Photo: AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson

If there was an unseen presence at Stevie Wonder’s free outdoor show at the Montreal International Jazz Festival last night, it was that of a fellow Motown child star. Wonder was brought in to launch the festival’s 30th anniversary with a bang. But before singing a note, he walked out on the General Motors stage, accompanied by his daughter, Aisha Morris, and somberly addressed the audience.

“I want for us to celebrate the life and the legacy of Michael Jackson,” he said, before criticizing gossip mongers and vultures who have exploited the late singer and focused on his darker moments. “We can continue to keep the life and spirit of this man’s music alive forever,” Wonder said before opening a generous two-and-a-half hour show with “I Can’t Help It,” the song he co-wrote on the Jackson classic Off the Wall. (more…)

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About halfway through his set at the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, Florida, Friday night, Kid Rock saluted the Twisted Brown Trucker Band, the 10 excellent musicians backing him. “There’s no Pro Tools, no tapes, no trickery,” the man born Robert James Ritchie to a suburban Detroit auto dealer said. “This ain’t no American Idol bullshit; this is some American badass shit.”

It’s true: Kid’s band, anchored by dynamo orange-’froed drummer Stephanie Eulinberg, kept the opening night of the Rock and Rebels tour on high musical ground, rather than plummeting into parody. Was it nice to see a live concert that really felt live? Yeah, Auto-Tune is destroying music (arguably). Does that make Kid Rock more authentic — let alone badass — than Carrie Underwood? Ladies and gentlemen, Kid Rock is an entertainer. He’s got a lot more PT Barnum than Bob Dylan in him. But he puts on a solid show.

Kid took the stage silhouetted against a white sheet. Stooped over with his long hair hanging out of his trademark bowler, he looked not unlike the old cartoon hillbilly character that had played on the video screen behind Lynyrd Skynyrd about a half-hour earlier. Make no mistake: Ritchie is playing a character. (more…)

Photo: Voake/Retna

“This venue is way more crowded than it was an hour ago,” Busta Rhymes announced , surveying Rock the Bells’ audience June 27th at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in suburban Chicago — the first stop on RTB’s seven-week, 10-city tour. “Let’s turn this bitch up, right now!”

Then the co-headlining MC, his perennial hypeman Spliff Star, and ace DJ Roc Raida bashed through Rhymes’ gleefully bawdy “Make It Clap.” And from that point on, savvy showman Rhymes — whose headlining performance had been immediately preceded by predictable and adventurous sets, respectively, from Big Boi and the Roots — owned Rock the Bells’ crowd.

They roared at every intro to Busta’s life-of-the-party parade of hits — “Pass the Courviosier,” “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See,” and more — and apparently forgave him for serving up only snippets of each. “He’s a tease, man,” one fan griped, but he was smiling. (more…)

“I smell trouble in the air, baby,” announced Jon Bon Jovi just two songs into his namesake band’s 130-minute performance at Milwaukee’s Summerfest on Thursday. “Trouble with a capitol T.”

But playing a to a packed Marcus Amphitheater (capacity: 23,000) on the opening night of Summerfest — an 11-day festival that features 700-plus bands performing on 11 stages — Bon Jovi and Co. caused about as much trouble as Rod and Todd Flanders combined. It’s hard for the New Jersey quartet to shake their good-guy sincerity, and why should they? Bon Jovi, for one, sounded like a hopeless romantic, singing: “You were born to be my baby”; “I won’t lie to you”; “God, it’s good to see you smile.”

This common touch goes a long way to explaining the band’s enduring appeal. Of course, having been around for 26 years, the group has made certain concessions to time. (more…)

Last night Fatboy Slim turned his Wednesday night audience at New York’s Terminal 5 into a pack of Saturday night revelers. It was one of his two U.S. dates this tour, but it may also be his last: Norman Cook recently said he was renouncing his Fatboy Slim moniker, a name that produced some of the most compelling dance floor hits of the Nineties. Last month Cook as the Brighton Port Authority (BPA) released We’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat — an album that features legendary long-lost collaborations with David Byrne, Martha Wainwright, Dizzee Rascal and Iggy Pop. (Read more about the BPA here.)

Cook had only one guise — superstar DJ — last night as he stood barefoot, drinking Red Bull on a small stage surrounded by his computer and turntables. Bizarre and intense visuals were projected behind him, and he periodically blared an air horn into the crowd. Cook kept the songs flowing, segueing one loud hit into another, including remixes of some popular songs. He played a bass heavy remix of the Gorillaz’s “Feel Good Inc.” and when he broke out Vandalism’s remix of H Two O’s “What’s it Gonna Be” the audience began to look like it was standing on top of an avalanche, leaping up and down. (more…)

Photograph by Oliver J. Lopena for RollingStone.com

It was more than 20 years ago that hair metal taught the kids to tease-and-spray, and since then high-heeled boys and their sticky metallic hooks have become fodder for love-lorn reality shows and slick Broadway musicals. And the answers to some of the pressing questions of our day — Is the Leppard still Def? Is Poison still nothin’ but a good time? Is the Trick still Cheap? — will be answered at an amphitheater near you when the 40-date Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick tour, which opened last night at near-sold out Susquehana Bank Center in Camden, New Jersey, rolls into a town near you. The answers are, in order: Yes, yes, and depends if you sit out on the lawn or pony up top-dollar for ringside seating.

(Check out photos from the triple bill’s opening night here.)

First up was Cheap Trick, who have never really left the road since they went live at Budokan, and their bracing blend of Beatlesque hooks and high voltage riffs still rocks righteously. Cheap Trick rocked the early arrivals with a short, sharp set that mixed classics like “I Want You To Want Me” and “Dream Police” with super-fresh new material like “These Days” and “Sick Man Of Europe” from their just-released album, The Latest. Robin Zander, smartly dressed in a black-tie-and-vest with his long blonde locks tied back in a ninja pony tail, hit all the sky-high notes, and guitarist Rick Nielsen, rocking a burgundy tux and his patented big-billed ball cap, showered the crowd with guitar picks and fat-bottomed riffs. (more…)

Photograph by Alex Reside for RollingStone.com

Of all the one-name-required pop divas who launched big arena tours within the last three years, the most unknowable star is Beyoncé. There are fountains of tabloid tales about Madonna, Britney, Mariah and Christina, but the onetime Destiny’s Child singer has mysteriously but impeccably carved out her own niche as a triple threat while hiding in broad spotlight. Perhaps that’s why she so strenuously emphasized the many dimensions of her identity at Madison Square Garden Sunday night, kicking off the U.S. leg of her “I Am …” tour in New York. The title could have been followed by a dozen sometimes conflicting terms — dancer, balladeer, street, classy, movie star, rock star, feminist, sex symbol, humble, proud, demure Beyoncé, fearless Sasha Fierce. Ultimately, though, she wanted to be consumed. “I am,” she said as the final notes rang out, “I am … yours.”

(Check out photos of Beyoncé’s fierce, glitzy show here.)

Two hours earlier Beyoncé emerged alone in a gust of smoke. Giant black curtains parted and a single beam of light illuminated her silhouette, as though the heavens had opened and simply deposited her leggy figure there. Opener “Crazy in Love” had enough pomp and glitter to have been the encore, and as Jay-Z calmly strode onstage to join his wife for his verse, the Garden lit up with camera phones and genuine hysteria. Beyoncé pulled out the stops early and often, swinging her hair around wildly, falling to her knees and dancing hard enough for every move to be seen by fans in the $20 seats. She worked, and worked it relentlessly, never missing a note, a beat of choreography, or a chance to strike a pose, hold it, and be adored. (more…)

Photo: Ricard/Retna

Yesterday morning the Jonas Brothers caused a mini-panic by announcing a free surprise show at New York’s Irving Plaza. By 4 p.m., when fans were permitted to line up outside the venue — after school hours, by design — the scene was hectic and the excited squeals audible. The band, in town to promote their upcoming Lines, Vines and Trying Times with Good Morning America and Late Show With David Letterman appearances, dashed into the building just before showtime and treated the crowd (mostly young, mostly shrieking females) to a full set featuring new tunes “Paranoid,” “Poison Ivy” and standout “Much Better,” as well as hits like “Lovebug” and “Be Be Good.”

Kevin Jonas climbed on the baby grand for a guitar solo, and Nick revealed the first time they ever played the club he scaled a column of speakers. Of course, he was just 13 then. “We’re all getting older” he murmured while seated at the piano, playing mash-up of “Black Keys” and “A Little Bit Longer.”

The trio were eager to talk about how their sound and their live show have evolved backstage while running through practice sessions for their World Tour 2009. Check out Rolling Stone’s sneak peek — a first look at the new stage, video and a chat with the band — in our Jonas Brothers tour rehearsal package. “We really tried to step it up this time,” Kevin told us. “You might have to come more than once to see it all because you might not catch it all.”

Last night at London’s jam-packed Brixton Academy a slice of metal history was revisited, and a new chapter began. Mike Patton, Roddy Bottum, Billy Gould, Mike “Puffy” Bordin and Album of the Year-era guitarist Jon Hudson (stepping in once again for Jim Martin) returned to the stage after 11 years as Faith No More.

In front of a David Lynch-inspired red draped backdrop, the quintet emerged in Zoot Suits (Patton’s peach, Bottum’s appropriately pink, Gould’s cream and Hudson in blue — only Puffy was let off the hook behind his kit in standard attire), and wedding-like buttonhole carnations, playing an unlikely but appropriate tune: Peaches & Herb’s soul classic “Reunited.” When Patton and Bottom finished their duet, there were genuine smiles from the stage of both relief and pleasure.

From the start Patton the auteur commanded the stage, and it became clear that his post-FNM musical adventures have added new dimensions to the band’s songs. Patton, in slicked-back hair, switched between easy listening and screams with ease, and his stage mannerisms swung from Messiah-like iconography during “I Started A Joke” to crazed epileptic tantrums in “The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies,” and he wasn’t afraid to play the role of refined classic ’50s gentleman. (more…)

Photo: Von Holden/Getty
If you hung out in New York’s Soho neighborhood in the early 1980s, chances are you could’ve caught an early Sonic Youth performing in an avant-garde loft space. A lot has changed in the last three decades. Last night, to celebrate the release of their terrific new album The Eternal, the indie-rock heroes returned to the now-gentrified neighborhood to perform a short-but-sweet set at the Apple store.

Of course, the vibe was a little weird: Sonic Youth are more suited to performing in dingy rock clubs than in a space normally dedicated to Photoshop tutorials. During the set, bespectacled fans fiddled with their iPhones as they sat quietly in comfy, fold-out chairs. As singer-bassist-guitarist Kim Gordon quipped mid-way through the show, “It’s so quiet, one would think this was a temple to technology.” (more…)

Photo: Weiner/Retna

When it comes to the Roots — currently in-residence as the house band for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and arguably the greatest live hip-hop act on the planet — you must always expect the unexpected. So it should come as no surprise that Saturday’s second annual Roots Picnic at the Festival Pier in Philadelphia was a 12-hour all-you-can-eat-and-then-some feast of wonderful WTF-ness.

What other band would kick off their own multi-genre Lollapalooza — featuring Public Enemy, TV On The Radio, the Black Keys, Santigold, Kid Cudi and Asher Roth — with an impromptu improv with guest MCs Jordan Knight and Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids On The Block (who just happened to be performing later that night across the river at the Susquehanna Center in Camden)? Who else would dare back up Chuck D and Flava Flav for a beginning-to-end live rendition of Public Enemy’s 1988 landmark album It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back? Who else would book the Black Keys’ sludgy biker-blues choogle in between Ohio player Kid Cudi’s uber-catchy indie-rap and Santigold’s retro-pop readymades from the Ray Ban-ed dawn of MTV? Small wonder we saw so many ?UEST FOR PREZ T-shirts in the crowd. (more…)

Photo courtesy of Hsiang-yu Wang

Barricades lined the streets of New York’s Times Square Saturday evening. Barack and Michelle Obama dropped into town for dinner and a play (August Wilson revival Joe Turner’s Come and Gone). Just across the street at the Nokia Theatre, a packed house went wild while Mos Def and Talib Kweli reunited onstage as Black Star nearly 11 years after their classic, and only, studio album as a duo.

“Shout out to Michelle Obama!” Mos called out after the crowd sang along with “Brown Skin Lady,” a reverential ode to the fairer sex. “You know Obama’s up the block, right?” Mos asked, going into an Obama bit, acting as if he were exiting the Air Force One. “That’s right whitey! Deal with it!” He yelled, then assured the crowd: “I don’t mean the whiteys in here, you know what whiteys I’m taking about. Crazy whiteys.”

“Yeah, the crazy whiteys,” Talib agreed. (more…)

Photo: Dino Perucci
As the sun dipped below Hunter Mountain on Sunday evening at the Mountain Jam festival, the Allman Brothers Band ripped into a rowdy version of “Statesboro Blues,” that familiar guitar riff echoing through the peaks and valleys of the Catskills. After an hour of slower jams, it was the crowd pleaser fans needed as the cool mountain air picked up force, tussling the dread-headed masses and sending chills down their dirt-smeared bodies. Guitarist Derek Trucks, who rocked with the Allmans throughout the set, took the intro while Gregg Allman handled lead vocals and produced a particularly nasty keyboard solo midway through the cut.

Trucks, a slide guitar God, and Gov’t Mule guitarist Warren Haynes traded short-but-tasty licks on the classic “Soulshine,” and while Haynes is in his own right a master guitar player, Trucks stole the show with his seemingly effortless solos, all delivered stone-faced and with a humble nod. He barely acknowledged the crowd, but with all the hooting, hollering and applause, he knew he was the man of the evening.

A psychedelic mushroom revolved around purple, pink and blue spinning patterns on the backdrop through the entirety of the Allman’s set and that seemed to sum up the crowd’s vibe: trip, dance and don’t worry about eating anything more than a few garlic grilled cheese sandwiches until Monday morning. (more…)

Photo: Textor/Getty

Yeah Yeah Yeahs reworked their scrappy punk sound to brilliant effect on their third album, It’s Blitz!, incorporating rich keyboard textures and displaying an increased fragility on a handful of moodier cuts. But despite the musical shift, the trio sounded anything but delicate as they launched a national tour at a near-capacity Aragon Ballroom in Chicago on Tuesday.

(Check out photos from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Chicago blitz.)

Karen O, decked out in tiger-print tights and a patterned kimono, was a blur of movement, spewing streams of water (on both herself and at the audience), stomping on foot pedals to trigger blasts of confetti and incorporating enough frantic dance moves to make Bruno Tonioli’s head spin. The frontwoman appeared to find inspiration in everything from Tai chi to Jazzercise to epileptic seizures (if the weather outside the venue was any indication, it’s likely she tossed in some sort of tribal rain dance as well).

Diminutive guitarist Nick Zinner provided a perfect foil to Karen O’s Technicolor presence. Dressed head-to-toe in black and sporting a dramatic haircut, the wiry musician looked as though he’d sprung directly from Tim Burton’s imagination and played as if he’d committed the entire Cramps discography to memory (fitting then that the group tore through a gloriously sludgy version of Lux Interior and Company’s “Human Fly”). (more…)

Photo: Hill/FilmMagic

After a rousing version of “American Land,” Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s Saturday night show at the Izod Center truly seemed over. By this point the band had played for three consecutive hours, with a mind-blowing set loaded with rarely played fan favorites from his 1970s catalog. It seemed like the end, but as the band returned to their stations for two more songs Springsteen roared: “The turnpike is closed. Nobody goes home!”

You won’t see many concerts with an “Attorney General Will Call Line,” but a ticketing snafu led to thousands of consumer complaints that eventually lead to many aggrieved fans getting tickets through a special lottery. The incident was even the talk of Congress. People really wanted into this show, and Springsteen did everything he could to make it special. He began deviating from the handwritten set list early on, calling for the Darkness On The Edge of Town gem “Something In The Night,” which was an early emotional highlight.

During the fan request portion of the evening, he played the Born In The USA track “Cover Me,” a powerful version of “Thunder Road” and the rarely performed “E Street Shuffle.” (more…)