No, it wasn’t in the form of a halftime show — which is something the band has been worthy of headlining now for well over two decades. Instead, the pop-punk legends opened up the Super Bowl pregame entertainment festivities inside Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Sunday.
The East Bay band, consisting of vocalist-guitarist Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool, performed as previous Super Bowl MVPs including Tom Brady, Jalen Hurts, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning and Jerry Rice made their way onto the turf.
Green Day performed a four-song set of mostly upbeat and often abbreviated fan favorites, including “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” “Holiday,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” and “American Idiot.”
And while the band and particularly Armstrong are known for their outspoken beliefs, Green Day did not use the Super Bowl forum to make any political statements, instead focusing on the excitement of the situation.
“Welcome to the Bay!” Armstrong said. “It’s Super Bowl 60!!”
The pregame entertainment began as Coco Jones delivered a soaring version of “Lift Every Voice” (aka the Black National Anthem). Jones is an immensely talented R&B/pop/soul singer, best known for the Grammy-winning hit “ICU.” She released her full-length debut album — “Why Not More?” — in 2025.
Charlie Puth handled the national anthem. The singer, known for such multi-platinum-certified hits as “Marvin Gaye” and “See You Again,” will return to the Bay Area to perform at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on May 1.
Brandi Carlile, the acclaimed folk-rock-pop singer-songwriter with a staggering 11 Grammy victories to her credit, sang “America the Beautiful.” Carlile will be back in the Bay Area to perform on March 6 at Chase Center in San Francisco.
The singers were accompanied by ALS performers Fred Michael Beam (national anthem and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”) and Julian Ortiz (“America the Beautiful”).
Bad Bunny had a message for the millions of TV viewers as he accepted the Best Musica Urbana Album award on Sunday night at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say — ICE out,” said the Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, who is set to perform during the Super Bowl Halftime Show on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. “We’re not savages. We’re not aliens. We are humans.
“And we are Americans.”
Bad Bunny would also win what’s widely regarded as the top trophy of the night — the Grammy for Album of the Year — during the ceremony in the Grammys in Los Angeles.
Bad Bunny’s ended up winning two of his six Grammy nominations. Those six nominations included three of the so-called “Big Four” general field categories — Album of the Year (which he won), Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The other nods are for Best Música Urbana Album (which he also won), Best Global Music Performance and Best Album Cover.
Bad Bunny is the first Spanish-language artist to be nominated in — or win — those three general field categories.
Bad Bunny was one of the many artists who got a shout-out from host Trevor Noah as he walked through the star-studded crowd during the mostly pointless opening monologue. (Monologue summary: “Hey, there are famous musicians at the Grammys! Who knew?”) Other artists that Noah mentioned included Queen Latifah, Billie Eilish, Olivia Dean, Jamie Foxx and Reba McEntire.
Noah later came and sat down at the same table with Bad Bunny, saying that he had just learned that there was a reason why the Puerto Rican superstar wasn’t performing at the Grammys.
“Whoever is doing the Super Bowl is contractually obligated to only do the Super Bowl so you can’t perform at the Grammy’s,” Noah said. “Is that true? You can’t perform?”
“No. I wish. But I can’t, you know?” Bad Bunny replied.
But, in the end, the Eagles decided to carry on even without ailing guitarist-vocalist Joe Walsh and play their sold-out show at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Saturday night (Jan. 24).
The result was unlike any other show the massively popular Los Angeles band has performed during its lengthy Sphere residence, except, really, in one way:
It was still an absolute delight to behold.
Vince Gill, the country star who joined the band after original member Glenn Frey died in 2016, shouldered most of the load caused by Walsh’s absence. He sang the tunes that usually go to Walsh and played many of his regular guitar leads — with the other portion of those hot licks being handled, quite admirably, by ace touring member Chris Holt.
Walsh was out of the fold on this night, band leader Don Henley explained to the crowd, due to his coming down with the flu. Walsh had still managed to soldier through the previous night’s Sphere gig, but his doctor reportedly advised him not to take the stage on Saturday.
He was missed — especially vocally — since Gill’s angelic voice does not, in any way shape or form, resemble Walsh’s charmingly out-of-pitch squawk-talk style. And there were times during the guitar parts that it felt like Walsh might have pushed things a little further — or, at least, a little different — than his studio-session-ready counterparts.
Eagles perform at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Jan. 24, 2026 (Jim Harrington, Bay Area News Group).
But Walsh will hopefully be feeling better soon and be back in the mix during this blockbuster Eagles residency, which continues at the Sphere through March 28. (For exact dates and other ticket information, visit eagles.com.)
The continued success of this residency — which is the longest in Sphere history — is further proof of the undying love for the Eagles, which got their start as the backing band for Linda Ronstadt in 1971.
Want even more proof? Well, consider that the Eagles’ “Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975” recently garnered quadruple platinum certification in the U.S. Never heard of the term “quadruple platinum certification” before? Well, that’s because it had never ever happened before — the Eagles are the first act to hit that mark, which translates to 40x platinum (aka, 40 millions album units sold).
The group would underscore so many of the reasons for its vast popularity during Saturday’s approximately 2-hour show. The classic rock outfit performed all 10 of the songs featured on that quadruple diamond offering — which ranks as the best-selling album of all time in the U.S. — as well as others tunes from elsewhere in the band catalog as well as a few solo Henley and Walsh cuts.
Eagles perform at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Jan. 24, 2026 (Jim Harrington, Bay Area News Group).
It’s amazing how good the group — consisting of Henley, Gill, bassist Timothy B. Schmit and vocalist-guitarist Deacon Frey (son of Glenn Frey) as well as touring members Holt, Scott F. Crago on drums and Will Hollis and Michael Thompson on various keys — sounded without such an important piece of the musical puzzle.
Yet, Henley explained that the band had called an emergency two-hour practice earlier in the day, once it was clear that Walsh wasn’t going to make it to the show, and it definitely did the trick. The whole thing went really smoothly and, if you didn’t know any better, it would have been hard to even tell that the group was missing anyone at all.
Of course, the whole shebang was greatly enhanced by the venue itself, which delivered its mind-blowing mix of colorful, moving visuals across and around its unbelievable vivid and clear 16K resolution wraparound LED screen that dominates the interior of this 366-foot-fall building.
The video segments and special effects always played to the lyrics, strengthening storylines with images that moved between fantastical and rooted in reality. As far as the latter goes, the group continually took us to its hometown of L.A. — as well as the broader Southern California region — which makes sense given the pronounced role that the City of Angels has played in the group’s music.
Highlights included those famed band harmonies on “Seven Bridges Road,” delivered ever so sweetly as huge video images of the players floated well above the stage; Deacon Frey’s solid vocal work on “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” which came to a close with a big shot of papa Glenn Frey on the screen; Gill’s blistering lead work on the Walsh solo cut “In the City”; and Henley warmly dedicating “The Boys of Summer” to the dearly departed Bobby Weir.
It was a great show from start to finish. And the shows will likely get even better once Walsh returns to the stage. Fans who haven’t attended this residency yet — or those who simply want another helping of the fun — should definitely consider making a date with the Eagles at the Sphere soon.
Eagles perform at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Jan. 24, 2026 (Jim Harrington, Bay Area News Group).
Green Day, one of the most successful acts in Bay Area music history, is getting in on the Super Bowl Sunday fun.
The East Bay pop-rock band, which formed in Rodeo in 1987, will perform an opening ceremony set just moments prior to the big game taking place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Feb. 8.
The performance by Green Day — the multiplatinum trio consisting of vocalist-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool — celebrates the Super Bowl’s 60th anniversary and will be used as the soundtrack to usher generations of Super Bowl MVPs onto the field.
“We are super hyped to open Super Bowl 60 right in our backyard!” Armstrong said in a press release. “We are honored to welcome the MVPs who’ve shaped the game and open the night for fans all over the world. Let’s have fun! Let’s get loud!”
Fans including Ashley Lim, of Pleasanton, center, react as Green Day performs during their Saviors Tour at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. Lim got up on stage to briefly sing with frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
The Green Day news was announced during halftime of the NFC Divisional Playoff matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Bears on Sunday. This opening ceremony/performance will be aired live at 3 p.m. during the Super Bowl TV broadcast, which is being carried by NBC and Telemundo.
The game itself is set to start at 3:30 p.m.
“Celebrating 60 years of Super Bowl history with Green Day as a hometown band, while honoring the NFL Legends who’ve helped define this sport is an incredibly powerful way to kick off Super Bowl LX.” said Tim Tubito, NFL senior director, event and game presentation. “As we work alongside NBC Sports for this opening ceremony, we look forward to creating a collective celebration for fans in the stadium and around the world.”
Green Day is also set to perform an invitation-only Super Bowl week concert — with fellow Bay Area act Counting Crows — at the The FanDuel Party Powered by Spotify event on Feb. 6 at Pier 29 in San Francisco. The event is not open to the general public, nor are tickets being sold, but rather is an “invite-only” function.
Green Day performs during their Saviors Tour at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
The second BottleRock Napa headliner that really has us excited is the Backstreet Boys, the legendary “boy band” known for such glistening pop hits as “I Want It That Way,” “Bye Bye Bye” and — ranking in as one of the finest ballads of the ’90s — “Quit Playing Games (with My Heart).”
Other top names on the bill include Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters — which is making its third appearance at BottleRock, following headlining slots in 2017 and 2021 — as well as Teddy Swims, LCD Soundsystem and SOMBR.
Further down the bill, you’ll find plenty of other cool acts — Lil Wayne, Chaka Khan, Rilo Kiley, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, etc. — which combine to make this one of the strongest BottleRock bills in years.
The complete lineup is listed below.
Tickets for this three-day music (and so much more) festival — which runs May 22-24 at the Napa Valley Expo in downtown Napa — start at $475 per person and go on sale at 10 a.m. Jan. 14, BottleRockNapaValley.com.
No word on when, or if, single-day tickets will be released. Individual daily lineups will be announced in the weeks to come.
The lineup for the festival’s popular Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage — hosted by the amazing Liam “Foodie Chap” Mayclem — will be announced at a later date.
The Bottom of the Hill — once dubbed as “the best place to hear live music in San Francisco” by Rolling Stone magazine — is set to close its doors at the end of 2026.
The popular music venue, which booked early-career gigs by Green Day, Oasis, Alanis Morissette, The Strokes and other acts that would go on to headline major arenas and festivals, will host its last gig on New Year’s Eve, according to a post made on the Bottom of the Hill’s Facebook page.
“We make this announcement with great difficulty,” the post reads. “This legendary business will have lived to the ripe old age of 35, a long stretch in San Francisco for an independent rock ‘n’ roll venue of our size. It has been a wonderful trip, and we are full of stories and memories. We have hosted tens of thousands of musical artists and have been a community partner as well, holding numerous benefits, school recitals, weddings, birthdays, and memorials. Let’s have one more solid year of memories together and bid a fond farewell to a legendary venue.”
The closing will mark the end of one of the Bay Area’s marquee independent music venues — one of the very few that aren’t booked by a major concert promoter. Yet, thankfully, the club owners are giving people plenty of advance notice so that music fans from all around the Bay Area will have12 months to visit and bid farewell to the club, which has also hosted such great bands as the Throwing Muses, the Donnas, Queens of the Stone Age, Neutral Milk Hotel, the White Stripes and the Dandy Warhols since originally opening its doors at the corner of 17th and Missouri streets in the Potrero Hill district in 1991.
“We will curate one more year of great shows, enticing bands that make up our history to come back for one final play on our stage,” the Facebook post reads. “Let’s celebrate, for one more spin, how far we came, how many bands we hosted, how many amazing people we worked with.
“We want to thank the bands, their agents, managers, and roadies, for always bringing the most exciting shows to our intimate room, with the analog board at the helm. And most especially, we wish to thank our loyal customers who kept us in business for this long and told us, in so many ways, that we were doing things right.”
Increasing operating costs, shifts in the city’s demographics and the lingering impact of the pandemic — leading to more people staying at home — are reportedly among the reasons for the closing of the club, according to an interview with the Bottom of the Hill owners on coyotemedia.org. Overall, however, it also seems like the time was right for the owners to move on from the club.
“As the owners of Bottom of the Hill, we (Ramona Downey, Kathleen Owen, and Lynn Schwarz), are three women in different phases of our lives (and a sad RIP to Tim Benetti, our beloved fourth, whom we recently lost),” the Facebook post reads. “Part of what has made our partnership so functional and wonderful are the perspectives of three strong women from different generations and backgrounds. We come together on so many issues but also bring our own unique life experiences to this business.
“Together we have nurtured Bottom of the Hill over the decades — it’s our child. We include in our family the incredible staff who are the ones who keep our business on the map. Several of our team have been with us for well over a decade and some the whole time, making this decision to shutter extra difficult.
“We will miss you all so much after this one last star-studded year. 2026 is our big victory lap! Please come celebrate with us. Not with a whimper, but a bang!”
Having spent much of the last two years celebrating the old — with the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy 30th Anniversary Tour — Sarah McLachlan is now onto something new.
“This is a brand new show, with brand new songs off the new album called ‘Better Broken,’” McLachlan told the capacity crowd at the Masonic in San Francisco on Friday. “I’m going to pepper the set with new stuff, but there will be lots of old, familiar stuff as well.”
New path, but one thing definitely remains the same as ever: her voice is better than ice cream. And, yes, that includes cookie dough ice cream.
During the course of nearly two hours, and running through 20 songs from more than 30 years of her stellar career, McLachlan’s voice was nothing short of exquisite, divine, miraculous, wondrous — take your pick of highly complementary adjectives, since they all pretty much work in this situation.
The 57-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter — who became a household name in the ’90s while leading the blockbuster Lilith Fair tours and selling millions upon millions of records — took the stage at 8:20 p.m., some 10-15 minutes before her band would join her, and opened the show with a brilliant solo-piano version of the new album’s title track.
Sarah McLachlan greets the crowd during her “Better Broken” tour at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 28, 2005. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
It was one of seven tunes performed from the recently released “Better Broken,” McLachlan’s long-overdue 10th studio album that marks her first collection of new original music since 2014’s “Shine On.” Of course, 11 years is a long time to make fans wait for new material, but this batch of music may just be worth it — ranking among the finest albums of 2025.
She’d remain alone on the stage for the first three songs (and change) — thrilling the crowd with “Fumbling” favorite “Possession” then introducing the new song “Only Human” — before the five-piece band joined a few moments into “I Will Remember You.”
As per usual, McLachlan was quite personable and charming on stage, opening up to the crowd about a number of challenges and key moments of her life. She’d use these stories, as many of the best performers do, to add depth and reveal meaning to the music.
For instance, she provided background — background that she kept to herself for quite some time — on her first-ever top five pop hit, “Adia,” from the mega-popular album “Surfacing” from 1997. McLachlan explained how the song was inspired by the pain she caused to one of her friends.
“I basically crossed a line you were never supposed to cross,” she told the crowd. “I fell in love with my best friend’s ex.”
(Audible groans from the audience)
Sarah McLachlan performs during her “Better Broken” tour at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 28, 2005. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
“Yeah,” McLachlan continued. “It was, obviously, completely unplanned. This door swung open and there was no closing it. I was young and dumb. I did not not handle it very well at all. And my friend was really, really hurt — no surprise.”
The man in the middle of the drama, McLachlan explained, is long gone, but the singer and the woman patched things up and are “still best friends.” The revelation provoked the most humorous crowd response of the night, as one female fan loudly yelled out the mission statement: “Sisters before misters!”
With a good belly laugh to move her forward, McLachlan continued to mix old and new, going from yet another “Surfacing” ’90s pop classic — “Building a Mystery” — into the “Better Broken” track “Reminds Me.” McLachlan described the latter as her attempt at writing a country song, having been inspired by hours spent binging “Yellowstone” during the pandemic.
The setlist was almost entirely built from the new album and her two huge hit platters of the ’90s — “Fumbling Toward Ecstasy” and “Surfacing” — as well a pair of tracks from the multiplatinum 2003 affair “Afterglow.” That’s understandable, since it allowed McLachlan ample opportunity to support “Better Broken” while still giving fans all the big radio hits.
Sarah McLachlan performs during her “Better Broken” tour at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 28, 2005. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Yet, it’s still a shame that McLachlan didn’t touch on her earlier material — especially 1991’s “Solace,” which may just be the finest album in her catalog — and that she ignored her very worthy, yet far-less commercially successful later records like 2010’s “Laws of Illusion.”
Also, McLachlan has built herself a pretty impressive resume as a Christmas crooner, having released two very well received seasonal efforts — the platinum-plus-selling “Wintersong” of 2006 and the 2016 follow-up “Wonderland.” So, it would have been really nice to hear her toss in a few holiday favorites into the mix — perhaps her great versions of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” or “Silent Night” — given the timing.
But it was hard to quibble about the setlist as McLachlan and her superb band just kept right on performing one winner after another, including some really memorable takes on the “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” cuts “Elsewhere” (featuring a stellar guitar solo from Luke Doucet) and the fun crowd sing-along on “Ice Cream.”
McLachlan closed the main set with two more “Fumbling” tracks — a volcanic vocal take on “Fear” that prompted an exuberant standing ovation from the crowd and then, to close, the title track.
But McLachlan quickly returned with a two-song encore that mimicked the back-and-forth nature of the overall set — starting out with the final new song of the night, “Gravity,” before closing the night in superb fashion with longtime fan-favorite “Angel.”
Sarah McLachlan greets the crowd during her “Better Broken” tour at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 28, 2005. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Sarah McLachlan setlist: 1. “Better Broken” 2. “Possession” 3. “Only Human” 4. “I Will Remember You” 5. “Adia” 6. “Building a Mystery” 7. “Reminds Me” 8. “Wait” 9. “World on Fire” 10. “One in a Long Line” 11. “Sweet Surrender” 12. “The Last to Go” 13. “Answer” 14. “Elsewhere” 15. “Ice Cream” 16. “If This Is the End…” 17. “Fear” 18. “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” Encore: 19. “Gravity” 20. “Angel”
LONDON — Bon Jovi will embark on their first tour in four years in 2026 — and it’s more than just a victory lap.
In 2022, singer Jon Bon Jovi saw a doctor who said one of his vocal cords was atrophying. He had major surgery and has been in extensive rehab since. These new shows — kicking off with four nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden in July before heading to Edinburgh, Scotland; Dublin and London — are the result of all the work.
In an interview with The Associated Press at Wembley Stadium, where Bon Jovi will close their “Forever” Tour in September 2026, frontman Jon Bon Jovi discusses the forthcoming gigs, his band and their latest collaborative album, “Forever (Legendary Edition).”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
BON JOVI: It’s a lot of hits that you know. But I think more than ever, I’m really in touch with the idea of gratitude and joy, and this idea of this energy that happens between me and that audience. And it’s been so long since I’ve done it that I can really re-appreciate how much that means to me. And that’s really the only motivation for me to want to do it anymore. It’s just to go out there and say, “Touch.” You know? It’s gonna be good.
BON JOVI: I agree with you. I agree. You know, that optimism and tribalism but with joy as the underlying thing, you know, that fact that brings you together.
BON JOVI: Well, it’s home. I get to sleep in my own bed at night, which was integral to this equation, that I would play a bunch of nights there to start it as long as I was going home at night. And then we’ll go and do these ( U.K. and Ireland shows) and that’s going to be it. That’s it for the year. Just get my feet back in the pool, you know, and get in there slowly, wait around, and after I have that joy and good health then we could talk about doing some work. But this should be about, don’t even bring a suitcase. We’re just going out for the weekend.
BON JOVI: Really, really good. I could go tonight. I can tell that I woke up this morning at 7 a.m. and you’re ready to talk and you go, “Yeah, it just works.”
BON JOVI: Well, the truth is, here’s a band of brothers who at this stage and phase of their lives could have said, “We’ve had it. We’re done. Good luck to you. We are going to go and do solo projects. We will go and join someone else’s band.” They sat in the rehearsal space to this day with me and said, “We got your back.” And how much more grateful can I be than in my darkest hours, each one of them said, “This ain’t about money, boss, let’s go.” And the bond has just gotten bigger and deeper and stronger.
BON JOVI: It’s amazing, and each of ’em’s contribution has been unique. And from the newest member, Everett Bradley to Phil X, who’s just that guy that wants to play seven nights a week, doesn’t care where he plays, the guy’s nuts. He truly would play seven days a week if he could. And to see him just going, “I’m here, I am here, I’m not going anywhere else,” it’s unbelievable.
BON JOVI: Well, the thing about the “Forever” album is that we were very proud of it, and it was coinciding with the documentary and the 40th anniversary. When I wasn’t up to it physically, I thought we could reimagine the record by having features on it. In this day and age, people know what features are. I learned about that the hard way. But in doing so, I think they took a great record and made it better. And, you know, I called Robbie Williams. He was the first call I made. He said yes, which made it easier for me to call number two, three, four, seven, eight, nine, 10. Because at first, it’s daunting. You call even your dear friends and go, “Hey, would you do this for me?” Each one of them did it. I think that joy in the record is felt and even just raised the level of the bar.
BON JOVI: Oh, it’s fantastic. I mean, I’ve looked up to him my whole life. The E Street Band are our Beatles. They were just 25 miles away from where I was as a kid. You know, Highway 9 was out my window. You know, these are, these are my streets, too. And so, it was fabulous because he loved that song (“Hollow Man.”) Even when it was a demo, he’s like, “That’s a really special song.” So, when I called him on that one instead of the obvious single, he was like, “You know, yeah, I get it, I can do that.”
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AP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this report from New York.
Dogpark is taking to the streets of New York City and singing their heart out. Following their recent EP, Until The Tunnel Vision Melts, they’ve released two singles: ‘September’ and ‘I Don’t Mind.’ In case you needed convincing, these two songs tell us exactly why Dogpark is one to watch. ‘I Don’t Mind’ marries the idea of the corporate side of their beloved New York and the artistic. It also teases what’s to come with their music.
Already, Dogpark has made themselves stand out in the rock scene by bringing a fresh perspective to a classic sound. Ahead of their The Corporate Pudding Tour, we chatted with them about their journey as a band, their new music, and their take on the music industry.
Welcome to The Honey Pop! Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers? Hi, we’re Dogpark. We’re a rock band from New York City, our members are….
Eamon Moore, lead vocals, keys
Declan Harris, lead guitar
Billy Apostolou, rhythm guitar, background vocals
We met in college at the University of Richmond, and formed around the end of 2022, and started releasing music in late 2023. We’ve done a lot of touring since leaving college, including opening slots for The Moss in Summer 2024, Headline U.S. tour fall of 2024, Opening for Marcus King Band in Spring of 2025, and now we are currently on our second nationwide headline tour. Our music is always evolving and is always at the center of band’s focus. We like to mess around and have a good time and try to spread that kind of energy with our music.
Dogpark’s Journey
You started out playing mostly covers at frat parties at the University of Richmond. Was italways the plan to evolve past that as a band? It’s hard to say that there was much of a “plan”. We initially were playing mostly to satiate our own desires to play music in a band, and slowly it became a good source of income for us, especially as college students. I’d say once we started to take off a bit on TikTok, it brought in all the suits and music industry people, and it all became more of a serious proposition. We went out to LA for a month in the summer of 2023 to write and record what ended up being our first EP, and that was really where it became clear this was a real possibility for us.
You’ve come a long way in such a short time, going from college shows to selling out a headline tour and playing festivals. Has your approach to performing changed at all? I don’t think our approach really has changed at all. We still want to put on the most entertaining show we can for the crowd, and play music we’re interested in. Back then, we used to play a ton of covers during our frat sets because we didn’t have any originals, but now that we have a catalog, our shows are obviously centered around those now. And we’re definitely all much better musicians than when we were playing in frat basements. I think also early on there was a feeling of do or die with every show, now maybe there is a little less pressure on each individual show since we’ve played so many. It’s less exhilarating at times, but it allows you to enjoy it too a bit more, maybe.
Coming up in the age of social media, a few of your viral TikTokscatapulted you to widespread recognition quickly. What was it like to experience that shift so fast? It’s a bit strange because, for the most part, everything is the same in your life. It’s not like people recognize you on the street (for the most part), and you aren’t really “famous,” but simultaneously millions of people engage with your content. I think specifically with content that is based around pre-existing content, like song covers, for example, it’s especially strange because there really is more of a connection to these songs than there is to us covering them, that’s more so what is driving the engagement. So, breaking the barrier with original content was just a new challenge we faced.
Photo Credit: Ilona Donovan
Making The Music
Between songs like ‘Breaking In Brooklyn’ and ‘Washington Square Park,’ a lot of your songs focus on places that seem important to you. How do you channel these settings and your feelings about them into your music? I think typically when we include a song about a setting, it involves either a memory, or a dream, or someone else’s memory that took place there. I think also, since people are aware of cities and their connotations, it’s just a way to provide a sort of backdrop and ambiance to a song, just by referencing it.
We love your take on the indie-rock sound in your last EP, Until The Tunnel Vision Melts! What was the process for bringing that EP to life? The process for that EP took a while. We started writing some of the songs on that project over a year before we ended up getting to record them. When we finally had them written, we flew out to LA to work with our Producer, Carlos De La Garza. We all heard his credits before and knew he would do a great job. We recorded the songs in two sessions at Apogee Studios in LA. The recording didn’t take so long because we had been playing those songs for a while on stage, so we had a ton of reps.
The first single off Corporate Pudding, ‘September’ sounds just like moving from the endof summer into the colder months, which matches the way the relationship seems to be going in the song. What does this song mean to you? The song is really about an ominous feeling. Knowing that the end of a relationship is coming before anyone has said anything about it. And usually in this situation, no one does say anything. and it drags out and it ends poorly. Thankfully for us, we’re all in happy relationships now, but when I wrote this, I (Eamon) had been single for a while, and this was a common experience for me where I could sense bad feelings but was unable to act and had to watch the unfolding of events, just like we are powerless to stop the seasons from changing.
Dogpark’s Perspective
Teasing your upcoming project, Corporate Pudding, you’ve mentioned that it’s inspired by your “frustrations with the music industry and the corporate world.” How do you think cominginto the industry from the independent college scene has shaped your perspective on the music industry? I don’t know if it’s coming in from the college scene that’s shaped our perspective, but as people who enjoy music as fans and are obsessed with the craft, you quickly learn that dollar bills are the only thing that matters to the people in charge of curating today’s music. There is a pervasive issue that goes far beyond music in American culture that whenever a cool thing sprouts up organically, you must milk it dry for every dollar it’s worth, and in the process, drain the cool organic thing of everything that made it cool in the first place. That’s not to say no one in the A&R or label business has an ear for music; they need to. But I think their ear is honed in on music and promotional strategies that they think maximize their chances to earn the most money, naturally. And of course, we all want to make money, but it leads to conflict when most artists just want to make the music they make, and they feel uncomfortable altering the way they sound or are promoted to appease suits. I think it’s naturally inspired us to write some music that attacks and comments on greed in the U.S.
You also mentioned that the sound of your next project is inspired by your life in New York City. How has the music scene in New York influenced your music? I think it’s more so the energy of the city and the hectic nature of it has inspired the sonics. Similar to the way bands like the Strokes and LCD Soundsystem were able to harness the energy of the city into their music, or at least that’s the mindset. It’s a bit hard to define what the NYC scene is since it’s so massive, but I do think the rock scene is becoming more defined now, though, and there does seem to be an influx of bands forming here that are getting a bit of traction at the same time, so it’s an exciting time to be.
We imagine the scene is quite different in New York than in Richmond. How have you seen your music evolve since moving? Not really much evolution in that sense, we all grew up around the New York area, so we’ve all been familiar with that scene for a while, and it took root in our music early on. I think from the first two projects to this one, though, that the NYC influence has probably manifested itself most on this upcoming project. We recorded the first two EPs in LA with producers who live in LA, and with this upcoming project, we recorded in Pennsylvania, just a few hours from NYC, with Phil Joly, who has done a lot of amazing work in NYC; it all fits right.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Big Loud Rock
Considering the way you started out, are there any up-and-coming artists you want toput us on to? We really love all the bands that are opening for us on the corporate pudding tour, but one that we’ve been listening to a ton recently is Rehash. Their music is evocative of a lot of our favorite influences and executed amazingly, especially for how young they are. We’re really excited to play some shows with them soon. Edgehill is another really great band that’s opening for us and on our label. I think we all loved watching Hans Williams at Mighty Roots festival last year, and also, there’s a Swedish band we’ve been listening to called Girl Scout, and they are excellent.
Lastly, is there anything you want to tease about what you have coming up? We’re on tour right now until December, and we have a ton of new music on the way. Leaning a bit more into the Corporate Pudding theme, which should slowly unravel itself over the course of the year.
And we’re obsessed. Between the nostalgic ‘September’ and the rebellious ‘I Don’t Mind,’ Dogpark’s next chapter is gearing up to be one you don’t want to miss. Recently, they’ve landed themselves on People’s Talented Emerging Artists list, and they’ve set off on their headline tour (buy tickets here). And they’ve made it clear they’re just getting started.
So follow along on their journey, and let us know your thoughts at @thehoneypop on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!
Linkin Park then followed two months later with “From Zero,” the group’s eighth studio outing — and its first with Armstrong — which has been both a critical and commercial success.
The Linkin Park comeback continued with a winning show at SAP Center at San Jose, which drew a massive crowd of some 17,500 fans — a good 2,000-3,000 more than a typical SAP sold-out concert — on Monday night (Sept. 15). The added capacity was made possible by the group’s decision to go with a 360-degree “in-the-round” setting, which allows for seating on all sides of the stage and vastly more tickets sold.
Of course, all eyes were on Armstrong in San Jose to see how she would attempt to fill the huge shoes of Bennington, the famously shrill-voiced vocalist who died from suicide.
Linkin Park’s Emily Armstrong performs during their From Zero World Tour at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, Sept. 15, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Wisely, Armstrong didn’t overtly try so much fill Bennington’s shoes as she did attempt to cut her own distinct path on vocals during the group’s 26-song set. She adopted a much-more melodic approach to the vocals, especially earlier on in the show, than what one got from Bennington. As the evening went on, however, she’d up the ante and deliver her own brand of howls and screams to some of the band’s best-known songs.
As powerful as Armstrong was on the microphone, however, she just couldn’t top the chorus of voices from the crowd. At times, it felt like all 17,500 people in the building were chanting along, at top volume, to the music, underscoring just how strongly these songs of angst and alienation continue to resonate with generations of listeners.
There was a strong contingent of 30-and-40 somethings, people who likely bough Linkin Park’s classic rap-rock debut — the diamond-certified “Hybrid Theory” — on CD when it first came out in 2000. But there were also a bunch of younger fans in attendance, ones who have latched onto the band due to its continued relevance and popularity in the mall-rock world.
Taking the stage just after 8:30 p.m., Linkin Park started out in the past, powering through solid versions of “Somewhere I Belong” from the multiplatinum-selling sophomore effort “Meteora” from 2003 and the “Hybrid Theory” cut “Points of Authority.”
Linkin Park performs during their “From Zero World Tour” at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, Sept. 15, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
The group — which consists of Armstrong, vocalist-keyboardist-guitarist Shinoda, lead guitarist Brad Delson, DJ Joe Hahn, bassist Dave Farrell and drummer Colin Brittain — then zoomed forward to the present for “Stained,” one of nine numbers performed from “From Zero.”
In general, the new offerings — including “The Emptiness Machine,” “Two-Faced” and, especially, “IGYEIH” — sounded every bit as strong as the older material. Of course, there were some notable exceptions — in large part due to the way the crowd energy would propel the music to incredible heights on such fan favorites as “One Step Closer” and “Faint.’
The stage setup was fairly straightforward and, by today’s standards, simple — basically just a rectangular space, beneath two large video screen blocks, allowing for unobstructed views of the band from all sides. There were some neat, but somewhat underutilized, laser effects, but nothing that really impacted the overall show.
The musicians were pretty stationary for much of the night — which, of course, makes total sense when it comes to a drummer stationed at a kit or a DJ at the turntables, but not so much when you are talking about a pair of singers. Armstrong and Shinoda did far more roaming later in the evening — especially the former, who spent the last quarter of the show really racing up and down the stage.
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda performs during their “From Zero World Tour” at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, Sept. 15, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
I have been watching Linkin Park in concert ever since the band’s very first headlining tour, which brought the group to the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco in January of 2001. What I remember most about that first show was not the music, but the way the group treated its fans — spending time signing autographs, shaking hands and taking other measures to make these attendees feel important and valued.
Some 100 million albums sold later, Linkin Park is still going out of its way to prioritize its connection with fans. That was evident in San Jose when Shinoda went out into the pit, between the stage and the crowd barriers, and walked about touching hands and sharing moments with the audience. He’d even give one six-year-old fan a signed hat.
The group closed the main set with a flurry of terrific tunes, sandwiching in the new album stand-out “Good Things Go” between the all-time faves “Numb” and “In the End” before finishing off with a towering “Faint.” Linkin Park then returned for a three-song encore highlighted by the “Hybrid Theory” gem “Papercut.”
By the end of the show, one thing was perfectly clear:
This rebooted Linkin Park appears to just be getting started.
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda performs during their “From Zero World Tour” at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, Sept. 15, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Linkin Park setlist: 1. “Somewhere I Belong” 2. “Points of Authority” 3. “Stained” 4. “New Divide” 5. “The Emptiness Machine” 6. “The Catalyst” 7. “Burn It Down” 8. “Up From the Bottom” 9. “Where’d You Go” 10. “Waiting for the End” 11. “Castle of Glass” 12. “Two Faced” 13. “When They Come for Me”/”Remember the Name” 14. “IGYEIH” 15. “One Step Closer” 16. “Lost” 17. “Unshatter” 18. “What I’ve Done” 19. “Overflow” 20. “Numb” 21. “Good Things Go” 22. “In the End” 23. “Faint” Encore: 24. “Papercut” 25. “Heavy Is the Crown” 26. “Bleed It Out”
If you or someone you know is struggling with feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline offers free, round-the-clock support, information and resources for help. Call or text the lifeline at 988, or see the 988lifeline.org website, where chat is available.
Rick Davies, the lead singer and co-founder of British band Supertramp, has died at 81 after a long battle with cancer
LONDON — Rick Davies, the lead singer and co-founder of British band Supertramp, has died after a long battle with cancer, the band said Monday. He was 81.
Davies, who co-wrote the band’s music with Roger Hodgson, was “the voice and pianist behind Supertramp’s most iconic songs, leaving an indelible mark on rock music history,” the band said in a statement on its website.
He died Saturday after battling multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, for more than a decade, the band said.
Davies and Hodgson formed Supertramp in 1969, and produced hits including “Goodbye Stranger” and “The Logical Song.” The band’s 1979 album “Breakfast in America” topped charts in the United States and Canada, won two Grammys and sold over 18 million copies.
Davies’ “soulful vocals and unmistakable touch on the Wurlitzer became the heartbeat of the bands’ sound,” the statement said.
Born in Swindon, England in 1944, Davies had a passion for jazz, blues and rock’n’roll from a young age, the band said.
Hodgson left the band in 1983 and released solo albums. Supertramp disbanded in 1988, though Davies revived it in 1996. The group performed for the last time in Madrid in 2012.
The world’s greatest pop-punk band paid tribute to the most important heavy metal men of all time on Saturday night.
It occurred when The Offspring — the fabulous Orange County act known for such alt-rock-radio smashes as “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy),” “Why Don’t You Get a Job?” and “Self Esteem” — tipped its hat to the late-great Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath midway through its winning set at Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View.
The tribute began with a short bit by lead guitarist Noodles (aka, Kevin Wasserman), who — living up to his name — nicely noodled his way through a short take on “Electric Funeral” from Sabbath’s landmark second studio album, 1970’s “Paranoid.”
“Everybody here over 12 is stoked right now,” remarked Holland, adding that the rest of the crowd was “bored” by that early ‘70s rock tune from Osbourne and his Sabbath bandmates.
So, Holland decided to zoom forward a full decade, to 1980, and lead the band through the Ozzy solo hit “Crazy Train.”
The version was pretty spot-on, with Holland doing a great take on those well-known vocal parts from Osbourne, who died at the age of 76 in July.
“I think Ozzy would be proud on how (Holland) handled that,” commented Noodles, who then rightfully added that Nimoy also did a fantastic job blazing through the incredible Randy Rhoads guitar passages from “Crazy Train.”
“We have one more classic rock song for you and then it’s back to the punk rock,” Holland told the crowd at the conclusion of “Crazy Train.”
And it was definitely a “classic,” one first composed nearly a full century before Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” It turned out to be the 1875 Edvard Grieg orchestral work “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” which many rock/pop acts — from the Electric Light Orchestra to Erasure — have recorded over the decades. The Offspring put its own version to wax on the 2021 album “Let the Bad Times Roll.”
Noodles took center stage for this epic instrumental (performed while Holland was offstage), equally showcasing power and precision in his fret work — and, in general, underscoring all the reasons why he’s long been one of the greatest guitarists in all of punk rock.
Holland then returned to the Shoreline stage and — as promised — it was back to the punk rock, as The Offspring raced through a muscular take on the Ramones’ classic “I Wanna Be Sedated.”
Holland, a rock ‘n’ roll Renaissance man whose many accomplishments include piloting a 10-day solo flight around the world and earning a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Southern California, would also lead the band through pretty much all of its biggest hits during the course of the 90-minute set – from the “Come and Play” opener to the “Self Esteem” encore closer.
The group also took time to touch upon its latest album, offering up “Looking Out for #1” and “Make It All Right” from last year’s “Supercharged” (which is the tour’s namesake).
The Offspring capped off what was an all-around winning night of rock, which kicked off with Florida pop-punk act New Found Glory and continued through the modern-rock tunes of Arizona’s Jimmy Eat World.
Rocker and “American Idol” winner David Cook is expected to bring his new music to the Massachusetts shores and a New Hampshire town on his upcoming tour.
Cigarettes After Sex is one of the biggest surprise success stories in music history.
The El Paso, Texas trio makes lo-fi dream-pop music — the kind that would seem way more at home being played in a quirky David Lynch movie than some big sports arena — drawing inspiration from such varied sources as Miles Davis and the Cowboy Junkies.
The band’s sound, however, is unflinchingly consistent, to the point where the uninitiated could be forgiven for believing that Cigarettes After Sex really only has one song — which is then played with different lyrics and goes by about three dozen different titles
The ceiling on a act like this, traditionally, has been headlining theaters and small clubs.
And the trio deserves every bit of that once-seemingly unfathomable success, a point that was underscored most recently as Cigarettes After Sex delivered a gorgeous evening of ambient-pop and shoegaze-y indie rock before a packed house of some 13,000 fans at Oakland Arena on Saturday night. It was the first Cigarettes After Sex appearance in the Bay Area since performing an equally enjoyable set during the Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in 2023.
Greg Gonzalez leads Cigarettes After Sex in concert at Oakland Arena on Oct. 5, 2024 (Jim Harrington, Bay Area News Group).
They’d proceed to cast a mighty spell over the mostly young audience members, whose average age appeared to be around half of that of the 42-year-old lead singer. The way these fans passionately sang along to the lyrics made it clear that they had not just memorized, but rather ingrained these blunt, yet still poetic lyrics of love, sex, infatuation and varied kinds of intoxication through countless spins on Spotify, YouTube and other streaming platforms.
The sound in the now nearly 60-year-old arena was crystal clear and the live renditions of these songs came across, to the penny, like the recorded versions. The end result was that it felt like we’d all just collectively slipped on a giant pair of headphones and pushed play on a really superb Cigarettes After Sex playlist.
Gonzalez and company continued to softly construct each new number, moving through “You’re All I Want,” “Dark Vacay” and “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” with the steady precision of an origami master folding up a new creation. And each offering was greeted with a wave of shrill excitement from the young crowd, approximating what one would hear at an Olivia Rodrigo show. (You’re much more likely to need ear protection for the crowd noise, rather than for the actual music, at a Cigarettes After Sex show.)
The stage show was appropriately minimal, with the video screens just showing black and white (and mostly unchanging) visuals of the three performers, and the lighting effects were used mostly to enhance the mediative mood.
The most entertaining visuals came from the crowd, which would use the flashlights on their phones to light up the arena like a starry, starry sky. As they slow danced with each other, or just swayed solo while mouthing the lyrics, the fans made it abundantly clear how much songs like “Tejano Blue” and “John Wayne” mean to them — even if many of them don’t likely know who John Wayne was.
Crowd members shine their phone flashlights at the Cigarettes After Sex concert at Oakland Arena on Oct. 5, 2024 (Jim Harrington, Bay Area News Group).
The group played four songs off of “X’s,” the band’s third full-length outing that came out in July. One of those tunes — the hypnotic “Dreams from Bunker Hill” — was the being played on Saturday for the very first time in concert, giving these fans bragging rights to say they’d caught a live debut.
The new record is really good — like album-of-the-year-consideration good. And I’m predicting that Grammy voters will agree and put “X’s” in the mix for the overall album of the year category at the 2025 award show, right alongside Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet,” etc.
Despite a few minor tweaks here and there, the new album still boasts that classic Cigarettes After Sex ambient vibe, although overall sounding a bit less like the soundtrack to a lost season of “Twin Peaks” than the previous two.
The band is still devoting the lion’s share of its time onstage to its eponymous first album — which remains the high point in the catalog — and delivered a half dozen of that record’s 10 tracks in Oakland. These were the cuts that resonated most strongly with the crowd, which took the Cigarettes After Sex mania to the next level as Gonzalez slipped into, in particular, “Sweet,” “K.” and “Apocalypse.”
Cigarettes After Sex closed the show with another first album offering, “Opera House,” and then departed the stage, having thoroughly thrilled the crowd while writing yet another chapter in what is one of most surprising (and fulfilling) success stories in recent music history.
One year later and our wigs are still flipped from seeing the volcanic Mdou Moctar at the Social. Well, hold on to your hairpieces because another outfit of Tuareg rock titans are on their way downtown.
Etran de L’Aïr (“Stars of the Air”) are a relatively newer proposition in the world of Tuareg international firebrands. Starting up in 1995 and releasing a string of recent albums on Portland label Sahel Sounds, they’ve made a name for themselves with (yes) celestial grooves and mantric boogies that create a joyous devotional ramble through vibrating sonic vistas.
All this to say, this band is going to be positively hypnotic in the Social.
Pulp only has five cities listed on its long-overdue North American tour.
And — wow — were Bay Area fans ever fortunate that one of those highly coveted spots was in San Francisco.
The thousands of fans who packed into the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Monday night (Sept. 16) were absolutely thrilled to be able to witness the first local Pulp gig in over 10 years. For their part, Pulp was every bit as sensational as it was back at that April 17, 2012 gig at the Warfield, which came sandwiched between its two Coachella music festival performances.
Taking the stage right at 9 p.m., the iconic Britpop group delighted fans on Monday with a stellar two-hour show that featured 19 songs — a half-dozen of which came during two very generous encores. (Perhaps that tilt was only appropriate given that the road show has been dubbed the This Is What We Do For An Encore tour.)
It was the 557th show of Pulp’s career, we were told via a message on the big overhead screens, and vocalist Jarvis Cocker later shared that it fell almost exactly 30 years since the group’s very first Bay Area performance (Sept. 25, 1994, at The Fillmore).
Wonderfully backing the flamboyant front man on this night were longtime Pulp members Candida Doyle on keys, Nick Banks on drums and Mark Webber on guitar as well as a talented group of touring musicians.
The music was rich and just bursting with drama as the show began with “I Spy,” the first of seven selections that hailed from the group’s fifth and best-selling album, 1995’s “Different Class.” Cocker began the night in the shadows, singing the first few lines — “I spy a boy / I spy a girl / I spy the worst place in the world” — while still mostly out of sight from our straining eyes. Then he made his entrance, still bathed in light in a fashion that only really showed his silhouette, and climbed on top of the stage monitors — where he spends much of his time during shows — and seemed to tower over us like some menacing creature in an old black and white monster movie.
Cocker is something to see onstage, as he waves his arms about while twisting and contorting his body in ways that seem equal parts Shakespearean and “Cobra Kai.” He’s one of the most mesmerizing lead singers in the business, easily the best to come out of the ’90s Britpop movement and one that follows in the long line of dashingly charismatic U.K. front men like Mick Jagger and Bryan Ferry.
He’s part Nick Cave and part Leonard Cohen, with a dash of David Bowie and Serge Gainsbourg thrown in for added spice. And if that doesn’t get you to go see Pulp the next time it’s in the Bay Area — which hopefully won’t take another 12 years to happen — then I don’t know what will.
Cocker’s stage banter between songs tends to be a bit flip, in an oh-so British way, and he’s certainly not above poking the bear at times.
“I am going to call you Frisco,” says Cocker, who drew boos for using that term that locals for some reason find so offensive. “Do you like being called Frisco? You’d rather be called San?”
He then turned the corner and challenged the crowd to help the band “create some magic in this place,” which led right into a highly groovy “Disco 2000.” The audience was definitely up to the task, responding with gusto as the group shimmied its way through that “Different Class” gem.
“You brought the magic,” Cocker admitted at the song’s conclusion. “So, let’s go higher. I think we can go all the way.”
The 60-year-old Sheffield native was right on that account, as the performance — and the crowd’s reaction to it — just kept intensifying throughout the night.
One distinct highlight came when Cocker grabbed a guitar and journeyed yet again into “Different Class” territory for a touching version of “Something Changed” that he dedicated to Pulp bassist Steve Mackey. (The entire tour has actually been dedicated to Mackey, who died in March 2023.)
And, of course, “Common People” was a huge moment, resulting in, by far, the biggest sing-along of the night. And, yes, that was from “Different Class” as well.
The group only touched upon two tracks from 1998’s “This Is Hardcore” — the group’s sterling sixth album that is every bit the equal of the more widely celebrated “Different Class” — yet both tunes were absolute highpoints of the gig.
The first came with the dramatic rendition of the title track, which started with Cocker calmly seated in a lounge chair and then escalated, both physically and musically, from there. Then a victory lap of “Glory Days” — which is oh, so different than the Bruce Springsteen number of the same name — closed out the final encore.
It’s too bad that the group didn’t include more “Hardcore” material — notably, “The Fear,” “Help the Aged” and “A Little Soul.”
Still, it’s hard to quibble with a setlist where every single song was well worth hearing, which is exactly what Pulp delivered during their first Bay Area date in over a decade.
Setlist
1. “I Spy” 2. “Disco 2000” 3. “O.U. (Gone, Gone)” 4. “Something Changed” 5. “Pink Glove” 6. “Weeds” 7. “Weeds II (The Origin of the Species)” 8. “F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.” 9. “Sorted for E’s & Wizz” 10. “This Is Hardcore” 11. “Do You Remember the First Time?” 12. “Babies” 13. “Sunrise” Encore: 14. “Like a Friend” 15. “Underwear” 16. “Common People” Encore: 17. “Spike Island” 18. “Joyriders” 19. “Glory Days”
We recently got to witness Greta Van Fleet make yet another great stop at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. From pyrotechnics to quick remarks from lead singer, Josh Kiszka, we got to jam out with stylish and kind folks. No strangers to travel, this stop was one of many on their current leg, however, they still managed to make it feel the night was an exclusive experience. Here is what went down and some key takeaways to love.
We’re Blaming Brett, DUH!
Image Source: Jazmin Tuscani for The Honey POP
The opener for this leg of tour was The Beaches, a favorite girly-pop rock band that has been climbing the ranks recently. From their top hit, ‘Blame Brent,’ they have gained national attention with the girls, gays, and theys (and also Jimmy Kimmel). Their career, so far, has been spent on Billboard Canada’s top Breakthrough Artist of the Year, sixteen (16) weeks on Canada’s alternative radio, and multiple tour dates with Greta Van Fleet.
We were excited to see them jam out on stage and also jam together. Creating that close-knit feel, they took the time to make sure their bandmates were having fun. With guitarist Leandra Earl’s flirty nature, the band took turns in the limelight as she interacted with them. For being a Friday night, they sure did know how to keep us hooked and ready for more.
Into The Ether
Image Source: Jazmin Tuscani for The Honey POP
Our minds were set on Gold and Glam after the Beaches. Right off the bat, they started with ‘The Falling Sky’ from their latest album, Starcatcher. Not only did this song live up to its airy and profound nature, but Greta Van Fleet has also added pyrotechnics for some songs. Fans were jumping up and down letting the music take control. Even after the curtain dropped the cheering stayed and took over.
Fans Fans! Friends!
Image Source: Jazmin Tuscani for The Honey POP
From the moment they stepped out on stage, they held closely to their fans in the front row and in the nosebleeds. If there is anything you should know about Greta Van Fleet is that their message is closely intertwined with their fans/their fleet. Fans from near and far gather for multiple shows, some showing up on birthdays, others on recent breakups. Their fan base has grown with them and from the looks of it will keep up as the band continues to give back tenfold. We are also excited to read crowd signs and these took a sweetness to them asking to write tattoos, to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, and some even for a few hugs.
Farewell for Now
Image Source: Jazmin Tuscani for The Honey POP
We are still glowing about getting to taste a little of what Greta Van Fleet has to offer-but their tour isn’t over. With some more acoustic sets still in the works, Greta Van Fleet is still hot on the press for a few more nights. You can watch closely as they tour via their Instagram or, you know, just stay here for a little as we hope to meet them again on the big stage very soon. But until then, we bid you farewell and leave this parting gift of some photos. We love Greta Van Fleet over here at The Honey POP and know they will be up to some pretty cool stuff in their career.
Music & Editoral Photographer | #1 Fan of Dogs in Sweaters
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The Beach Boys had arguably the most important year of their career in 1964.
Some would understandably counter with 1963 or 1966, which respectively saw the releases of “Surfer Girl” and “Pet Sounds.”
Yet, 1964 was really the year when the band first secured its future place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — as well as among the greatest acts in all of pop music history — with the release of the twin masterpieces “Shut Down Volume 2” and “All Summer Long.”
The latter saw the band up its game to a whole new level by releasing what is considered to be one of rock’s first concept albums, which really set the groundwork for the mind-blowing artistry that would come two years later with “Pet Sounds.”
It was also the year when the band would score its first ever No 1 hit, as “I Got Around” spent two consecutive weeks at the peak that summer.
Sixty years later, the group is still going strong and delighting fans in concert with a number of those songs that first came out in 1964.
The latest example came when the Beach Boys performed on Sunday at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose.
The show was part of the reinvigorated Music in the Park, which has completely bounced back from its COVID-era lull and has taken its place among the top summertime outdoor concert series in the Bay Area. See mitpsj.com for upcoming shows with Steel Pulse (Aug. 16), Cuco (Sept. 20) and J Boog (Sept. 22).
It was a great scene on Sunday at the concert series, as multiple generations of Beach Boys fans boogied together on a cool summer evening to some of the greatest pop songs of all time.
The group, which is led by original Beach Boy Mike Love on vocals and features longtime band member Bruce Johnston on keys, got the party started in grand style as it opened up with a topnotch triple-shot of “Do It Again,” “Surfin’ Safari” and “Catch a Wave.”
As per usual, the band was all business as it dished out the good times, rarely slowing down as it belted out the first eight songs of the night in a lean, mean 20 minutes. They’d pretty much stay on that pace throughout the night, finishing up with a total of 37 songs in just 110 minutes of stage time.
Love — who founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1961 with his cousins Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson and pal Al Jardine in Hawthorne — didn’t even do much talking from the stage. The one real exception was when he took time to deliver a sales pitch for the Disney + documentary “The Beach Boys” — which, indeed, is well worth watching.
The Beach Boys perform during their “Endless Summer Gold” tour at Music in the Park 2024 at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, July 28, 2024. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Otherwise, Love just kept right on pacing the stage and working the crowd, as this excellent current crop of touring musicians — including musical director Brian Eichenberger, guitiarist Christian (son of Mike) Love, keyboardist Tim Bonhomme, drummer Jon Bolton, bassist Keith Hubacher, saxophonist Randy Leago and guitarist John Wedemeyer — powered through one classic after another.
One of the early highlights was when the group moshed its way into its fantastic cover of the Ramones punk nugget “Rockaway Beach.”
“They did our ‘Surfin’ Safari,’ so we got even with them by doing their ‘Rockaway Beach,’ Love explained.
That kicked off one of the more satisfying segments of the night, as the thunder of “Rockaway Beach” gave way to the retro rock of “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and then the ageless beauty of “Surfer Girl.”
Yet, really, that kind of amazing run of songs — which most bands could never dream of putting together — just kept happening over and over again during this concert. Another example came midway through the set as the group revved up four hot rod tunes — “Little Deuce Coupe,” “409,” “Shut Down” and “I Get Around” (as well as the motorcycle number “Little Honda”).
The whole band sounded terrific, delivering skillful and respectful renditions of “God Only Knows,” “California Girls,” “Dance, Dance, Dance” and other favorites that felt very true in both spirit and form to the original recordings.
Special shoutout to the younger Love, who really did an impressive job handling the precious lead vocal parts originally made famous by Carl Wilson on “God Only Knows.” Also, Jon Bolton is a wild man on the kit — a spotlight magnet, whose ample energy has seemingly lifted the game of all the other band members.
Jon Bolton of the The Beach Boys performs during their “Endless Summer Gold” tour at Music in the Park 2024 at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, July 28, 2024. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
The group was really cooking as it hit the homestretch, knocking out one of the best pop-music double-shots imaginable as it rocked through “Barbara Ann” and “Help Me, Rhonda,” before unveiling the fan-polarizing earworm “Kokomo.” (People love to hate on that wildly catchy song for some reason, but you can count me as Team Kokomo, for sure.)
Of course, “Good Vibrations” was as stunning as ever, drawing in thousands of voices from the crowd to help propel Brian Wilson’s so-called “teenage symphony to God” to great heights.
The group followed with its cool Eddie Cochran cover, “Summertime Blues,” before sending the fans home with the song that summed up the evening better than any other — “Fun, Fun, Fun.”
Mike Love of the The Beach Boys performs during their “Endless Summer Gold” tour at Music in the Park 2024 at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, July 28, 2024. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Setlist: 1. “Do It Again” 2. “Surfin’ Safari” 3. “Catch a Wave” 4. “Hawaii” 5. “Don’t Back Down” 6. “It’s OK” 7. “Rockaway Beach” 8. “Surfin’ U.S.A.” 9. “Surfer Girl” 10. “Sum Sum Summer” 11. “You’re So Good to Me” 12. “When I Grow Up (to Be a Man)” 13. “Darlin’” 14. “In My Room” 15. “Still Cruisin’” 16. “Don’t Worry Baby” 17. “Little Deuce Coupe” 18. “409” 19. “Shut Down” 20. “Little Honda” 21. “I Get Around” 22. “The Warmth of the Sun” 23. “I Can Hear Music” 24. “God Only Knows” 25. “California Girls” 26. “Dance, Dance, Dance” 27. “California Dreamin’” 28. “Sloop John B” 29. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” 30. “Then I Kissed Her” 32. “Do You Wanna Dance?” 33. “Barbara Ann” 34. “Help Me, Rhonda” 35. “Kokomo” 36. “Good Vibrations” 37. “Summertime Blues”
Mike Love and the The Beach Boys perform during their “Endless Summer Gold” tour at Music in the Park 2024 at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, July 28, 2024. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) The Beach Boys perform during their “Endless Summer Gold” tour at Music in the Park 2024 at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, July 28, 2024. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
“Sadly, I have to relate that legendary Moby Grape guitarist Jerry Miller passed away last night,” a post from July 21 reads on the Moby Grape fan page. “(Miller’s wife) Jo and the family are asking for everyone to please give them some privacy and respect, and Jo asked that people cease phone calls for the time being. Thank you. R.I.P., JERRY.”
Miller will be remembered as a guitarist’s guitarist, boosting a fan base that includes some of the finest fret men in popular music history. Many of these admirers are Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, including Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead and Eric Clapton.
It’s the latter who reportedly once referred to Miller as the “best guitar player in the world.” That’s incredibly high praise coming from the only-three-time inductee to the Rock Hall as well as man who himself is routinely rated among the best guitarists of all time.
Miller would showcase that guitar work with such aplomb and impact on Moby Grape’s 1967 debut, which reached as high as No. 24 on the album charts and positioned the group as one of the key acts in the burgeoning “San Francisco Sound” movement of the era. In comparison, the debut album from the Grateful Dead — one of Moby Grape’s key contemporaries on the ’60s Bay Area scene — only climbed to No. 73 upon being released that same year.
Unlike the Grateful Dead, however, Moby Grape only managed to stay together for a relatively short time during its initial go-around. They formed in 1966 — bringing together such experienced players as Skip Spence from Jefferson Airplane and Peter Lewis of the Cornells — and originally called it quits by 1969. During that time span, however, the group released four studio albums — 1967’s “Moby Grape and 1968’s “Wow/Grape Jam” as well “Moby Grape ’69” and “Truly Fine Citizen,” both from 1969.
The first album was a stone cold classic, one that is still cherished to this day by fans of heavy duty psychedelic/blues/acid rock. Indeed, the record — which featured a group shot on the cover by legendary Bay Area rock photographer Jim Marshall — came in at No. 121 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list in 2003, more than 35 years after “Moby Grape” was released.
Miller’s guitar work was a huge factor in what made that first album so special, taking the captain’s chair — alongside Skip Spence and Peter Lewis — in a three-guitar attack that still sounds so powerful to this day.
“Wow/Grape Jam” was another success for the band, reaching as high as No. 20, but the two discs that followed were commercial disappointments and failed to even crack the top 100. As the gas tank began to run dry on the ’60s — and a legal battle with their former manager heated up — the storyline had changed from high hopes to “what could’ve been” for Moby Grape. The band folded in 1969, but would regroup several times over the decades.
“The Grape’s saga is one of squandered potential, absurdly misguided decisions, bad luck, blunders and excruciating heartbreak, all set to the tune of some of the greatest rock and roll ever to emerge from San Francisco,” music historian Jeff Tamarkin wrote. “Moby Grape could have had it all, but they ended up with nothing, and less.”
Born in Tacoma, Washington on July 10, 1943, Miller began playing in bands in the ’50s and would find some success as a member of The Frantics. In 1966, the Pacific Northwest rock outfit headed south to San Francisco — where a music revolution was blooming — and its nucleus went on to help form Moby Grape.
Besides playing with Moby Grape, the acclaimed guitarist — who also sang — performed with the Santa Cruz act known as the Rhythm Dukes and well as his own Jerry Miller Band.
There has been no word yet on any possible public memorial services at this point.
