October 2019 News

Stagecoach, Bridgestone Arena & More Take Home Top Honors at IEBA Awards
from: billboard.com
By Taylor Mims | Photo by Jason Davis



Tuesday night in Nashville, the International Entertainment Buyers Association awarded top honors to events, venues and executives in the music industry. For the 49th annual conference held in Nashville from Oct. 27-29, IEBA handed out 17 industry awards selected by the associations vast membership.

Goldenvoice's Stacy Vee accepted two awards last night as Stagecoach won festival of the year and she was selected as festival buyer of the year under her dual role with Messina Touring Group. In her acceptance speech for Stagecoach, Vee gave a shout out to CAA Nashville's Rod Essig, who was inducted into the IEBA Hall of Fame earlier in the evening.

Nashville's own Bridgestone Arena also saw multiple honors. Bridgestone was named arena of the year, while senior vp entertainment and marketing David Kells took home the award for venue executive of the year.

The Troubadour in West Hollywood, The Fox Theatre in Atlanta and Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver took home awards for best club, theater and amphitheater, respectively.

Bowery Presents' Josh Moore won club buyer of the year, while international buyer of the year went to Canada's Jim Cressman of Invictus Entertainment. NS2's Darin Lashinsky was also named promoter of the year.

The ceremony held at the J.W. Marriott Nashville also inducted several people into its Hall of Fame. In addition to Essig, JOAN JETT and longtime manager and producer KENNY LAGUNA, Vans warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman and legendary promoter Larry Vallon were all inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Beloved booking agent Steve Dahl, who passed away in 2017, was also inducted into the elite group posthumously after a touching speech from his wife, daughter and son at the ceremony.

On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the Delaware State Fair was also added to the short list of events that have made it into IEBA's Hall of Fame.
[more]

---

SOCIAL DISTORTION'S 40TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION BRINGS DOWN THE HOUSE
from: ocweekly.com
By JIMMY ALVAREZ | Photo by Michelle Alvarez/Green-Eyed Blonde Photography



Early birds to this past Saturday's "Sounds from Behind the Orange Curtain," Social Distortion's 40 anniversary celebration at FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine, were treated to hot temperatures and flammable music on a side stage just outside the main venue.

These fans got to check out Bully, Mannequin Pussy and Black Lips, all of which were very good, but it was Plague Vendor and front man Brandon Blaine who delivered a very good setâ€"that included their hits "New Comedown" and "Black Sap Scriptures"â€"that started the day off perfectly.

As the main venue opened, concert goers poured in to see the Eagles of Death Metal on the main stage. They proved that they're professional musicians who know how to bring it. Jesse Hughes is a showman, and he took immediate charge of the stage and crowd. Among the band's dual drummers is Josh Homme, who sings, plays guitar and is the primary songwriter for Queens of the Stone Age. Homme, who founded that band and co-founded Eagles of Death Metal with Huges, was impressive behind the kit. Overall, EODM was booming with a charismatic feel to them, and the crowd loved their back and forth banter. It was a very good opening set.

Honestly, I had never seen Frank Turner & the Sleeping Souls before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I've just heard they were great performers. Turns out those rumors were very, very true. The band reminded me of a very cool Dropkick Murphy's bar band. That's a very big compliment because this is the kind of band everyone can relate to. The songs that got most screams were "If I Stray," "Photosynthesis" and "Four Simple Words."
v I also hadn't seen the Kills before: All I can say is they were a very nice surprise to say the least. The band put out a very nice electric and, at times, industrial sound, with a Front-242 drumbeat. Lead singer Allison Mosshart displayed an amazing vocal range and shifted from high-energy into a very nice Mazzy Star-esque sequence with ease. Hits she belted out included "Tape Song," "Alphabet Pony" and "What New York Used to Be."

Another very entertaining act was The Distillers. This band is led by the electrifying Brody Dalle. Their sound is pure energy and sometimes nothing short of bone crushing. Dalle got loud cheers with their hits "City of Angels," "Man vs. Magnet," and the uber-tune, "Drain the Blood," which brought down the house!

As the sun set, a headliner everyone anticipated was Rock and Roll Hall of Famers JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS. The band was as tight as ever, with Jett's vocals sounding as explosive as when we first heard her with the RUNAWAYS. The crowd loved when she went into "Bad Reputation," "Crimson & Clover," "I Love Rock 'n Roll" and "Fake Friends." She also belted out a few RUNAWAYS favorites, including "Cherry Bomb" and "You Drive Me Wild."

The band closed with "I Hate Myself for Loving You." Jett has such a great catalogue of music and sounded so good that she could have played for two more hours and fans would have been OK with that.
[more]

---

IEBA Chairman Talks JOAN JETT Hall of Fame Induction, Industry Showcases & More Ahead of Annual Conference
from: billboard.com
By Taylor Mims | Photo by Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic



The International Entertainment Buyers Association returns to Nashville on Sunday for its 49th annual conference. The three-day event welcomes some of live entertainment's biggest names for a selection of highly-curated panels, awards ceremonies and artist showcases throughout Music City.

Closing out the conference on Tuesday, Oct. 29, rock icon JOAN JETT will be inducted into the organization's Hall of Fame alongside her longtime manager and producer KENNY LAGUNA at IEBA's Honors & Awards Ceremony ("JOAN JETT and KENNY LAGUNA. How cool is that?" says IEBA chairman Bob Babish of Summerfest.)

Also receiving Hall of Fame induction honors this year are CAA's Rod Essig, legendary promoter Larry Vallon, late Paradigm Director of Fairs Steve Dahl and Vans Warped Tour's Kevin Lyman.

"It's a great cross section of people who've done a lot of great things for our industry," says Babisch, who adds that the organization of roughly 1,600 members has also begun to induct iconic events into Hall of Fame in the past few years.

"It is the 100th anniversary of the Delaware State Fair," says Babisch of 2019's final inductee. "State fairs have been synonymous with country music for a lot of years."

The conference debuted in 1970 and was originally centered around country music, but since then it has grown to incorporate all genres of music for agencies to show off new and returning talent to the biggest talent buyers in the nation.
[more]

---

Tim Finn Review: Heart & JOAN JETT
from: inkansascity.com
By TIMOTHY FINN



Starlight Theatre closed its 2019 concert season Tuesday night, and they enlisted several women to perform the honors. They couldn't have asked for a better valediction.

The bill: Heart, featuring sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson; JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS; and British singer/songwriter Lucie Silvas.

On a pitch-perfect moonlit night, with an early autumnal bite in the air, they treated a crowd of more than 7,000 to an evening of nostalgia and grit.

All of those fans were in place when Jett took the stage after a lively set by Silvas. Garbed in a skintight black jumpsuit, she displayed her usual menace and might throughout a brisk performance. The 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and her four-piece band ripped through her most popular songs in no-frills, workman-like fashionâ€"16 songs in 60-plus minutes.

They took the stage to the sounds of the Mar-Keys (Last Night), then plowed into Victim of Circumstance, a deep cut from 1982. Then came a run of hits: the first of two RUNAWAYS covers, the timeless Cherry Bomb; Do You Wanna Touch Me, a song written by imprisoned pedophile Garry Glitter; and a sneering rendition of Bad Reputation.

Jett has a keen knack of owning cover songs, like Bruce Springsteen's Light of Day, which, she reminded the crowd, was part of a movie of the same name she co-starred in with Michael J. Fox more than 30 years ago.

Her caffeinated rendition of Love Is All Around, the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore show, got a rowdy ovation, as did her classic cover of Crimson and Clover, as well-known as the original. Another highlight: Androgynous, a track from the Replacements' Let It Be album.
[more]

---

Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Heart and JOAN JETT deliver hits, memories at Memphis concert
from: commercialappeal.com
By Bob Mehr, Memphis Commercial Appeal | Photo: Chris Kohley/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin



Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Heart brought their "Love Alive" tour to Memphis on Friday night. The jaunt, which launched this summer, marked the reunion of sibling rockers Ann and Nancy Wilson, who'd been estranged for several years and off the road. The tour also saw the band enlist fellow Rock Hall inductee JOAN JETT as support. Their stop at FedExForum brought out an enthusiastic and relatively large (though nowhere near sellout) crowd for a powerful union of distaff rock icons.

Clad in her all-black uniform, Jett gave Memphis a loving nod, arriving on stage to the strains of the classic Stax track "Last Night" by The Mar-Keys. A fairly tireless road warrior - who's equally adept playing arenas, casinos, state fairs - Jett came out fists flailing, buoyed by an unassailable setlist.

The smartly paced performance moved easily between her early, punkish RUNAWAYS material ("Cherry Bomb"; "You Drive Me Wild"), classic '80s solo hits ("I Love Rock 'n' Roll"; "Do You Wanna Touch Me"), and latter-day tracks (including "Fresh Start" which helped soundtrack the recent documentary on her life, "Bad Reputation").

Fronting a lean but muscular sounding four-piece version of her band, the BLACKHEARTS (which included her longtime creative and business partner KENNY LAGUNA on keyboards), Jett worked the crowd with a mix of professional diligence and genuine enthusiasm.

Following a selection of deeper catalog cuts, and her signature version of Tommy James' "Crimson and Clover," Jett and company encored with a further pair of covers. They put a jaunty, twangy spin on The Replacements' fluid gender study "Androgynous," before closing out with a jubilant performance of Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People."

Taking bows with the band, Jett was the last to leave the stage, stopping to address the crowd with a bit of parting advice. "I bid you goodbye," she said, smiling and acknowledging the cheers. "You gotta have fun, man."

After a quick set change Heart emerged, led by the Wilson sisters, who opened with a fairly epic rendition of "Rockin Heaven Down" from their 1980 LP "Bébé le Strange," before following with "Magic Man," a top ten hit off the band's 1975 debut, and a permanent staple of classic rock radio.
[more]