other Nashville artists. It takes a special brand of artist to score two sold-out nights at a famous venue like Radio City.
At her recent concert in Radio City, the venue was filled with overwhelmed, ecstatic children and teens accompanied by moms or dads. So it’s no surprise Trainor delivers a wholesome, G-rated event. Early on in her performance, she thanked her mother, Kelly, for her support and for serving as a loyal wardrobe-aide throughout the trek, before launching into a peppy rendition of “Mom.” Immediately following, Trainor said, “I can’t do a mom song without doing a dad song.” So when she performed “Dance Like Yo Daddy,” she also invited her father, Gary, on stage to shimmy and shake. The rest of the evening was peppered with praise for her record company (“My Epic Records family — I hope I make you proud!”) as well as her friends and loved ones.
Production-wise, Trainor’s Untouchable Tour looks like the most opulent cruise ship revue show you’ve ever seen. It’s flawlessly executed and rooted in Vaudeville styles that are accessible and fun. She’s backed by a smartly-dressed band, who ably performed her tunes, while she and her dancers glide across the stage with capable choreography. Trainor makes sure her performance is engaging as possible using a medium that matters most to her fans: social media.
A giant screen broadcast home movies and photos the whole night as if her own Snapchat was on a big screen. The best moments of her performance comes when Trainor’s impressive vocals alone are in full bloom. Gorgeous renditions of “Hopeless Romantic” and “Just a Friend to You” proved you don’t always need a flashy production to turn out a great show.
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Bret and Jemaine first met in 1996 at Victoria University Wellington. Jemaine vividly remembers the first time he met Bret; “he was wearing a hat”. Bret doesn’t remember meeting Jemaine, but says it was unforgettable.
They were both acting in a University Drama Club production called Body Play. Bret and Jemaine were put in a group of five men to create a short theatrical piece about male body issues. The most memorable part of the show was the costumes. They wore nothing but skin coloured bike shorts giving the audience the illusion that they were naked. From that short vignette the group of five developed another pseudo nude show called So, You’re A Man. They performed to sell-out audiences in Wellington and Auckland, and were then invited to perform at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
They flew to Australia for a one month season at a Melbourne comedy club called The Last Laugh. The group couldn’t believe they were being paid to perform and Bret blew his entire first pay cheque on a pair of leather pants. Unfortunately the Australians didn’t appreciate the show like they had in New Zealand, and the season was cancelled after one week.
In 1998 Bret and Jemaine decided to start a band. With a combined knowledge of three chords on the guitar they set about jamming out. The first song was Foux Du FaFa, (two chords) and they called themselves Moustache. The four piece band had Bret on casio-tone, Jemaine on guitar, and their friends Toby Laing and Tim Jaray on trumpet and double bass. They performed their one song at the Wellington Fringe Festival late night club and members of the audience were said to have been “mildly impressed” by the act.
After the encouraging feedback the pair continued to write songs in their living room, subjecting their six flatmates to relentless three chord jams. After several weeks they knew four chords and Jemaine got them a gig to perform at the Thursday night Comedy Club. On the afternoon of the gig they realized they needed a band name. The initial list of names included Roxygen Supply, Albatrocity, and Tanfastic. But the final name was chanced upon in a series of events that went something like this: Jemaine went to the bathroom and noticed the flat toilet was called the Concorde, he returned from the bathroom to suggest the name Conchord, and Bret said “What about Flight of the Conchords”, and Jemaine said “okay”, and Bret said “okay “, and Jemaine said “okay then” and Bret said “We should go to the gig, we’re late”.
That night was their first performance as Flight of the Conchords. Bret and Jemaine were so nervous they couldn’t speak between songs. Despite their performance anxiety the crowd of eleven people enjoyed their gig and were heard clapping and talking amongst themselves.
Propelled on by the success of the gig, and the lack of other work in the city the band continued to perform every second Thursday for the next two years. These early songs included “Bowie’s in Space,” “Petrov, Yelyena and Me,” “Rock Beat,” “Lullaby,” “Albi the Racist Dragon,” “Leggy Blonde,” “The Washing Song,” and “Bus Driver.”
By 2000 they had written a dozen songs and decided to escape the New Zealand winter and perform at the Canadian Fringe Festival. The Calgary show was a success, mostly based on the fact that the Friday and Saturday night crowds sold out because the audience thought they were going to a different show.
In Vancouver they weren’t so lucky. The theatre was an abandoned basement hidden away on an alley off a back street, off of another back street. As they arrived at the venue the only sign that it was a theatre was a guy with a can of red paint writing the words ‘The Cavern’ across the garage door. The obscurity of the venue and the general disinterest in musical comedy meant the Conchords had trouble getting an audience and had to cancel many shows. Their smallest audience was just one woman. She had accidentally passed by the venue on her way home and had agreed to watch the show when Bret and Jemaine offered her a free ticket. It wasn’t until the lights came up at the end of the gig that they realised the woman had snuck out of the room during the performance and they’d been playing to an audience of none.
In 2002 they decided to again escape the New Zealand winter. This time traveling to Scotland to perform in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their venue was an underground tunnel called The Cave. When it rained, which was most days in Edinburgh, the ceiling dripped onto the audience and a dank slime crept down the stone walls. Apparently in the 17th century the room had been used to quarantine plague victims. They performed every night for the month of August and won the Mervyn Stutter Spirit of the Fringe Award. By the time the left they had dozens of fans, and severe chest infections.
They continued to perform at the Wellington Thursday night comedy club, and also did a small number of corporate functions. One such gig was for a Wellington cricket club Christmas function. They performed in the corner of the bar as the cricket club finished their turkey dinner. Unfortunately the inferior sound system meant the lyrics were incomprehensible and Bret and Jemaine were mistaken for a bad covers band. Their song about “Bowie in Space” was heard as an unrecognizable rendition of Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” Unexpectedly three women stormed the stage demanding they could do a better job themselves. Bret attempted to accompany their version of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” while Jemaine packed up the gear. They both ran out the door leaving Wellington’s own Destiny’s Child singing a cappella.
It should also be noted that Bret was cast as an elf in the Lord of the Rings (which led to a recurring role in the trilogy as well as The Hobbit movies). While his character was unnamed, fans of the films named him “FIGWIT” (which was short for “Frodo is great… WHO IS THAT!?").
They returned to Edinburgh in 2003 and again performed in the same subterranean grotto. The show had developed to include a xylophone and a dancing toy flower. Their new songs included “If You’re Into it,” “Bret You’ve Got It Goin’ On,” “Sexy Flower,” and “Hiphopopotamus vs. The Rhymenocerous.”
Back in New Zealand Jemaine went shopping at a local pawn shop and discovered a strange digital guitar from the eighties. It was like a casio-tone keyboard but it was a guitar. He tested it out and found that the low-tech hybrid was a mongrel of an instrument definitely not worth $163. The next day Bret went shopping in the same local pawn shop unaware that Jemaine had been there the day before. Bret’s reaction to the strange instrument was quite different. That afternoon he arrived at band practice with the mongrel keytar in his hands. That day the DG20 casio-tone digital guitar begat the song “She’s So Hot Boom.”
In 2004 they returned to Edinburgh this time performing above ground. The sell-out show included the songs “Jenny,” “Business Time,” “Stana” and an unfinished love song called “The Scientist and the French Teacher.”
From their success in Edinburgh the BBC Light Entertainment Department commissioned the band to make a six part radio series. Bret and Jemaine moved to London in 2005 and spent five months writing and recording a mockumentary about the lives of a fictional version of themselves. The show was the first time they collaborated with NZ comedian Rhys Darby who played the character Brian Nesbitt, the fictional band’s manager.
Later that year Bret and Jemaine received an invitation to perform at the Aspen Comedy Festival, in Colorado, USA. Against tradition they left New Zealand’s summer to go to the northern hemisphere’s winter and were shocked by the snow when they stepped off the plane in t shirts and jandles. The HBO executives liked their act and asked them to film a half hour performance for a stand-up comedy show called One Night Stand.
Over the next four years they made a TV pilot, a sitcom, released an EP (The Distant Future) and a full length album (self-titled LP), toured North America, made a sandwich, filmed a second season of the sitcom, toured North America again, released a second album (I Told You I Was Freaky), and went back to New Zealand.
The HBO sitcom became a hit. This, along with the praise for the subsequent album releases (on Sub Pop Records) and the duo’s live show, was the comedic hat trick that catapulted Flight of the Conchords to international sensations.
The Conchords would also see major success individually. Jemaine lent his voice to the character Nigel the cockatoo in the Rio films (2011 and 2014). He was cast as “Boris The Animal” in Men in Black 3 (2012). Jemaine also wrote, produced and starred in a variety of projects including the acclaimed Vampire comedy film, What We Do In the Shadows and People Places Things. More recently, he joined the cast of The BFG, the new Steven Spielberg adaptation of the Roald Dahl book, as the giant named Fleshlumpeater.
Bret has also been hard at work writing and acting for various television and film projects. Most notably The Muppets (2011) and Muppets Most Wanted (2014), the former of which won him an Academy Award for “Best Original Song” for the power ballad “Man or Muppet”. In 2012 he starred in the New Zealand black comedy Two Little Boys and then in 2013 he was cast in Jerusha Hess’s romantic comedy Austenland. He is currently writing the screenplay and songs for a film adaption of Neil Gaiman’s book Fortunately the Milk as well as penning tunes for the upcoming Disney film Bob the Musical.
And somehow, between all of the film and TV work, the Conchords managed to co-headline the “Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival” alongside Dave Chappelle in 2013.
Jemaine and Bret will return to the U.S. for a summer headlining tour, which features new material exclusive to these shows.
Bob Dylan needs little introduction. An American singer-songwriter, artist and writer. He has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades.
Mavis Staples is living, breathing history. She is an alchemist of American music, and has continuously crossed genre lines like no musician since Ray Charles. Weaving herself into the very fabric of gospel, soul, folk, pop, R&B, blues, rock— even hip hop—over the better part of the last 60 years, the iconic singer has seen and sung through so many changes, always rising up to meet every road unwaveringly.
Find your Beyonce tickets today! The Queen B is hitting the road for the "Formation" World Tour in 2016. The 40-date trek will stop at stadiums across North America. To purchase Beyonce tickets, check out the schedule below for a concert near you. Can't see your city? Use the search box below.
Formed in Brooklyn, now LA based, this sleek band consisting of look-alike twosome of Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig and their counterpart bandmates Dan Molad, Pete Lalish and Andy Burri, They’ve played slots at Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, Lollapalooza, End of The Road, Reading and Leeds Festivals and more and shared the stage with a variety of musicians including Roger Waters, Jack White, Mavis Staples, Jeff Tweedy, Sara Bareilles, The Head and the Heart, Tegan and Sara and David Byrne.
Doors 5:00 PM / Show 6:00 PM (event ends at 10:00 PM)
Although chart success in England was an unlikely first step to fame for a band from Bowling Green, Kentucky, mainstream rock band Cage the Elephant achieved just that. Formed by Matt Shultz, Brad Shultz, Jared Champion,Lincoln Parish, and Daniel Tichenor, the group earned a contract with the Relentless label and released the “Free Love” single late in 2007. A support slot for the Pigeon Detectives beckoned in early 2008, and follow-up single “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” reached the Top 40 in June. The group’s self-titled debut followed soon after, becoming a respectable commercial and critical success. Two years later they returned with the single “Shake Me Down,” while early 2011 saw the release of their second album,Thank You Happy Birthday. In early 2012, the band released the live CD and DVD Live from the Vic in Chicago, which captured performances from their sold-out two-night run at the famous Chicago venue. Returning to the studio, the band recorded its third album, Melophobia. Released in October 2013, the album saw the group collaborating with Alison Mosshart (the Kills, the Dead Weather) and featured the modern rock radio hit “Come a Little Closer.” During the Melophobia era, the band parted ways with their founding guitarist, Lincoln Parish, who went on to focus on producing for other artists in Nashville. In late 2015, the band released their fourth album, Tell Me I’m Pretty, which was produced by Dan Auerbach of one-time tourmates the Black Keys.
There has to be some credit given for this band’s name alone — co-founder John Gourley once explained it as an attempt to create a demi-mythic entity bigger than the individual members. Formed in Wasilla, Alaska, Portugal. The Man (yes, there’s a period in the middle of their name) grew out of the ashes of Anatomy of a Ghost, a post-hardcore band whose vocalist and guitarist — Gourley and Zach Carothers, respectively — opted to continue working together. Rounding out the new band’s lineup was keyboardist/singer Wes Hubbard, himself a veteran of other Alaskan groups, and the trio eventually relocated from Alaska to Portland, Oregon. Their initial existence in the Pacific Northwest was the typical hardscrabble life of a band with few resources, but drummer Jason Sechrist (formerly of Konmai Defense System) joined to form a more stable lineup. The band’s profile received a boost from the Internet (the musicians made heavy use of MySpace and PureVolume for promotional purposes), and Portugal. The Man released an initial EP in 2005 before issuing their debut album, Waiter: You Vultures!, in early 2006. The next year, the group (whose lineup had once again reverted to three members, as Hubbard had left and was replaced by touring keyboardist Ryan Neighbors), issued Church Mouth, whose aggressive sound bore traces of Led Zeppelin and Jane’s Addiction. The bandmates then opted to finance their third record themselves, drawing upon a wealth of guest musicians — including trombonists, trumpeters, and violinists — to create the eclectic Censored Colors. In 2009 the group released The Satanic Satanist, then quickly followed up the next year with the mellower and more electronic American Ghetto. Later that year, the band signed with Atlantic Records. Guitarist Noah Gersh joined the band for their 2011 summer tour. The group recorded their major label debut album, In the Mountain in the Cloud in late 2011; it was produced by John Hill, mixed by Andy Wallace, and released in July of 2012. A month earlier, Sleep Forever, a 13-minute short directed by Michael Ragen, and shot entirely in Gourley’s hometown, premiered on the Independent Film Channel. This was the last recording for members Sechrist and Neighbors, who were replaced by drummer Kane Richotte and keyboardist Kyle O’Quin. Portugal. The Man enlisted Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) as producer for 2013’s Evil Friends; the album was released in June of 2013.
Just Enough Hip To Be Woman is a bold step forward for BRONCHO. Though it certainly bears the hallmarks of their previous work — fuzzy, guitar-driven rock – the production and energy of the record moves into decidedly sleeker and decidedly more new wave directions (think Cheap Trick meets the Drive soundtrack meets every great song from Fast Times at Ridgemont High meets the greatest after-hours party you've never been to). Tracks like "Stay Loose," "NC-17" and "What" are the kind of pop-rock that could have easily been beamed in from the same universe that gave rise to The Cars (or a looser version of The Strokes), while the album's first single, "Class Historian" — with its unstoppable "do do do do" vocal refrain is the kind of song that seems scientifically engineered to stick in your brain forever and is arguably best played loudly over a car stereo with the windows down and your long hair blowing in the breeze. Clocking in at just more than 30 minutes, the eleven tracks on the new record are a potent statement of intent: an effortless sounding rock record that dips its toe into a variety of different styles without ever succumbing to any of them.
Hailing from Oakland, California, Del and his crew, the Hieroglyphics came out as a markedly non-gangster response to a burgeoning West Coast scene. After being put on at the tender age of 17 by his cousin Ice Cube, Del released two records on Elektra, I Wish My Brother George Was Here (1991) and No Need For Alarm (1993). Despite record sales in the hundreds of thousands, he recorded a third album, Future Development, which was never commercially released. Del parted with Elektra and started work on the Hieroglyphics..family album, 3rd Eye Vision (Hiero Imperium, 1998). Hiero went on the road and toured incessantly in support of the album for much of 1998. Del also spent a good portion of his time drawing, practicing Japanese, and playing mass amounts of video games. Finally ready to unleash a new record on the world, Del comes with BOTH SIDES OF THE BRAIN. Seventeen tracks of pure Del. He says of his work on this album: .."I've had complete control". At times, Del has felt restrained by the formulas in hip hop and the expectations fans place upon emcees who have had hits. I wish that I had the same freedom that someone like Bjork has when she puts out an album..Apart from collaborations with PrincePaul, El-P (Company Flow), and help from a few of his Hiero cohorts (A-plus, Casual, Domino) Del handled the majority of production on this album. By staying true to himself, Del has earned legions of adoring fans. He may have said it best in his classic, Mistadobalina when he declared all in the mind and the heart.
The Village Voice's inaugural Brunch Eats on Wednesday, May 11th, 2016 will be a Breakfast-for-Dinner event held from 8:00pm–11:00pm. The sister event to the annual SELL OUT event Choice Eats, Brunch Eats will feature 20+ of New York City's top restaurants and bakeries lauded in the Village Voice who will present their best brinner bites, mouth-watering brunch dishes plus themed cocktails including bloody marys, mimosas, bellinis, coffee, live music and more.
Guests will sample and sip from all attending participants for one ticket price aboard the Flight Deck on top of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum amongst propeller planes that were used during World War II. Guests can expect to rise and dine with breakfast and brunch favorites ranging from doughnuts to eggs and bacon to pastries.
VIP and General Admission tickets will be available. VIP guests will have access to a unique experience in the VIP Space Shuttle Pavilion which houses the Enterprise space shuttle, the prototype NASA orbiter that paved the way for the space shuttle program.
TV Girl is Trung Ngo and Brad Petering, friends who spent many Southern California summers together absorbing pop music and forming a succession of bands that tried to sound like the Beatles.
TV Girl was formed with the intention of combining the duo's love of girl-group pop with a budding interest in hip-hop. They released a self-titled EP in September 2010 which was immediately given a high profile boost when their song "If You Want It" was featured on taste-making blog Pitchfork. The EP subsequently spread throughout the blogosphere and was written about by big name publications like The Guardian, The Atlantic, and NPR, who praised the group's knack for re-appropriating pop history through knowing lyrical allusions and carefully chosen samples.
Formerly known as Mirror Kisses and ESPRIT 空想, George Clanton has decided to finally go by his own name and merge the two personas into one project, combining the vocal and New Wave/Chillwave elements from Mirror Kisses with the ethereal, hazy and lo-fi Vaporwave elements of ESPRIT 空想, which results in an absolutely beautiful new sound altogether. On his latest album, "100% Electronica, Clanton's warm and glistening synths glide over immensely satisfyingly punchy percussion, with George's passionate and effects-drenched vocals seamlessly blending in with the instrumentation, making every track feel like an anthem for a summer that never ends. So far, this album stands as a testament to how far George has come as a musician in general, and a promising glimpse at the direction his music will take in the future. If this is truly any indication, the future seems incredibly bright.
Hailing from Queens, mOma is the embodiment of the versatile New York DJ. His sets consist of an agile blend of funk, soul, r&b, disco, house, hip-hop, reggae, world music and underground dance grooves all mixed with an equal share of classic jams, rare gems and modern day bangers. This unique diversity has seen him hold a wide spectrum of residencies, ranging from the esoteric (The Good Spot at 105 Rivington w/ DJ Stimulus, Special Delivery at APT w/ DJ Eleven, Hot Music at Submercer w/ Rok One & Jennifly, Redirekt at Cielo w/ Vikter Duplaix) to the more mainstream (Griffin, Gold Bar, Trump Soho). His current residencies - Friday nights at Ginny's Supper Club / Red Rooster (Marcus Samuelsson's Harlem hotspots) and a monthly Saturday daytime brunch party dubbed 'Everyday People' - have solidified his status as a local crowd favorite as well as the go-to guy for A-list celebrities to dance night away. The past year has seen mOma share the stage with Legends of the DJ game - Tony Humphries, Marley Marl, Pete Rock, Evil Dee, Rich Medina, Felix the Housecat and Tony Touch just to name a few - as well as DJ events for Solange Knowles, J Cole, John Legend and Estelle. 2013 looks equally promising for mOma.
Alicia Olatuja w/ Jon Cowherd, piano; David Rosenthal, guitar; Michael Olatuja, bass; Otis Brown III, drums
Once Alicia Olatuja moved to New York her reputation as a supreme jazz vocalist began to take shape. The New York media lauded her performances with her husband, bassist Michael Olatuja, as well as her performance at the 2013 presidential inauguration. On her debut album, Timeless, Olatuja was joined by a brilliant ensemble of players including Christian McBride, Jon Cowherd, Christian Sands, Ulysses Owens Jr. and Michael Olatuja, which speaks volumes to her versatile vocal style. When not performing, she is a voice educator at Brooklyn Arts Council. She was featured at the 2015 Festival with Billy Childs and the Laura Nyro project.
Alicia Olatuja & Michael Olatuja's album The Promise. Listen on iTunes
