Month: April 2023

Just a few weeks ago, the Jonas Brothers announced an upcoming performance at a very special venue: Yankee Stadium. Dubbed “One Night Only,” the demand soon forced a second show, both scheduled for August.

But tonight, the band is keeping its promise: one and only one incredible night in Los Angeles. At least, for now. Nick teased at the end of the show the band would return in September, which was met with sky-high shrieks.

For the trio’s second show on this unofficial trek, which started in London earlier this month, the brothers came out swinging — perhaps practice for playing at a baseball stadium soon, with hits old and new receiving home-fun worthy roars.

After opening with current The Album single “Waffle House,” Joe addressed the crowd through deafening screams. “We’ve only done this one other time,” he cautioned before teasing, “We’re playing a good amount of songs from the new album.” Another promise kept. 

The band performed several unreleased songs off its forthcoming 12-track project, including “Summer Baby,” “Montana Sky,” “Sail Away,” “Vacation Eyes,” “Celebrate” “Little Bird” and “Walls” (the lattermost earned a live debut during the band’s recent gig on Saturday Night Live.) And while that material made up the entire first act, following a brief intermission the Jonas Brothers returned for a hits-filled second set, treating the intimate 1,600-capacity room just the same as it would – and will – a 46,000-plus person stadium. 

Check out the seven best moments from the show below.

Nick’s Early (and Epic) Tease

“It’s so good to be back,” Nick told the crowd while taking in the space. “We’re playing tonight at a venue we’ve never played in. This whole mini tour is just trying to check off bucket list items.”

“It brings me back to how this whole journey for this album started about a year-and-a-half ago,” he continued. “We were home, at our respective homes [in L.A.], and Jon Bellion walked us through a few songs,” all of which, he says, centered on what matters most to the brothers right now: family, fatherhood and love.

And finally, he delivered one final message before diving into the music. “We have a very special audience here tonight,” Nick said before delivering the best tease of the night. “We’re going to play some more songs from the album and then we’re going to step offstage and let you guys have a few drinks – looks like some of you already have – then we’re going to come back and play all the f—ing hits.”

The Brothers’ “Real Sexy” Moment

“This next song is a very special one to me,” said Kevin, introducing the sultry “Vacation Eyes.” “I know what it feels like to be in love, and it feels like you’re on vacation every single day – so this one is all about that.”

“It’s about to get real sexy in here, c’mon now,” added Nick before opening the track in his forceful falsetto over a groovy bass guitar lick. And later, fans are treated to a guttural growl from Joe, making the song even more unforgettable – and securing its status as a potential fan favorite off The Album.

Addressing Uncharted Territory

Three stools are placed on stage as Nick and Kevin took their seats on either end of Joe with their guitars in tow. “Now this is the moment in the show where we talk about something we’ve never talked about in our music before,” started Nick, which was met with whispered gasps. “Fatherhood.” He then dedicated “Little Bird,” the second-to-last song on The Album to “every parent in the room… and every child in the room.”

The Mind-Blowing Harmonies

It’s no secret Kevin, Nick and Joe can sing – and sound their best when harmonizing with one another. There was no stronger proof of this than on the set’s first-half closer, “Walls.” After live-debuting the song on SNL, it sounded even stronger now. Backed by a six-person chorus, the song’s powerful ending seemed to electrify the room, feeling much like a long-loved classic – thus serving as a perfect connector between the new album and the upcoming second hits-filled half. 

The Seamless Transitions

The show’s second half, of course, operated like a well-oiled machine as the brothers churned out hit after hit, oftentimes without the music ever really ending or the stage lights fully dimming. Yet one of the best transitions occurred between the band’s 2020 single “What a Man Gotta Do” and its 2007-released “That’s Just the Way We Roll.” A pivot so seamless it managed to jump entire decades.

Nick and Joe’s Sing-Off

Much to the surprise of many, Nick suddenly appeared alone on stage. He then took it by storm to deliver his stirring solo single “Close,” making a strong claim for it to be a set closer. But not if Joe has anything to say about it.

As Nick took a seat to the side of the stage, Joe came out to perform the DNCE hit “Toothbrush” (backed by DNCE bandmates and Jonas Brothers touring musicians Jack Lawless on drums and JinJoo Lee on guitar). All the while, Nick howls along to the “awhooo” filled chorus as Lee later shreds during a solo of her own.

But wait – there’s more. Nick then stands to perform “Jealous” as Joe took a seat and Kevin returned to play and sing harmonies alongside Nick. Soon enough, Joe was back on his feet so the three can close out the song together before ending the sing-off with DNCE’s defining song, “Cake By the Ocean.”

The Time-Traveling Ending

“We’re gonna take it back a few years for ya,” Joe told the crowd before the brothers dig into “Lovebug” off its 2008 album A Little Bit Longer. With a quick head nod from Joe, they then go right into “Year 3000” (from the year 2006) and “Burnin’ Up” before closing the night with “Sucker” off Happiness Begins, the band’s last studio album that marked the end of an unofficial 10-years-long hiatus. 

Thankfully, with The Album around the corner, fans went home certain of more on the way – and soon.

Colin Hay has touched the impossible. For a time in the early 1980s, Hay’s band Men at Work was owning sales charts, setting records, and making music that has stood the test of time.

Ask any Australian to sing the national anthem, you’ll receive the official version, “Advance Australia Fair,” followed by the unofficial cut — Men at Work’s “Down Under.”

With “Down Under” and its parent, Business as Usual, Hay and Co. simultaneously topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, at the time a feat as rare as rocking horse poop. The group went on to win the Grammy Award for best new artist.

It’s ubiquitous, a song with more than one billion streams and played everywhere Australians gather and celebrate. Where folks are having fun. When this reporter interviewed Shaquille O’Neal, the retired NBA great spotted the Australian accent and sang back the chorus of “Down Under.”

Since its release in 1981, “Down Under” has forged a life of its own — from the struggle of a bruising copyright lawsuit over the catchy number’s flute refrain, to a drum ‘n’ bass cover by Luude which cracked the U.K. top 5 in 2022, and a fresh interpretation by Yolŋu surf rock band King Stingray.

“No, it doesn’t really happen, to hardly anybody,” he says of the breakout success of Men at Work. “It was massive. Having said that, we were always very ambitious. We always felt that we could do well. But we didn’t really know how well, but we got hints at it. We seemed to bypass a lot of the typical things that Australian bands did to achieve even national success. We just immediately tried to find an audience. That was our thing. We found that audience pretty quickly, albeit a quite small, very very passionate one, and quite engaged. We always knew we had a strong live following.”

On Thursday night (April 27), Hay will take a bow at the 2023 APRA Music Awards at ICC Sydney, where he’ll receive the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music, one of the highest honors in this market’s music community.

Hay will be honored for an outstanding career, that included so much more than a single hit. “Who Can It Be Now” logged a single week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982. “Overkill” and “It’s a Mistake” both hit the top 10 on the Hot 100, “Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive” cracked the top 40 (at No. 28).

Speaking to Billboard from Sacramento, CA, Hay admits “blunders” made, which included an “absolutely horrendous deal” done at the start with CBS Records (“It was a really horrible, horrible record deal,” he insists), and a followup album that didn’t meet expectations, with the band at least.

“We made some pretty, pretty sizable mistakes, really, early on in our career. Being five musicians, having had that success, we didn’t really know what we were doing, you know. We thought we did, but we didn’t, really.”

“Down Under” introduced the rest of the world to the Australian vernacular, and specifically the word “chunder,” a variation on “puke”. For that we can thank the late comedian Barry Humphries, and his character Sir Les Patterson.

Late Men at Work bandmate Greg Ham and Hay “were hugely inspired by Humphries and Peter Cook. We were massive fans of Humphries. A lot of that video was inspired by him and certainly the use of the word the word ‘chunder,’ because that he had a great fascination it.” Humphries died last Saturday (April 22) aged 89.

The U.S. was late to the party with Business as Usual, though the rest of the world arrived on time (Business as Usual was released in November 1981,and wouldn’t hit the summit of the Billboard 200 chart until November 1982).

With followup Cargo, reps from the band’s label said to hold off on its release. “Wait for six months, a year, before you release the second album, which made perfect sense,” was the advice, he recounts. “It makes perfect sense now, but at the time, we didn’t listen to him.”

Cargo peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. “It still was a successful record. We still sold millions of records, but it wasn’t like the first one,” says Hay. “With the benefit of hindsight, of course, we should have waited. That was a classic blunder as they say.”

The band went their separate ways in 1985, but the music still moves. Career record sales top 30 million, according to PRO APRA AMCOS.

Hay was born in Scotland, before settling in the land Down Under. And like many of his Australian rock ‘n’ roll peers, including Angus Young and Jimmy Barnes, his still carries the accent.

Regrets, he has a few. Highlights, many more. Among the highpoints, Hay recounts a performance in Brazil, “playing in this jungle for 25,000 people” with indigenous dancers alongside him on stage. “They were just incredible. They gave me this kind of energy and I was kind of like floating singing the third verse. I thought to myself and the court case, they can’t touch it. This is just incredible. People in courtrooms will never ever understand that.”

Hay isn’t slowing down. His music was introduced to new generations through Scrubs and Garden State, and he continues to tour, both as a solo artist and as a guitarist in Ringo Starr’s All-Star Band. The full-length solo album Now and the Evermore dropped in 2022, just a year after I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself.

“I’m going to be spending the second half of this year probably messing around with a few ideas,” he admits.

But first, APRA will salute Hay and the late concerts giant Colleen Ironside at the 2023 APRA Music Awards — “two uniquely Australian music industry figures,” comments Dean Ormston, CEO, APRA AMCOS. “Colleen championed Australian songwriters and artists and created live music pathways into Asia with a business acumen that was years ahead of her peers. Colin is a songwriter of the highest level and with the biggest heart, whose songs continue to connect and hit No. 1 on the charts.”

Hay will be in the room as the man of honor. “It gives me a great excuse to come down (to Australia),” he says. “Not that I really need an excuse.”

Billie Eilish sure isn’t a bad guy, but the jury is out on a man who climbed the KTLA tower in Los Angeles, with an attention-seeking sign.

The as-yet unnamed man managed to reach the roof and climb the TV station tower in Hollywood, where he waved a flag reading “’Free Billie Eilish.” The other side appears to read “MK ultra sex slaves donald marshall clones.”

Footage captured from the scene late Tuesday (April 25), at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Bronson Avenue near Van Ness Avenue, shows the man dangling the cloth sign, with an electric guitar slung over his chest.

According to ABC, authorities surrounded the 160-foot tower, attempting to convince the man to come back down. Sunset Boulevard was reportedly shut down in the meantime.

It’s unclear what the message refers to, though that hasn’t stopped it from trending on Twitter.

Eilish isn’t locked away. Indeed, she made a coming out of sorts earlier this month by lending her vocals to Labrinth’s “Never Felt So Alone,” which she followed up by performing with the British artist at the Mojave Tent for Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

The “Bad Guy” singer has two full length albums to her name, 2019’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, and 2021’s Happier Than Ever, both of which reigned over albums charts everywhere. Along the way, she became just the second artist in Grammy Awards history to win all four of the Big Four categories, and became the youngest artist to write and perform a James Bond theme, “No Time to Die,” aged just 18. She has yet to comment on the strange situation.

See images and clips of the Hollywood tower climber.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! Swizz Beatz joined The Jennifer Hudson Show on Tuesday (April 25), where he gushed over his 12-year-old son Egypt, whom he shares with wife Alicia Keys.

At one point in the conversation, Jennifer Hudson mentioned that thanks to his musical talents, Egypt ended up producing a Kendrick Lamar song when he was just five years old. “I’m jealous as hell of that one,” Swizz, a Grammy-winning producer himself, joked. “I thought me and Kendrick was cool.”

The star went on to explain that Egypt and Lamar’s bond began at a past Super Bowl game. “He and Kendrick were talking for, like, 40 minutes,” Swizz recalled. “I went over and said to Kendrick, ‘Is he bothering you? Should I move him? Are you enjoying yourself?’ He said, ‘No, Swizz, I had writer’s block and what Egypt is telling me is helping me deal with something. I was like, ‘Man, he’s five years old.’ To this day, I still don’t know what he was helping him deal with. I let it happen.”

As a result, Egypt ended up getting a producer credit on “untitled 07,” off Lamar’s 2016 Untitled Unmastered project.

However, don’t expect Egypt to follow in his famous parents’ footsteps. The pre-teen joined his father later on in the interview, noting that he has other plans in mind for his future. “I love music but I don’t really want to be a musician. I want to be a basketball player,” he told Hudson.

Watch the full interview below.

In light of the fallout from fans following Morgan Wallen‘s last-minute cancellation of his headlining show in Oxford, Mississippi over the weekend, the wife of another country music hitmaker is chiming in.

Bunnie XO, the wife of “Son of a Sinner” hitmaker Jelly Roll, recently took to social media to discuss what goes on behind the scenes and how hard artists work to get onstage.

“I wanted to chime in on this Morgan Wallen situation that’s going on,” Bunnie XO said via Instagram Stories on Monday (April 24). “I’ve been watching it unfold all day long. I just feel like I need to say something because as a wife of an artist, I have seen what goes on behind the scenes and it’s not easy. Those decisions are never easy.”

She shed light on the effort that artists (including her husband Jelly Roll) put in to get onstage and perform for fans, saying, “I have seen my husband getting literally, like, two or three breathing treatments because he has bronchitis so bad, and an IV, getting a shot of Toradol, taking steroids like the steroid pack that the doctor gives you, I mean, like doing all of that just so he makes it onstage, because he knows that if he doesn’t make it onstage because, one, the backlash he’ll get, and two, he never wants to upset the fans.”

She added, “When an artist has to make a decision to cancel a show, especially when you get to arenas like that, it’s one of the hardest decisions they have ever made. It’s not them sitting in the back and saying, like, ‘Oh, you know, I don’t want to show up to work today.’ There are so many factors that go into that. Not only that, but they lose out on money. They have to pay the venues back. I understand, people have to travel thousands of miles to see their favorite artist. I understand that parents have had to get babysitters and time off work and this is their one night out that they are really looking forward to, but you also have to understand that health is the most important thing. If somebody’s sick, they cannot go out there and give their all. If he really lost his voice and he went out there onstage and he was singing, [and giving] the worst version of himself that he could, not only would you guys be mad at him still — you all would be making videos about that, like, ‘Look at Morgan Wallen’s worst performance ever’ — and trying to get views from it. An artist is damned if they do, damned if they don’t.”

She ended with a bit of advice for fans and those ready criticize artists who cancel shows. “But I guess my whole point is I’m coming on here to say, that maybe, have a little grace. It’s like, be nice. Be kind. It costs nothing to be nice and to just kind of put yourself in that other person’s shoes.”

Following the concert cancellation, Wallen has postponed additional shows that had been slated for this week and told fans he is on vocal rest.

Meghan Trainor is gearing up to be the ultimate boy mom!

The “Made You Look” singer and her husband, actor Daryl Sabara, stopped by The Kelly Clarkson Show on Tuesday (April 25), where Clarkson reminded the couple that they revealed the sex of their first-born son Riley on her show more than two years ago.

“Let’s do it again with Kelly Clarkson!” Trainor shouted, before the lights dimmed and a spotlight appeared on the couple. “God’s” voice then is heard over the speakers, and he requests that the sex reveal be done by none other than Riley himself. The adorable two-year-old then appears on the screen behind the couple, shouting, “It’s a boy!”

Trainor revealed that she’s pregnant back in January. “BABY #2 COMING THIS SUMMER,” the singer captioned a snap of herself on Instagram holding up a series of sonogram images.

“I’m also trying to get pregnant,” the singer told Billboard last year, foreshadowing her upcoming bundle of joy. “I’m trying to have four kids and get them out. I don’t know if we’ll tour next year, because touring is so exhausting and brutal still.”

She continued, “I don’t know if I’m as cool as Cardi B. The icon that’s like, ‘Sure I can tour and perform and do SNL pregnant.’ I don’t know if I’m as strong as her. I remember being pregnant and being like, ‘I really should lay down.’ I was pooped, so I don’t know if I want to sign up for a tour and then get pregnant while doing that. It’s a big debate, but if something happens and I can open for someone or do a short run, I would love to do something like that.”