Another day, another new development in the Ed Sheeran/Macklemore/Robert Kraft fallout.

As Sheeran is working out how to fill several hours of stage time without any support acts or a backing band, it’s emerged that the singer asked Kraft – the owner of Gillette Stadium, who was instrumental in getting Macklemore thrown off the tour – to match his $2 million donation to aid in the region.

The 85-year-old billionaire and owner of the New England Patriots has made a statement saying: "Earlier today, before Macklemore challenged me to match his donation, Ed called me and asked me to commit $2 million to match his donation to aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis.”

However, Kraft did not say whether he had agreed to make the donation. He simply added: “I have dedicated much of my life to building bridges between all people. I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting. Ed now plans to reach out to other venue owners and our goal is to continue to work together to build bridges."

Kraft’s statement comes after Macklemore announced that he was donating the $1 million fee he earned supporting Sheeran on his Loop tour to organisations working with Palestinian people and relief in Gaza. He also challenged Kraft to match his donation.

“With everything that has happened over the last 48 hours, I want to bring the conversation back to where it belongs: to the Palestinian people who are still being killed, still living under military occupation, and still fighting for their freedom,” the rapper posted on Instagram.

“I will be donating the entire $1 million of my net earnings from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour to six organisations working directly to support the Palestinian people. And I invite Robert Kraft to match my donation.

"Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting. A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any other life on this earth.”

As things stand, there’s no doubt who’s been the winner – in terms of PR, at least - from this episode. Macklemore may have lost a few stadium support slots but has gone from being a hitherto semi-obscure figure to a world-famous artist, not to mention an internationally renowned man of integrity and courage, within a week.

Ed Sheeran meanwhile has maybe learned the limitations of his strategy of trying to be all things to all people. It's been reported that in the two days since the announcement that Macklemore had been dropped from the tour, he's lost nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram.

Macklemore, conversely, has gained 1.6 million followers on the platform since Tuesday...

It looks like Ed Sheeran’s might just have to do extended sets on the remainder of the his Loop tour. The rest of his support acts have quit in solidarity with Macklemore.

You may recall that Macklemore was booted off the tour, a decision that seems was largely made by Robert Kraft, the owner of Gillette Stadium, where Sheeran is due to play two dates on 25 and 26 September.

It seems that Kraft – a prominent donor to Israel - rallied fellow stadium owners and pressurised Sheeran to dispense with Macklemore after the rapper told the audience during his support slot a couple of weeks back that he wanted the people of the West Bank and Gaza to “know that they have not been forgotten... I believe that every human being walking on this earth deserves exactly the same freedom.”

Macklemore was careful to point out that his criticism of the Israeli government was not intended as a criticism of the Jewish religion or its people.

Now Finneas – a much more prominent name and one who was also due to support Sheeran on South American dates in November – has quit the tour.

“Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed,” Finneas posted on Instagram. “I have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. I stand with Palestine and its people.”

He followed Aaron Rowe, an Irish singer-songwriter who was due to support Sheeran on ten of his North American shows.

"I don’t take the decision lightly,” Rowe wrote on social media. “Ed has been a friend to me and has changed my life, I could never thank him enough for this.”

“But as Irish people, we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation. I cannot stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up against Israeli genocide and who highlight the savage murder of children. I would lose all respect for myself to carry on as normal.”

Sheeran has also lost his backing band. Beoga, the Irish group who have played with him on this tour, have also quit, citing “silencing of Macklemore by zionist lobbies”.

And Lukas Graham (who are a band, not a singer) have also gone. “We should be able to speak about war, about civilians being killed, about children who deserve to grow up. Wherever they live. Whatever flag flies over them,” their lead singer Lukas Forchhammer wrote on social media. “Money doesn’t give you the right to own the conversation. Nobody’s bank balance should decide who gets to speak or which suffering we’re allowed to acknowledge.”

Sheeran did break his silence on all this yesterday. Writing on Instagram, the singer said that he had spent a week “trying to build bridges, to find a solution and unfortunately, was unable to do so,” and that the “venue’s and promoter’s decision was final.”

In theory, Sheeran could do the rest of the tour on his own – he did, after all, entertain Wembley Stadium with no more accompaniment than his guitar back in 2015. But as he’s clearly discovering, sitting on the fence is not a comfortable position when you’re in the middle of the crossfire.

After a week of speculation, Macklemore has been dropped from the Ed Sheeran Loop tour.

However, in a statement, the rapper has made it clear he does not blame Sheeran for this turn of events and points the finger clearly at one Robert Kraft. The 85-year-old Kraft is the owner of the New England Patriots and owns the Gillette Stadium, where Sheeran and Macklemore were due to play on 25 and 26 September. Macklemore claims that Kraft rallied other stadium owners on the tour to ban him from their venues.

In the post, Macklemore said: “Ed was in a fucked up position. He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before. He told me that the words ‘Free Palestine’ and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with.

"I told him that if those words were more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect between where those people stood and where I stood. But he couldn’t get past his public facing, ‘I don’t take sides.’"

“And I get why people don’t. Taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals, private shows, relationships and access. I’ve lost all of those things. But there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed. When one side has the bombs and bottomless financial and military support from America, refusing to take a side doesn’t leave you in the middle.”

Since Macklemore’s post, Kraft himself has defended his decision in a statement: “Gillette Stadium has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech.

"Based on Macklemore’s recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line.”

He continued: “This decision is not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf. Their pain and loss are real. But that advocacy should not come at the expense of the Jewish community or obscure the responsibility of Hamas, a United States and globally (including Canada, European Union, United Kingdom, and Japan) designated terrorist organisation whose horrific actions have caused immeasurable suffering for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”

Kraft added that he would “welcome the opportunity to sit down with Macklemore and discuss the facts, because ultimately our goal is the same – peace for all people, an end to suffering, and an end to all hate.”

One wonders if the rapper will take the billionaire sports owner up on that offer...

It’s official: after weeks of speculation. Oasis will be touring in 2027.

The announcement was made this afternoon. “START THE CELEBRATIONS!!!!,” said the band’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek statement. “After a period of reflection, ‘The Most Damaging Pop Cultural Force In Recent British History’ has declared itself fit for purpose and will once again return to lift the spirits of the people.”

They added, quoting Roots Manuva of all people: “Come witness the fitness. It shall be a sight to behold.”

(Incidentally, that ‘Most Damaging...’ reference is a nod to a disparaging article music writer Simon Price wrote in the Guardian around the time of their 2024 reunion. He’s not a fan, let’s say…)

Anyway, here are the details: Oasis will play five nights at Glasgow’s Celtic Park between May 21 and 29 and there’s a whopping 11 nights at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium in June. July sees the tour move to Europe, with dates in Munich, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome. August sees the Gallaghers take on the USA once more with three dates in Boston and Las Vegas apiece, whilst September sees them return to Europe with two nights at Slane Castle in Ireland and four Knebworth stretched across two weekends.

There may well be more dates added – spaces have been left in the itinerary for extra shows to be added.

In terms of tickets, the band have decided to stick with the model they used for the Live 25 shows. So fans must register before 17 September at 4pm in the UK/ 5pm Central European time/ 8am Pacific time in the US/ 11am Eastern time.

Those fans that are successful in the ballot will then be sent a unique non-transferable code to access an allocated on-sale window at a specific time. That on-sale time will take place on September 25, 26 and 27, with three windows each day.

At the moment it sounds like the controversial dynamic pricing tactic has been dumped. Apparently, ticket prices will range between £71.50 and an upper limit of £266.60 without fees.

It looks like Macklemore has kicked up a veritable hornets’ nest by using his support slot on Ed Sheeran’s current North American tour to call for a “free Palestine”.

The controversy started the week before last when the rapper was warming up for Sheeran at his gigs at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Macklemore made an impassioned speech saying that he wanted Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank to know “they have not been forgotten...I believe that every human being walking on this earth deserves exactly the same freedom.”

He added: “To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters: criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.

"My message is for peace; love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. I say Free Palestine, free Cuba, Congo, Sudan and Iran and all the people of America who live in fear because of this terrorist organisation ICE”

Following this, the Israeli-American Council launched a petition urging Sheeran to kick Macklemore off the tour. And then other musicians began to weigh in on the issue. Pink reshared a post that accused the rapper of being anti-Israel.

Joe Bonamassa – not a figure who has ever previously intervened about anything politically – tweeted: “When you fill stadiums you can say what you want. When you are the opening act for someone who fills stadiums ... STFU! Simple rules and etiquette when operating on tour.. It's not that hard kids.”

However, others have leapt to Macklemore’s defence. Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett replied to Bonamassa by pointing out that “Maybe speaking out against genocide trumps etiquette.”

When someone else questioned Shiflett’s use of the word genocide and accused him of overlooking other atrocities around the world, he countered with: “The Israeli genocide in Gaza is one that our country has a particularly close relationship too, so you should expect criticism.”

Meanwhile Pink – who had received a fair amount of flak for her initial response to the incident – posted a measured explanation of her own position on Friday (11 September). “I was born a Jew. I didn’t pick it, and I’ve never hidden it,” she began before saying: "I don’t speak for Israel, or for any government. I never have.

"What I said in October 2023 is still exactly what I believe: Hamas is a terrorist organisation. Palestinians deserve a future that honours their humanity and their aspirations. Protecting innocent life comes first, everywhere, and nobody should ever celebrate the death of a child. Anybody’s child.”

This may all well rumble on for some time yet. Ed Sheeran – whose gig it was in the first place, remember – has yet to make any public statement about the whole thing, or Macklemore’s continued presence on his Loop tour. After a two week break he’s back on stage at Lincoln Field, Philadelphia this coming Saturday.

The two remaining members of Queen seem to be considering an avatar show in the same vein as Abba Voyage.

That’s what Roger Taylor suggested during an appearance on Virgin Radio’s Breakfast Show. When the host Chris Evans asked about future Queen activity, the drummer replied: “Brian and I talk because we live near each other. There is a possibility of doing something...not quite sure what it is yet.”

“But technology has come on so far,” he mused. “Like the Abba show, for instance. It’s come on…”

At which point his host (and his production colleagues) became audibly excited. “So you’re going on tour with Freddie?” Evans said. “This is what’s happening! Is that what’s happening?”

“No,” said Taylor, sounding somewhat embarrassed at having raised the subject. “I wish it was.”

“It could happen, though, couldn’t it?” asked Evans puppishly.

“Sort of,” replied Taylor. “It sort of could.”

It’s not the first time Taylor and Brian May have publicly pondered the possibility of a Queen avatar show. Last year May told The Big Issue he was open to the possibility of using new technology to create such a spectacle: “It wouldn’t be just playing old footage or whatever. It would be creating Queen as if we were creating it today. I’m very taken with the idea that we can be the original Queen again.”

For such an idea to go from a ‘could’ to a ‘definitely will’, it would need to overcome some fairly considerable barriers. The two largest stumbling blocks are of course the non-availability of the other half of Queen. As we know, Freddie Mercury has been dead since 1991.

Meanwhile, John Deacon retired from public life in the late 1990s. It is very much doubtful whether the bassist would be willing to submit to the time-consuming motion capture technology necessary to create a digital avatar, or re-record his parts for such a project.

Aside from Abba Voyage, the only other ‘avatar show’ (scare quotes used deliberately) to make it from the drawing board to first night is Elvis Evolution. The dictionary definition of a damp squib, it consisted of a live band playing against projections of old footage of Elvis. It remains to be seen whether the Kiss avatar show – which is set to open next year – marks any sort of improvement.

It might be more than 10 years since the world lost Prince, but thanks to regular posthumous music releases and frequent remembrances from those that knew him, it can sometimes feel like he’s still around.

To illustrate these points, the latest Prince album, Timeless, was released just a couple of weeks ago – not without a little controversy, it should be said – and now R&B star Jill Scott has been telling the slightly surreal story of the time that Prince and Stevie Wonder came into her dressing room after she’d played a show at The House Of Blues on Sunset Strip on 2011.

The gig had already been a memorable one for Scott, as she’d performed a new song, And I Heard… (Do You Understand), that she’d written the day before when it came to her, fully formed, in a dream.

“It woke me up and I sat straight up in the bed,” she tells Scott Evans. “I got some paper, and I just started writing, and it didn’t stop. I didn’t have to question. I didn’t have to go back and erase. I didn’t have to do anything. It came out as a fluid, 100% fact.”

So taken was she with the song that Scott decided to play it at her House of Blues show, teaching it to the band at the venue. It sounds like it went down a storm; the biggest thrill, though, was still to come.

“I was in the dressing room after the show and Prince comes in in a white pant suit,” Scott remembers. “It looked like it was made out of angel hair.”

“I’m talking to Prince and the people who are in the parking lot outside of the House of Blues are still singing [the new song],” Scott continues, “and then who should walk in but Stevie Wonder.

“And he’s like, ‘What’s going on?’ and Prince says ‘Jill sang a song tonight – it’s a new song.’ And Stevie Wonder was like ‘Oh, how does it go?’”

According to Scott, Prince immediately started singing the song, with Stevie providing rhythmic backing.

“Stevie Wonder is beatboxing and Prince is singing this song verbatim. What? How? How?” wondered Scott. “Prince is singing the words that came to me last night like they came to him. He is singing it word for word. Stevie Wonder’s beatboxing and Prince is singing this song. I think I just had my mouth open. Like, this is amazing.”

The night didn’t end there, though: after everyone had left, Scott got a call from Prince’s assistant saying that he wanted her to hang out with him. At first, she turned him down – she had to travel to the next show – but Prince then ended up calling her personally.

“He calls me himself and he’s like ‘I want you to come dance with me,” says Scott. “So, I go to the Roosevelt Hotel and he has rented out this disco room in there. And that man twirled me around like I was nothing. When I say smooth, I mean so smooth. I danced with Prince until four o’clock in the morning.”

Scott described the evening as “the best night of my life,” and, to be fair, it does sound like it would take some beating. She would later release tAnd I Heard… (Do You Understand) in its live incarnation – check it out below.

The Oasis documentary hits screens this week, and the directors of Don’t Look Back In Anger have given an interview to the Guardian which reveal some interesting insights into the dynamic behind the Gallaghers’ reconciliation.

We already know that the pair - Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace - hid their cameras in the sound kit whilst the brothers ran through their set for the first time in 16 years. But they also had one trained on the door to capture Liam’s arrival.

The singer was late, you see. “Nobody knew exactly when he was coming,” says Southern. “There was a palpable tension. We knew we had these historically volatile characters, so you ask yourself, ‘Are they going to fight – or hug each other?’ And of course they do neither. They have a job to do. Apart from a very brief photoshoot, they hadn’t been in a room together for 16 years.”

“Then Liam walks in, drops his bag and goes, ‘Are we ready then?’ Two hours later, while they’re playing the outro to Champagne Supernova, he picks up his bag and leaves. He did that every single day. And then suddenly they were playing the gigs – and the tension started melting. You could see Noel and Liam getting closer every night.”

“The reconciliation didn’t happen in rehearsals,” the director says. “It started happening on stage and continued happening.” Lovelace adds: “They’re healing this enormous chasm not in private, but in public. And things were forgiven without saying a word. Maybe that’s part of what people are responding to.”

Both men reveal that back in the day they were Oasis fans themselves. Lovelace was still a teenager when Definitely Maybe came out and remembers thinking: “This is the first music that feels like my own.” Meanwhile Southern was lucky enough to catch them at the 200-capacity Hull Adelphi in 1994. Oasis “felt like our band”, he says.

And like so many people, they both initially failed to get tickets when the reunion gigs were first announced in August 2024. Lovelace was “in a car on my phone failing to get a ticket” while Southern “eventually gave up”. Don’t Look In Anger provides a happy ending in all sorts of ways...

The Oasis documentary Don’t Look Back In Anger hits the big screens this week and we’ve already found out one eye-rolling nugget from the film.

According to the Daily Mirror, Liam Gallagher missed the final rehearsal before the band’s opening night of their 2025 tour in Cardiff and only rocked up to gig 20 minutes before show time.

One can imagine Noel’s reaction. Indeed, in the film the guitarist says: “We’ve got a chance here to change the narrative of the band. We have got a chance to fix all the shit that we have just let drift apart.

"The final run-through, the night before the thing. Didn’t see him. Ohh. The next thing is one of the biggest fucking moments of our lives, right? And he’s not rehearsed.”

“I am like, oh yeah? He turns up 20 minutes before the gig - ‘alright, what’s the catering like?’.

Noel continued: “I am like, how the fuck is this… what the fuck. And then he grabs my hand and I am like ‘what the fuck?’. And off he goes, sounding like he was 30 years young.

"Just rocked up and did it. And I am like ‘you absolute mad…’”

In other Oasis news, a treasure trove of recordings of the band, many of which have never been heard before, are up for auction, despite the objections of the Gallaghers.

The collection was amassed by Huw Richards, who worked as the group’s sound engineer between 1994 and 2001. It features over 100 hours of rehearsals, soundchecks and live concerts, including the only known recording of their 1996 gig at Loch Lomond. The auctioneers in question – Littleton Auctions of Evesham – have set aside a guide price of between £1.2 and £1.6 million.

However, the Gallaghers are said to be far from happy about the situation. Understandably so, given the tapes are likely to contain all sorts of arguments between Noel and Liam, just at a time when - publicly, at least – all is sweetness and light between the brothers.

Ben Homer, Littletons' managing director, has said in a statement: “The Oasis camp is aware of the auction and has expressed concerns, which is entirely understandable given the scale and significance of the material.”

Apparently, the tapes are in a good enough condition to be released. It should be said that they just cannot be put up on YouTube by whoever buys them. Oasis retain the intellectual property rights, meaning the audio collection cannot be commercially exploited without the band’s cooperation.

Burning Man finished today (7 September), and the sad news is that two people are reported to have died during the week-long festival.

The festival organisers have identified one of the two people as 60-year-old Craigh Mann. They have said that he was found dead by his friends at his camp at around 3pm on Saturday (5 September). A cause of death has not been provided as yet.

The organisers have put out a statement saying: “Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the participant’s family, friends, campmates, and all those affected by this loss.”

Mann’s death comes a couple of days after another man died at the festival, which is held annually in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

According to the organisers, the man in question received lifesaving measures before being transported to the on-site emergency care centre, where he was pronounced dead. His identity has not yet been released.

It comes a year after the festival ended in a murder investigation. The 2025 Burning Man was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Initially, the festival was hit by dust storms, 50 mph winds that demolished camps and then flash floods. More serious was the killing of Vadim Kruglov. The 37-year-old was found fatally stabbed on the Saturday night of the festival. As yet, no one has been arrested in that case.

Other incidents at this year’s edition include one punter who was seriously injured earlier on in the week after falling from the 55-foot Nest Tower at the Square One camp. Other than that, there has been one arrest related to domestic violence and 34 connected with drug dealing, the latter of which is par for the course at a countercultural gathering such as Burning Man.

The festival has been running since the mid-1980s and is unique in terms of US mass festivals in its emphasis on participation and the creation of art during its duration, not to mention its strict no-corporate sponsorship policy.

Though once a purely underground event, it has faced problems of scale in recent years, as well as accusations that it’s become a magnet for influencers and celebrities. Interestingly, whereas once tickets sold out in minutes, they are now noticeably slower – in 2024, the event’s CEO Marian Goodell went public with a plea for donations to secure the festival’s future.

Could Zak Starkey reunite with The Who? That seems to be what Roger Daltrey is suggesting might happen in a new podcast interview.

The singer was speaking on LifeMinute with Joann Butler and the conversation turned to drummers, with Daltrey musing that things hadn’t really been the same since Keith Moon died in 1978.

“We were firing on all cylinders,” he recalled. “You could fire anything at us and we would make something of it. That kind of disappeared when Keith died.”

“But we found Zak Starkey. We tried Kenny Jones – who is a great drummer. A straight drummer just does not work with The Who. Just does not work. Zak Starkey is not Keith Moon, but he’s come very close.”

Starkey joined The Who in 1996 and stayed for almost 30 years – several times the amount of time Moon spent in the band – until his messy exit last year. You may recall that after The Who’s Teenage Cancer Trust gig at the Albert Hall in March, Starkey was sacked. Then reinstated. And then sacked once more.

The tit-for-tat via social media and various interviews between the two parties went on for months. Meanwhile, the drum stool in The Who was filled by Scott Devours from Daltrey’s touring band.

So with Daltrey talking so admiringly about Starkey’s talents, Butler asked the obvious question: is a reunion possible? “I don’t know. We did a rehearsal recently, and Zak was the drummer.

"We love Zak, but sometimes the road doesn’t like Zak. Sometimes it gets on top of him, and it becomes difficult.”

“He was drumming at the rehearsal, and we did the rehearsal to see if we can possibly do shows next year,” the singer explained. “Still hit the notes, still get the drive. Who music demands an incredible amount of drive, and without that, it would be Herman’s Hermits without the Herman.”

The Who toured North America last year, a jaunt that they said would be their last in that territory. But of course if they are bringing the band to a close in the live setting, that would suggest a final European tour as well, which presumably is what the rehearsal was for.

Daltrey didn’t say whether the rehearsal proved that he can still hit the notes. Or if Starkey passed his audition to rejoin. No doubt all will be revealed in the fullness of time...

Olivia Rodrigo has been expressing what it meant to pull off her festival Daisy Chain Fields over the weekend. In an emotional Instagram post, she said that seeing the event come together was “the greatest joy” of her life.

Organising any festival is a massive undertaking, and Rodrigo was personally involved in the event. It was her vision to revive the spirit and the format of the all-female Lilith Fair fest of the late 1990s and, like that event, Daisy Chain Fields was also a fundraiser for non-profit organisations working with women and girls. Rodrigo put the bill together and personally made the calls. All at the same time she was putting together her own album.

“I am still in a bit of disbelief that it happened,” she posted, “and I still feel incapable of properly expressing the gratitude that I feel for every person who believed in this vision and fought so hard to make it a reality.”

Performers included Chappell Roan, Doechii and Bikini Kill, though Rodrigo’s own set was memorable for a number of reasons. The singer brought out Sarah McLachlan, the Lilith Fair organiser, and the pair duetted on Angel, which was dedicated to Dolly Parton.

Later on. Stevie Nicks joined Rodrigo for a version of Nicks’ own Landslide, and Alanis Morissette (a late replacement for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O) came on to perform Ironic with the singer.

Over $10 million dollars was raised for non-profits including Baby2Baby, which distributes supplies to children and parents in need, and the National Women’s Law Center. Appearing later that night, Melinda French Gates joined Rodrigo on stage and announced that she was matching that amount to make the final total raised $20 million.

But by all accounts, Daisy Chain Fields wore its activism lightly. In her post, Rodrigo said that one of her own highlights was hanging out at Yoko Ono’s ‘Wish Tree’ installation after the crowds had gone home. It was here that punters were encouraged to write their deepest desires.

“By and large almost every tag said the same thing,” said Rodrigo. “Everyone hoped for the world to be more peaceful, they all hoped that the people they loved were happy, they all hoped to make a difference.

“It made me so emotional and I realised that was exactly why Daisy Chain meant so much to me. The artwork reminded me of how we are all much more alike than we are different and how deep down, we all just want to help each other and make the world a better place. Yesterday, Daisy Chain felt like just that: a collective hope that things can get better and a reminder of how much we really care about people at the end of the day.”

We’re just a few weeks away from the 20th anniversary of Back to Black, the second album from Any Winehouse and the one that turned her into a global superstar.

As you’d expect, this occasion is being marked by a deluxe reissue of the record, but if you’d rather celebrate Winehouse’s legacy in a live setting, her former band are also heading out on a UK tour to perform both Back to Black in its entirety and other songs that she recorded.

The shows are being led by Winehouse’s long‑time musical director and bass player Dale Davis, and the band features guest vocalists and members who both toured and recorded with Amy throughout her career.

“I can’t believe that it’s the 20th anniversary of Back To Black this year,” says Davis. “When I congratulated Amy on the success of this incredible album, she said to me, not with any arrogance: ‘I knew what I was doing’, and at that moment, I realised that she knew exactly what she had created.

“It’s still an honour, pleasure and privilege to be performing these songs, from this timeless classic.”

With new shows announced in England and Wales – joining the previously confirmed gigs in Scotland – the tour will now take in more than 50 dates. Beginning on 20 October in York, the 2026 run will reach a fitting conclusion in Camden, London at the Roundhouse on 18 December – Camden being the place where Winehouse lived and tragically died in 2011. The 2027 tour will then kick off in February.

Tickets are available via the Amy Winehouse Band website.

Olivia Rodrigo’s festival Daisy Chain Fields arrives at Irvine, California this weekend. It features an all-female line-up and an exceeedingly strong one at that – artists include Chappell Roan, Stevie Nicks, The Breeders, Garbage, Doechii, Mitski, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Santigold.

Artists putting on their own one-day events isn't anything new, of course, but it seems that Rodrigo was deeply involved in formulating the bill. According to Shirley Manson, who has talked about the festival in a Guardian feature, she called up every act personally, one by one.

“I told her it was very unusual for an agent not to be doing that.” the Garbage singer said. Rodrigo is, of course, very open about her influences, and Manson’s band are just one of the many older acts that she has gushed about. “Unlike many artists, she doesn’t say she’s inventing the wheel; she knows she’s just a spoke within it,” said Manson.

Another interesting facet is that no act will overlap with another and every artist on the poster is the same font size. “It creates a necessary and refreshing culture of community, setting up women’s art to be received and valued in a less competitive and capitalist environment,” suggests Eli, the 25 year old singer who is one of the younger artists on the bill.

Rodrigo’s model for Daisy Chain Fields was the Lilith Fair, a touring all-female fest that ran for several years in the late 1990s. Like its predecessor, net profits from the fest will go to charity, in this case non-profit organisations dedicated to ‘advancing and advocating for women and girls’. Indeed when she first had the idea for the event, Rodrigo called Lilith’s founder Sarah McLachlan for advice and the Canadian singer-songwriter is set to perform in Irvine on Sunday.

Lilith was partly set up to counter all-male concert line-ups back in the 1990s. And whilst in some areas there has been progress since then – female festival headliners are certainly more common now – in other ways things have gone backwards.

Back then Garbage turned down a chance to play at Lilith Fair. “I might have been naive, but it felt like there was more progress for women then,” Manson said. “And here we are in 2026, as women’s rights are regressing all over the world. We’re at a crisis point.”

Daisy Chain Fields takes place at Great Park, Irvine on Sunday 29 August.

Dolly Parton is still in the thoughts of many in the music world, and in the last 48 hours, a number of artists have been paying tribute to her in the live arena.

During John Mayer’s concert at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, New York, the guitarist played I Will Always Love You as the intro to his 2006 hit Gravity, which was his final song of the night. As you can see below, it’s a particularly tender and soulful version of the song that Parton released back in 1974 and which later became a blockbuster hit for Whitney Houston.

Prior to the gig, Mayer reflected on Parton's death with SiriusXM's Andy Cohen, calling it a "huge loss", but also took the positives from the collective outpouring of warmth since her passing.

"While the world is paying tribute to one person and one soul, which feels good on its own, we're all connected while that's happening and I haven't felt connected like that for a long time."

Mayer went on to say: "This is one human being who's left this incredible testament to love throughout their whole life and you can feel it. This is what a life well-lived looks like, feels like, sounds like, and you take apart every layer of herself and career, and it's a brilliant, classy, talented, fully artistic rendering. That is how you give your life to the thing you love."

Elsewhere in New York, Harry Styles was playing the first night of his residency at Madison Square Garden and took time to share his thoughts about the singer: “I just wanna give a proper thank you to all the musicians who have inspired me over the years. Dolly, we love you. Thank you so much.” Later, her original version of I Will Always Love You was played over the venue’s speakers as the sold-out audience sang along.

Meanwhile at a concert in Pittsburgh, the singer Kesha covered a slightly more obscure Dolly hit Old Flames (Can’t Hold A Candle To You). The song was originally released by Joe Sun in 1978 with Parton’s version coming two years later. Kesha revealed to the audience that the song has a family connection to her – her mom was one of its co-writers.

“I’m sure many of you all know that we lost Ms Dolly Parton,” Kesha told the crowd. “We literally lost an angel. But through her art and through her kindness and through her love, she will live forever. And I want to talk about her a little bit. For those of you who don’t know, I come from a long lineage of songwriters and before I was born, my mom wrote a song for Dolly Parton. And that song bought us a house. That song put me through school.”

In 2017 Kesha recorded a cover of Old Flames with Dolly herself while she was embroiled in a legal battle with her ex producer Dr Luke. “I was making that album in the middle of a very scary litigation,” she explained to the audience, "and I was in the MeToo movement, and having such a legendary woman do this song with me and stand beside me, it made me feel like God was on my side.”

Over the next few days there will doubtless be more tributes to an artist who drew admiration and warmth from across every music genre.

The film makers behind the upcoming Oasis tour documentary Don’t Look Back In Anger have revealed the lengths they went to ensure they were invisible to their subjects.

And by ‘invisible’ they mean literally. In the current issue of Billboard, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace have explained that they hid a camera rig in the London studio where Noel and Liam met and rehearsed for the first time in 15 years. “I don’t think Liam even realised there were cameras there for the first week,” Southern says.

The duo filmed the rehearsals and every gig on the band’s reunion tour, as well as the Gallaghers’ first joint interview in over 20 years. But whilst the two brothers are undoubtedly the stars of the show, almost as important are the fans, who had waited so long for their reconciliation.

“When the lights came up at the end of the first concert in Cardiff,” Southern explains, “we have a sequence where you just see people looking shell-shocked, like they’ve been through every possible emotion. Seeing that in real time... we were like, ‘We knew this was going to be big, but it’s on a different level emotionally than what we’d thought.’

“Then, as the film progresses, you see the music bringing (the brothers) together,” Southern continues. “The [fan] reaction is a huge catalyst in where they end up in terms of their relationship by the end of the film.”

Southern and Lovelace said that they had prepared for “any eventuality” before filming began (it’s easy to forget that many scoffed that the Gallaghers would be able to make it through an entire world tour without the whole thing exploding in a familiar familial conflagration). But of course, in the end, both the film and the fans were provided with a happy ending. “Our hope was to make a film about reconciliation and forgiveness,” Southern says, “and I think it’s ultimately about those things - and the breakthrough moments that happened throughout.”

Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger will get a cinema release on 9 September. But before then it premieres at the Venice International Film Festival. Later this year it will be available for streaming on Disney+ and in the US, both Disney+ and Hulu.

Kiss can never perform again without the permission of people outside the band.

That’s according to no less an authority than Gene Simmons. The bassist was talking on the Detroit classic rock station WCSX about the band’s future and whether they’d ever reunite.

“Kiss was actually sold - the makeup and the tunes and the publishing and all that - for a…” At that point the bassist garbled his words to suggest an unnamed sum that is a lot of money.

Indeed, Simmons and co sold the Kiss catalogue, brand name, likenesses, the whole kit and caboodle to Pophouse, a Swedish ‘global entertainment and music investment firm’ back in 2024. Pophouse is the group that's developing the Kiss avatar show, which should – if all goes according to plan – be with us in 2027.

“We're involved together in the future,” Simmons said of the Pophouse deal. “So there's gonna be a motion picture, which is being cast now, and there's gonna be - I don't know - cartoon shows, theme park, you name it, it's all coming up. So it's gonna be bigger and better than you've ever heard, including the avatar show.

“But that also means that Kiss can't play live without Pophouse's permission,” he continued, “because they own the makeup and everything.”

That, of course, doesn’t mean that they won’t ever play live again. Indeed, since what was supposed to be their final performance in 2023, Kiss have already reunited for a handful of shows in November last year. These were the Kiss Kruise: Landlocked in Vegas fan club events and featured the band ‘unmasked’ or without makeup. It’s not clear whether Pophouse had to provide their permission for those gigs to go ahead.

Simmons did admit in the interview that he still has a performance itch that he has to scratch. So he’s created the Gene Simmons Band to assuage that desire: “I didn't wanna stay away from the stage,” he explained. “It's the most fun. Being up on that stage and rocking out is the most fun I can imagine with my pants on. And there's a magic that happens there.

"Imagine being a painter, and you paint something, and you're really proud of it, and it just stays in your living room, and nobody sees it. Or if you write a song, and you really like it, you go, 'Whoa, this thing rocks,' but you're the only one who hears it. No, no, no. So I can't stay off the stage," he admitted. "I love it too much."

ZZ Top have got back on the horse in double quick time. Just five days after Frank Beard’s passing last week, they’ve resumed their Big One! tour in Austin.

Earlier this month the band announced that Michael Monahan would take over Beard’s place on drums for the time being. At the time, no further information was given about the reason for Beard’s absence. We know now, of course, that the 77-year-old drummer was entering hospice care, although we still don’t know the specific cause of Beard’s death.

Founder member Billy Gibbons introduced Monahan during Saturday’s gig at Austin City Limits. After the opener, Got Me Under Pressure, the guitarist got straight to the point: "I guess some of you probably know there’s a new man in town.

“In fact, it all started a little while back. [Bassist] Elwood [Francis] and I got an unexpected call from our dear Frank Beard, our dear drummer for 50 years. I've never heard him admit, he said, ‘My bass drum foot’s a little weak. Can you get my man [Monahan] to take over?’

"I said, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, he’s been doing pretty good.’ Frank said, ‘Yeah, that’s what worries me.’ "

Gibbons then shifted his tone a little bit, telling the audience: “We’re all here for a celebration, you know what’s going on. So we’re gonna have a good time.”

It’s not the first time ZZ Top have got back up quickly after a long standing member’s death. In 2021, longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis took over on bass just days after it was announced that Dusty Hill had passed on.

The group are on the road in the US all the way through to October when their The Big One! tour winds up in Port Wentworth, Georgia. Following that they have dates in Mexico and South America in November. It’s not known yet whether Monahan will remain behind the kit for those shows.

The old adage is that if you work hard enough you will – eventually - make it. But a 26 year old singer songwriter is intent on testing that theory to destruction.

Derby-based musician Isaac Neilson is the fellow in question and at the time of writing he’s 235 gigs into a bonkers challenge that will see him play live every day in 2026. And almost bankrupt himself in the process.

In a feature in the Guardian, Neilson explains why on earth he’s doing it. “I was in a position where I could maybe put a deposit on a house or I could do this crazy experiment. I chose to go all in on the music.”

He’s set himself two rules – he has to perform every day and busking doesn’t count. To his credit, he’s kept it up so far. His gig list for 2026 so far includes more than 60 gigs in Derby alone, a support slot with Cast and some deserted rooms during the recent men’s World Cup. “Christmas Day is going to be difficult but I have a plan,” he says.

Part of his objective, it seems, is to see if it’s possible to make it the old-fashioned way, by working hard on the live scene and building up a genuine following. “Virality is overrated,” he says. “People are yearning for community and looking for a connection. Numbers on a screen don’t represent the impact you can make in the world if you actually go out and meet people. My marketing budget is the time I spend in a room with you.”

So far he says he’s had “two major mental breakdowns and six minor ones.” Almost as serious is the sheer cost of the undertaking. Neilson estimates that he had £30,000 in savings at the beginning of the year and will probably end 2026 with about £3,000. It costs around £400 a week to keep going with fuel costs not surprisingly the biggest expense.

His music? The sort of indie-rock that there could be an audience for... somewhere out there. Will he be able to find it by the end of the year? Will he get through to 31 December with his sanity intact? “Regardless of the outcome of this year, I can die knowing I threw everything at it,” he says.

For more details about his upcoming gigs, head over to Neilson’s Instagram.

As Ariana Grande prepares to play the final few dates on her Eternal Sunshine tour, fans still have a few chances left to enjoy her undoubted talent before she takes a step back from public life.

Her current show has received rave reviews, and one of the most talked about moments comes when Grande stands alone on her B-stage and asks the audience for quiet as she begins a performance of the title track of her 2024 album, Eternal Sunshine, by live looping her vocals.

Given the scale of the venues she’s playing, it seems like an audacious move, but as longtime Grande watchers will know, she’s been a fan of looping hardware since the start of her career.

In fact, we have her own YouTube channel to prove it: take this clip from 2007 that features a 14-year-old Grande using what appears to be a Boss RC device of some sort to create a live cover of India Arie’s There’s Hope.

Grande was at it again a few years later, in 2013, when she gave us this live looped version of Imogen Heap’s Just For Now using what looks like a Boss RC-50, another guitarist-centric product.

“I know I'm not supposed to use these foot pedals like this but it works,” she wrote, acknowledging that she was using her hands rather than her feet to press them.

Grande did get a tabletop Boss looper eventually, though – the RC-505 MkII – and used it to great effect in the intro of a live version of 2020 single Positions, which she performed for Vevo in 2021. According to Vevo’s Ed Walker, who was interviewed by Business Insider at the time, Grande told the producers of the video that she hadn’t used a looper for some years, but the RC-505 had seemingly reignited her love affair with its concept.

“She got one in the studio and she just used it and then she was like, ‘Right, we're starting the song with this,’” recalled Walker. “It took her back to being in her bedroom.”

When Grande appeared with what looks like an RC-505 on the Eternal Sunshine tour, then, it was far from a surprise.

At the time of writing, only seven performances remain – all at London’s O2 – after which we may not see the star on stage again for quite some time.

There were embarrassed looks and much apologising backstage at a Matchbox Twenty gig on Sunday night after frontman Rob Thomas accidentally clobbered one of his bandmates.

The incident happened at the Illinois State Fair on Sunday night. Thomas was - as he does - swinging his mic stand around when he let go, and it hit his colleague Paul Doucette in the head. Footage from the concert shows the multi-instrumentalist, who was playing guitar at the time, having to leave the stage to seek assistance.

Needless to say, Thomas was mortified, telling the crowd: “Every night I’m over here, and I’m throwing this Goddamn thing around. It nailed him. It nailed him hard. My best friend in the world, and I think I almost killed him, and I feel really bad about this.”

“By the way, it felt like a really good idea right up until now,” he added, “I feel like an ass.”

After a short interlude, Doucette returned to the stage clutching what looked like a glass of wine, and jokingly said: “I don’t know how many times I’ve told you about swinging that f***ing thing. I knew it was only a matter of time. It’s been 30 years. Now, admittedly I’ve been in the back [meaning on the drums] for the first half of that and maybe I’ve gotta go back there because obviously it’s safer.”

Thomas then promised, “I think I know one thing I’m gonna stop doing.” Footage taken from later on in the gig shows the singer apologising once more to Doucette, saying: “I’m so sorry. I’m gonna keep apologising to you, like, all month.”

Doucette was clearly unhappy at the incident. Later on he posted a video to Instagram that shows him on the band’s tour bus with people examining his ear, using tweezers and the flashlight from a phone.

Doucette can be heard saying: “So here’s what’s happening right now, Rob took me the f*** out with his swinging the f***ing mic stand during that show, and I have bits of my in-ears - which he f***n’ smashed - in my ear,” Doucette said as someone removed a fragment from his ear. “Oh, I f***ing feel that. That is not fun. That is not fun. Please don’t move the bus.”

After the broken in ear piece was removed, Doucette shouted to the camera, “F***in’ Rob!”

We’ve heard about the preparation that new drummer Anika Nilles had to put in ahead of Rush’s 50 Something tour, but what about the other two? Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have both had to get match fit after a decade’s absence from the live stage.

In a fascinating Rolling Stone feature, Lee has been talking about the vocal prep he’s had to put in. The bassist’s high-pitched voice is one of the band’s signature sounds and to access its full range at the age of 72, was a task that took a lot of work, hours of practice and, for the first time in his life, singing lessons.

His tutor was a fellow called Mitch Seekins who’s worked as a vocal coach for over 30 years and was also a Rush fan. Initially Seekins could see Lee was a long way from match fitness. “ It was shocking,” he says of the frontman’s voice before they started working together. “I mean, it was horribly out of shape. The muscles weren’t responding in the top end anymore.”

“I could hear that it was there, he just couldn’t do it yet. He wasn’t sure if he was ever gonna be able to do what he did when he was much younger… But there was no degradation at all, even due to age.”

Part of Seekins task was convincing Lee he could actually get there. “The hardest part of the repair part is the psychological end of the thing. Because it is subconscious, and if you’ve convinced yourself that you can’t do something, well, guess what? You can’t.”

Lee stuck to his task. “ It’s no different than going to the gym and getting strong,” he suggests.  ”You have to get this muscle strong, and that’s what I’ve worked on - and to take a more forensic look at how a voice makes a sound, and apply it.”

Gradually though, his confidence came back and colleagues began to notice. Dave Hislip who has directed the tour’s opening film remembers: “ We were just looking at each other like, ‘Holy crap,' Like, he has turned back time.”

Astonishingly, Lee has managed it and the band have even incorporated songs like the title track to Farewell To Kings, which push both Lee and Lifeson to the limit. ”You kick off the verse, and I have to sing in this fucking stratosphere,” says Lee. “There’s a lot of insecurity that comes with bringing back a song from that long ago… When you’re at this age, people expect you to be a lesser version of yourself, and that’s just not acceptable to me.”

Rod Stewart has had to cancel the remainder of his current US tour after having what has been described as “routine” heart surgery.

The 81-year-old singer has had a coronary stent procedure, in which a small wire tube is inserted into the coronary arteries, which supply blood to the heart, if they have become narrowed or blocked.

The operation is said to have been successful, but on the advice of doctors, Rod is having to take four weeks to recuperate and regain full fitness. This means that dates this week in Des Moines and Kansas City have been shelved, along with a six-date Las Vegas residency.

Writing on Instagram, he said: "I'm already feeling better and very much on the mend. I want to thank the doctors, nurses and everyone who has taken such wonderful care of me.”

"I am deeply disappointed to miss these shows and sorry to let my fans down, but I look forward to getting back on stage and having a good time with you all again soon."

The singer’s US tour hasn’t exactly been a smooth ride. Back in June, he cancelled a show in San Diego, allegedly due to a throat infection. The following day he rather unwisely posted a pic of himself looking cheery and, apparently, in fine fettle on a plane bound for Boston to watch the Scotland v Haiti World Cup game.

Later in that month at a show in West Valley City, Utah, Rod required medical intervention mid-show. Looking out of breath and having to prop himself up, he was seen on some fan footage requiring oxygen between songs and admitted to the audience: “I nearly f***ing fainted there. Would you mind if I sit down for this one?”

All things being equal though, this isn’t the end of the road for ex-Faces singer. He has talked about doing “one more” UK tour in 2027, although no dates have been confirmed as yet and he already has two shows lined up at Red Rocks in Morrison, Colorado in September next year.

Punk rock shows can be raucous. Stage diving, crowd surfing and the like are all par for the course. But being injured by a flying instrument is, thankfully, less common.

However, one guitarist, Yoyoyoshie, who plays with Japanese punkers Otoboke Beaver, has gained quite a reputation for chucking her instrument into the crowd. It seems that her signature move hadn’t ever been a problem. Until the gig when it was.

Back in April, Otoboke Beaver played a show at Osaka’s Umeda Club Quattro, Yoyoyoshie threw her guitar into the crowd, and this time it did injure a punter. In fact, they ended up having to go to hospital and receive seven stitches in their forehead.

Belatedly, Otoboke Beaver have issued a statement apologising for the incident and apologising for taking four months to acknowledge it, a delay which is not really adequately explained. “To the person who was injured in the accident, we accept the incident seriously and deeply apologise,” they begin.

“After the incident, we and the staff were not prompt in cooperating and establishing a post-fact response, resulting in a delay in direct apology and publication. I’ve reflected deeply on the overwhelming burden and heartache I have caused this person due to the inadequate response.”

“We deeply apologise to everyone who came to the venue on the day and all involved for the disruption caused in the venue and the overwhelming inconvenience and concerns.”

“Our members and crew are taking this situation extremely seriously. In future performances, we will try our best to ensure it never happens again,” they promise. “Once again, I sincerely apologise for the overwhelming concern and inconvenience caused. I am very sorry.”

Lesson learned, you’d hope. Flying guitars hurt people and fans ending up in hospital isn’t a good look for any band...

Boy George has clearly decided that his controversial AI-assisted ‘pro-Israel’ song We Will Dance Again is going to be the hill upon which he dies.

In the two weeks since he announced its existence, he’s had to pull out of a stint playing King Herod in a West End production of Jesus Christ Superstar, he’s parted company with his label manager who refused to release it and fallen out with Bandcamp, who also rejected it.

Now, the 65-year-old singer has said that he will fire any bandmates who refuse to play the song live with him.

And by this he seems to be including Culture Club members Roy Hay and Mikey Craig, who have worked with him on and off for over 35 years (drummer Jon Moss left the group in 2018).

Boy George announced this via Instagram, saying: “I’m not lazy. The truth is if I tried to write We Will Dance Again with any musician, they would have got in my way. They would have said: ‘Ooh you can’t say that, that’s too controversial, you can’t say this, you can’t say that’.

"Even now the song is written, there are people in my band who are questioning whether they’ll perform it with me. And those people will be fired.”

He added: “I don’t need gatekeepers, and one of the great things about AI is that it removes all the interference, all the human interference. You see every day on the internet people with opinions.

"First of all, I wrote that song, the lyrics are mine, the melody is mine. It’s a bit like Elton John writing the music and Bernie Taupin writing the lyrics. That’s what I do with Culture Club, that’s what I do with all the people I work with.

"Because I don’t play an instrument that doesn’t make me lazy or make me uncreative. In fact, I think AI has made me more creative.”

The song has been criticised for dismissing the genocide in Gaza, which since 2023 has seen over 75,000 people killed in the tiny Palestinian territory by Israeli military forces. It also appears to take aim at the many artists who have publicly supported the Palestinian cause over that time, with the lyrics ‘You condemn the Jews, with selective memory/ Musicians holding flags, mouthing like sheep/ Propaganda fuelled by the Internet feels so weak’.

Roy Hay and Mikey Craig have yet to make any statement about the song. Culture Club are set to embark on a UK arena tour in December with ABC and Haircut 100. The strapline to the tour is a cheery message that all three bands will be ‘Playing All The Songs You Want To Hear’.

We’ll know by then if any recognisable version of Culture Club is left to play their fondly-remembered hits.

Rare footage of Oasis from around the time of their first single has been made available to watch for the first time.

It dates from a gig at Glasgow’s Tramshed in April 1994, five months before Definitely Maybe came out. The camcorder footage has not been seen widely and was put up for auction last year when fans from the Live4Ever forum cobbled together the cash to buy it.

It’s a bit...shaky, but it’s fascinating stuff. What immediately leaps out is that how unreactive and motionless the audience is. Nobody knows the words. Oasis had only just released Supersonic as a single and both Gallagher brothers come over as nervous and even a little bit callow.

Not surprising really, when you consider that the gig was being broadcast live on BBC Radio One as part of the station’s Sound City event. It was the band’s first big exposure on national radio.

As well as the band’s short set, there is also backstage footage of the group - which at this stage still included Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan and Tony McCarroll - chatting before the gig, drinking beer and preparing to leave afterwards.

Fans can click here to access the footage and if you would like to chip in to cover the costs of acquiring the footage you can click here.

“Thank you so much for this,” one fan wrote on Reddit having watched the video. “Love watching footage from the very early days – pure gold! Liam’s star-shaped tambourine and his white-red jumper (there are many photos of Liam wearing it and even some with Noel in it, so they probably shared it) are both so iconic!”

Today (August 10) marks 30 years to the day since Oasis played the first of their Knebworth gigs. Many were speculating that the occasion would be marked by news of new dates for the band next year, including a return to Knebworth. But nothing has been confirmed. Yet.

It looks like Oasis have some massive outdoor gigs lined up for next year – if you believe what you read in The Sun.

According to the paper's source: “Oasis’ schedule is booked.” Apparently it’s 12 nights at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium in June – home of the Gallaghers’ beloved Manchester City. That will be followed by six nights at Knebworth over a three week period in September. “Dates could be added but for now that’s the master plan,” the source says.

They continued: “Noel and Liam always planned for the tour to have a second run. There were discussions about announcing during the World Cup because of the connection between Wonderwall and The Three Lions in this tournament. But they’ve settled on August."

Assuming the Sun’s source knows what they're talking about, it could be that the details about the dates are revealed next week. It would be appropriate, after all – it will be 30 years to the day that Oasis first played Knebworth this coming Monday.

Those two gigs in August 1996 were, at the time, the biggest in UK history. Oasis played to over 250,000 fans but could have sold the place out 20 times over – more than 2.6 million people applied for tickets in the year when Oasismania reached its peak.

If – and at the moment it very much remains an if – the band confirm those dates then you’d hope that this time they put in place the tech infrastructure to cope with what is certain to be exceptional demand. When the UK dates for their Live 25 tour were announced in August 2024, an estimated 14 million people applied for tickets. To add to this, there was also the controversy over ‘dynamic’ pricing, which saw fans stung for amounts way in excess of the original ticket price they thought they were paying.

Will lessons be learned? We’ll see. Perhaps on Monday.

The allegation that Mötley Crue use backing tapes when playing live has reared its head again with Nikki Sixx now admitting that yes, they do use them, but that they still play their instruments live.

Sixx had made himself available for fans to ask questions via social media when one individual raised their head above the parapet and asked him straight: "Why do y'all use backing tracks?"

The bassist responded with this: “Since we saw Queen using some to help during the song Bohemian Rhapsody live, we understood that we could bring in elements that we could not do live like orchestras, saxophones, etc etc and sync them up with what we are playing and we do play 100% live. And it’s better for the fans and we enjoy being able to do what we did in the studio live. It’s a win win for us.”

Another fan then re-phrased the original question: "Why don't you guys play 100 per cent live," to which Sixx replied: “We do. You were lied to. Sorry."

The debate about whether the band actually play live dates back to 2022 when video footage surfaced that suggested that Crue were at the very least using a backing tape for the drums – it showed Tommy Lee missing the count in as he scrambled to get back behind his kit in time.

Then when Mick Mars sued the band over his firing, Mars alleged that the band hadn’t played their instruments at all on their 2022 tour. The band won that court battle, with expert witnesses confirming that they did actually play live. Mars himself eventually admitted under oath that his claims were false.

But earlier this year guitarist John 5 appeared to admit to the use of backing tracks, whilst also – like Sixx – insisting that the band are playing every note live. On the Thinking About Guitar podcast he said: "Listen, there's backups (backing vocals) that are on track. Of course, there's backups pumped in, there's sirens pumped in, there is intros pumped in, but all the music that we're playing is being performed by us. And I'm up there singing backups and Nikki's singing backups, and we do our best."

That doesn’t suggest that Crue shows are “100 per cent” live. But, you know, a more pertinent question must be: does it matter?

Moby has used the occasion of his headlining set at the On The Beach festival in Brighton to pay tribute to the British rave scene.

The 60-year-old producer knows what he’s talking about, having had first hand experience of what was arguably youth culture’s last great cultural explosion. Between 1990 and 1992, when the scene was at its peak, he was a rare American interloper in what was largely a British creation.

“When I was growing up I was such an Anglophile,” he began. “I was obsessed, probably from the time I was six years old because I was able to watch Monty Python TV on Channel 13. But later on when I discovered the Sex Pistols and Public Image and The Clash. Then I discovered Joy Division and New Order and Echo and The Bunnymen. I just fell in love with music from the UK.”

“This is where house music exploded,” he said, referring to the UK. “This is where techno exploded. And thanks to the originators like Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling and Pete Tong and Carl Cox... I don’t think it’s overstating it, I don’t think it’s hyperbole – you guys invented rave culture.”

Indeed. In the pre-digital age, Britain’s music scene arguably moved faster and was more agile than anywhere else in the world, due to its small geographical size and centralised media.

The producer and DJ shared a personal memory from those years – of playing a Raindance party in 1991. “It was warm, it was beautiful, a field in the middle of somewhere and there were 10,000 people just celebrating.” One tune in particular stood out, he recalled: Everybody’s Free by Rozalla. “It had just come out and everyone threw their hands in the air and it felt like perfection” before dedicating his final song “to the spirit of rave culture.”

Of course Moby moved on from techno and has done a bit of everything during his long career, ranging from out and out punk rock (his Animal Rights album), soundtrack-inspired music (I Like To Score) and ambient (his most recent record, Future Quiet).

His most successful album was the uncategorisable Play, which was built on a foundation of samples from old soul and blues recordings and ended up selling a still-astounding 12 million copies.

It’s 40 years this summer since Queen’s final tour, and to mark the occasion, the band have announced the reissue of Queen Budapest, the film of their show in the Hungarian capital that summer.

The original footage has been restored by Peter Jackson (who’s fast becoming the go-to guy for this sort of project). It’ll be getting a limited cinema and IMAX release on 7 October, before editions on all formats – DVD, Blu-Ray, digital, LP and CD – become available from 30 October.

The show was one of the first by a Western act behind the then-Iron Curtain – though not the first, as Sony’s publicity material is insisting, as good ol’ Cliff Richard toured the Soviet Union in the mid 70s. Nevertheless, it was a big deal at the time. The tour film was shown in Poland, East Germany, China and Czechoslovakia, and after Queen came a deluge of rock stars playing the Communist bloc, including Bowie, Springsteen, Big Country and Billy Joel.

For Queen, though it was the end of the road. Or almost. The original four-piece only played five more gigs, and their final date on the Live Magic tour, at Knebworth in August 1986, would be the last time Freddie Mercury would be seen on stage with them.

Brian May has said of the Budapest show: “For years, fans behind the Iron Curtain had been able to listen to Queen music only on illegal cassettes. It was a forbidden thing to listen to rock bands like us, so to see them play in a live show would have been unthinkable. This concert, when they could finally come and see us live in person and interact with us, was a huge emotional moment for them and also for us. Perhaps the most memorable highlight of all was performing that beautiful Hungarian folk song, which Freddie and I had learned for the occasion. Not a dry eye!”

Roger Taylor adds: “I know Freddie tried to learn this folk song, but he had the words written phonetically on the back of his hand. When the audience just started singing, we realised, wow, music really can be a great cause.”

Fans who want to see it in the cinemas are being encouraged to sign up at the Queen Budapest website to be alerted to all the relevant information as to when pre-sale tickets are available.

“Peter Jackson’s team have done a magnificent job of restoring the original film footage, at the highest resolution ever," says May. "It's pristine and the quality is breathtaking. I think people will get lost in it and even forget they're watching a film.”

Noah Kahan has joked that Congress should introduce laws to enforce diapers at concerts, amid a troubling increase in reports of concert-goers defecating in the crowd.

At a recent show in Washington DC, Kahan pretended to call up Congress with the request, saying "Oh, Congress? Yeah people have been pooping all over the floor at my shows. You heard Congress, fucking put some diapers on next time, y’all.”

The Vermont-born musician later took to X to write: "If you have to poop at a show please dear god just go to the bathroom lmao I’ve pooped my pants as much as the next 29 year old but you guys gotta understand there’s a venue worker out there with a 1000 yard stare after dealing with that (sic)."

This is a growing issue amongst performers. Last month, pop superstar Olivia Rodrigo revealed that she had noticed the intense – and somewhat concerning – commitment of fans to getting the best view possible. "People wear diapers so that they can be front row," she said. "That's been an experience as a performer that I have smelled."

Ultimately, this trend – also highlighted elsewhere by a fan of US country star Morgan Wallen, who was urinated on by another concertgoer – is the result of a growing obsession amongst pop fans for being in the front row for their favourite artist, at all costs.

In the view of The Guardian's Kate Solomon, the pandemic made fans intensely hungry for one-of-a-kind concert experiences, and spots at the barrier have become increasingly coveted. "The cost of VIP pit tickets has rocketed, stan culture has grown ever more feral, and the social media value of scoring clear gig footage is at a premium," she says.

How much clout a fan can get from a show in which they've noticeably soiled or wet themselves is another question entirely. But unfortunately, it seems as though this is a trend that's growing.

Football fans around the world have been reacting to the first ever World Cup Final Halftime show last night, and seem to have given the thumbs down to the Chris Martin-curated extravaganza.

The Coldplay singer put together the 11-minute farrago, which was opened by Madonna singing a mash up of Disco Inferno and her 2000 hit, Music, whilst speeding into the arena on a vehicle driven by Brazilian football legends Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.

That gave way to a ‘performance’ of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army by The Muppets. Then we had BTS running through Dynamite, followed by Shakira and Burna Boy playing a section of their hit Dai Dai.

Then we had Justin Bieber playing a ballad on his acoustic guitar, followed by Coldplay performing a new song with a children’s choir, the lyrics of which instructed us that ‘everything is possible’ if we ‘believe in love’.

One of the BBC TVpundits, ex-England star Wayne Rooney wasn’t impressed. When asked by anchor Gabby Logan what his highlight of the show was, he said: “I’ll be honest, mine was when it finished... I thought it was crap.”

Rooney wasn’t alone.

The actor Tom Holland backed-up the ex Man United man, saying: “Wayne speaking for the nation”. Meanwhile Liam Gallagher tweeted: “This is like a bad trip.”

Liam was quite restrained compared to the Norwegian commentator Aleksander Schau, who remarked that he would “rather watch my dad wipe his ass than this.”

Justin Bieber was picked out for special criticism for his choice of the ballad Everything Hallelujah. “Why would Justin Bieber do that sleepy ass song for the World Cup?” asked one fan, with another suggesting: “Justin Bieber picking the 86th most famous song in his catalogue with a negative tempo for the halftime show was… a choice.”

Another fan posted on X/ Twitter simply: “Are we all miserable or do Americans think this shit is stupid too?”

Yesterday’s show was the first for a World Cup final and saw the half time extended to a full half an hour for the first time. It appears to have been the idea of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who ahead of the Final described it as a “groundbreaking spectacle” that will “celebrate football, music and our shared values, ensuring a legacy that transcends the final whistle.” Infantino looks to have secured the FIFA presidency for the fourth term so the bad news for Rooney, Gallagher and others is that it’s a ‘spectacle’ that looks likely to be repeated in 2030.

Oh and unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since yesterday, Spain beat Argentina 1-0 after extra time.

The Cure are keeping it in the family. The band have announced that whilst long-serving bassist Simon Gallup is ill, his son Eden will be temporarily taking his place in the band.

Robert Smith and co are currently on tour in Europe and played the first of a three-night run in Berlin last Friday (July 10). However, fans noticed that Gallup was absent, even before Smith dedicated Lullaby to him. After the show, Smith posted on Instagram - all in caps for some reason - about the bassist’s illness.

“Shortly before the first of our three Berlin Wuhlheide concerts yesterday, Simon was taken ill,” Smith wrote. “His son Eden shifted sideways to save the show.

"Unfortunately, Simon is still not well enough to play, so Eden will be filling the bass breach again tonight. Hope you will join us in wishing Simon the speediest of recoveries. And Eden – thanks.”

The nature of Gallup’s illness has not been revealed. The 66-year-old bassist, though, is almost as near to a permanent fixture in The Cure as Smith himself. He first joined the band in 1979 and aside from an eighteen-month period between 1982 and 1984 when he fell out with the frontman has been with them ever since. He’s played on every Cure album since 1985’s The Head On The Door.

Anyway, the band’s tour of Europe’s festivals continues until August 30 when they play Rock En Seine in Paris. Then at some point the band will doubtless release the follow-up to 2024’s Songs Of A Lost World, which Robert Smith confirmed last month is “done”.

Justin Bieber will co-headline the first-ever World Cup halftime show at the tournament final on Sunday, 19 July.

He'll join other huge global names like Madonna, Shakira, BTS, and Burna Boy in an 11-minute performance during the halftime break of the world's biggest sporting event.

Bieber said: “The FIFA World Cup brings the world together in a way nothing else can. I’m grateful to be part of this halftime show, and even more grateful knowing it’s already helping expand access to education for children around the world." (Music News)

His last comment refers to the fact that the show, curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin, will support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which is raising $100 million to help children access education and soccer.

FIFA's decision to introduce a halftime show to the World Cup final for the first time ever - taking inspiration from the lavish, highly monetised interval performances seen in US sporting showpieces like the Super Bowl - has been roundly criticised by global football fans.

In response to FIFA's X post unveiling Bieber on the lineup, user Sportzz1 said: "The game is gone smh... this should be a one-off please, this is not the superball."

Meanwhile, @ehvsinner commented: "You should bother about football and not destroy it. We don't care about that show, because football is the show. The 15 minutes break is for pissing and grabbing a beer."

Fan concerns are unlikely to bother Bieber and co., whose performances at the New York New Jersey Stadium will be broadcast globally to hundreds of millions of viewers. Regardless of how the interval plays out, the backlash from supporters suggests that FIFA will be under real pressure to scrap its World Cup halftime show ahead of the next tournament.

50 years on from its release, the Ramones' self-titled debut album will be commemorated with a special Los Angeles show featuring a host of rock music legends, including Billie Joe Armstrong and former band member CJ Ramone.

Taking place on August 30th, 2026, at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, The Official Ramones Anniversary Tribute will see Cretin Family — a supergroup featuring Tim Armstrong (Rancid), Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day), Travis Barker (Blink-182) and CJ Ramone (Ramones), plus special guests — perform a set of Ramones tracks live.

The concert will be accompanied by a DJ set from artist-activist Shepard Fairey and multiple screenings, including a showcase of John Travolta's new film Propeller One-Way Night Coach (Travolta is also scheduled to host the event).

"From the moment I first heard the Ramones, music was never the same," said Tim Armstrong. "They are my favourite band of all time! I can't wait to play those great and perfect Ramones songs with my friends CJ, Travis and Billie."

Billie Joe Armstrong added: "The spirit of the Ramones is alive in every backyard punk show, punk club and festival.

"Generation after generation of cretins and weirdos become Ramones lovers. Kids are influenced by the Ramones and they don't even know it yet."

The iconic punk band formed in New York in 1974 and helped establish punk music in the United States, creating a fuzzy, energetic sound that provided huge inspiration to British groups like The Clash and Sex Pistols.

While they went on to release 14 studio albums and toured constantly before disbanding in 1996, the Ramones' debut is still widely considered their greatest achievement.

The record was recently ranked Number One in Rolling Stone's list of the Greatest Punk Albums of All Time, a testament to its enduring legacy.

Ahead of August's show, a limited edition, first-time picture disc pressing of Ramones will be released (July 17th). Half a century on from their seminal eponymous album, they continue to have a huge influence on global music culture.

"The Ramones are the blueprint," said Travis Barker. "Punk rock wouldn't be what it is today without them."

This week sees the release of Confessions II, Madonna’s new album and a spiritual sequel to Confessions on a Dance Floor, the 2005 long-player that she made with producer Stuart Price.

Price is back this time, too, and has been talking to The Times about his working relationship with Madonna, which began when he ended up joining her touring band in 2001 as keyboard player and musical director on the Drowned tour

This might not have happened, though; Price says that he was initially intimidated by the “incredible musicians with an array of gear” that he encountered when all he had was a monosynth that “only makes one sound at a time”.

In fact, such was the level of Price’s imposter syndrome that he raised doubts about his suitability for the role.

“I’m from dance music – there’s nothing wrong with staying on one note for six minutes as long as it’s a really good note,” he argues. “So I said to her: ‘I don’t think I’m the right person to do this.’

Rather than accept that he was a bad fit, though, Madonna supported Price’s musical vision. “She reconfigured the whole setup on the basis of that comment. Instead of going back to my parents’ house in Reading, I ended up staying and she made me musical director of the Drowned world tour. So our relationship is ultimately based on honesty.”

It sounds like this high level of trust helps when the pair are in the studio together, too. “You always tackle a problem with a solution,” is Price’s diplomatic answer when asked if he and Madonna ever disagree. “When you have faith in your writing partner, the whole thing becomes pleasant.”

So pleasant, in fact, that Price describes their sessions “like being in a school band,” with both parties feeling able to be themselves. “Madonna will say, ‘I think I have something,’ and what comes out is not calculated, it’s just unquestionably her.”

The biggest hit from the original Confessions on a Dance Floor, of course, was the ABBA-sampling Hung Up, and Price previously spoke about the origins of that record to Music Week.

“Madonna was doing a movie at the time with Luc Besson, that didn’t materialise, which was going to feature music from different generations – a punk rock era, a ’20s era, and a disco era. So she asked, “Do you have anything that is like ABBA at Studio 54?” Originally, I said no.

“However, six months beforehand, I had a DJing residency at a club in Liverpool called The Masque, at the Chibuku Shake Shake night. One night, I was coming back from Chibuku, it was 5am on the M1, I was falling asleep – I wasn’t driving! – and Radio 2 was on. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! started playing, and in that dream state I thought, ‘Wow, that would be a really good sample for a song.’

“So just before I went up to play Chibuku again, I quickly hacked the sample into a track that I could play in my DJ set. It was immediate – the whole room felt pretty special. I played it for the next couple of months, but like most DJs, I wore out my records and moved on. So when Madonna mentioned ABBA, I suddenly went, ‘Well, there is one thing…’

“I played her the track, she listened intently, then she just opened her mouth and sang: ‘Every little thing that you say or do, I’m hung up, I’m hung up on you…’ It really happened that quickly. We were in the studio, which was in the attic of my flat in Maida Vale, so I recorded her. Subsequently, the production took some work, but the whole thing about making Confessions On A Dance Floor was that it was such fun. Hung Up really set the tone for that album. In her brilliantly instinctive way, Madonna just pivoted, and instead of doing the movie with loads of sections, she went, ‘We’re going to make a dance record!’”

Confessions II is released on Friday, 3 July.

The B-52s have hit out at a French promoter who cancelled their festival set with just minutes to go, despite allegedly knowing a violent storm was on its way.

The veteran pop band were due to appear at the C Trop festival but just minutes before they were set to step onstage, the entire final day of the event was cancelled.

“It is with great regret that we are forced to cancel the final day of the 2026 edition of the festival, scheduled for Sunday, June 28, due to a tornado that occurred late last night and destroyed all public reception facilities,” the organisers announced on Facebook, citing “the exceptional weather conditions and their consequences on the site”.

However, the B-52s were far from happy. Posting on Facebook, the band’s singer Fred Schneider described the situation as a “total disaster”.

“The promoter knew the dangerous storm that was brewing and on its way to The C Trop Music Festival,” he wrote. “First, there was lightning, but the promoter still had the crew set up the stage and told the band to get ready to perform.”

Schneider praised his tour manager who advised the band to wait 10 minutes. A wise move, it turned out. “Then it was like a world wind hurricane force and heavy rain. Most of our crew was caught and had to duck under where they could for shelter. The festival was evacuated. We could not even leave because it was too dangerous to drive. The power went out several times backstage.”

“We felt terrible for the fans that have waited in the heat all day for us to perform,” he continued. “And then get very little warning to no warning from the promoter that it wasn’t safe to stay out and make our way to the stage, there was lightning striking the band before our set.”

“We could’ve been stuck on stage if we didn’t hold for those 10 minutes. Our sound man Frank feared for his life. It was that dangerous. We were worried about the crew the entire time.”

“Scaffolding even fell from the stage and destroyed our equipment. Keyboards, mic stands, laptops, sound equipment. All destroyed.”

The promoter has yet to respond to the band’s post.

France, like most of Western Europe, had been suffering extreme temperatures of over 40 degrees. Often heatwaves are brought to a conclusion by violent thunderstorms and. going forward, preparation for these sorts of occurrences should really be among the contingency plans for festival promoters across Europe...

For festival goers, the Glastonbury-shaped hole in this year’s calendar might not be such a bad thing.

A UK heatwave means that temperatures down on Worthy Farm would have been pretty unbearable, and the good news is that, rather than getting sunburnt, you can relive Glastonburys past from your own home or – better still – an air-conditioned cinema.

In the latter case, that’s because Glastonbury The Movie: 30th Anniversary Cut is hitting the big screen in selected UK cinemas today. Originally released in 1996, this documents the 1993 version of the festival, which came in the days when there was no wall-to-wall BBC TV coverage and the only decent footage came from the young filmmakers who rocked up with their Panavision CinemaScope cameras.

This 30th anniversary cut has been rebuilt in 4K from the original 35mm footage and features new scenes and a 5.1 Dolby Audio mix. It showcases a ‘90s time capsule of bands – The Verve, Spiritualized, The Orb and Lemonheads, for example – and gives those who have only experienced ‘modern’ Glastonbury a taste of what it was like back in the day.

“Appetite for the 90s is at a cultural high,” says the press blurb, correctly. “The ones who were there want to go back. The ones who weren't want to understand what the fuss was about.”

That said, if you don’t want to see what all the fuss was about and your tastes are rather more current, the BBC iPlayer is your friend; for a limited time, a whole load of more recent Glastonbury content has been placed there for your entertainment.

You can watch headline sets from the likes of Coldplay (2024), Olivia Rodrigo (2025) and Billie Eilish (2022), or go back to the ‘90s again and peer at Radiohead’s Pyramid Stage performance from 1997.

Either way, you should hopefully have easy access to a clean toilet and cool refreshments, which sounds like a massive bonus from where we’re sitting.

Spare a thought for the more, shall we say, experienced members of the rock community as temperatures soar this summer. Rod Stewart, who turned 81 earlier this year, had to use an oxygen tank to get through a gig in Utah last week.

The show was at the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheater in West Valley City last Friday and in social media clips from the gig, Stewart can be visibly struggling during Young Turks. He can be seen propping himself up against his keyboard player and then against a microphone stand. At other times he leans over, as if he is short of breath. To his credit, he doesn’t miss a note.

Before the end of the number, Stewart can be seen beckoning a stagehand who brings on an oxygen tank. Rod takes a few gulps and steadies himself, before addressing the crowd: “The show must go on. I nearly f***in’ fainted up there, I’m telling you. Trying to do a little step and a dance, I nearly f***in’ fainted,” he rambled, before asking the crowd: “Would you mind if I sat down for this one?”

It should be said that West Valley City is around 4,300 feet above sea level, which could account for Stewart’s breathlessness. Heat and altitude – as a football fan, Rod will undoubtedly know how difficult it is to acclimatise to those sort of conditions.

Talking of which, the singer has come in for a fair bit of criticism from fans for cancelling a show in California due to ill health last week before turning up in Boston to see the Scotland v Haiti match the following day. To make matters worse, Stewart even posted a sprightly-looking pic of himself and his sons on a plane, to social media, captioned by: “Me and the boys off to Boston to see our Scotland in the World Cup! No Scotland no party.”

One fan posted: “This feels rather disingenuous, especially after your cancellation last night. Too ill to perform but okay to fly across the country for soccer?”

Meanwhile another wrote: “I understand that shows sometimes have to be canceled, and if there was a legitimate reason, most fans would have accepted it. What's hard to accept is seeing you apparently celebrating on a plane with friends less than 24 hours after thousands of people were sent home disappointed in San Diego.”

Well, yes. We all know Rod loves his football and Scotland haven’t qualified for the World Cup for 28 years, but surely his booking agent could have rearranged his schedule accordingly, instead of leaving it all to the last minute and pissing off fans…?

StubHub has been ordered to refund more than 50,000 of its customers after they were shown to be underhand regarding hidden fees.

It comes after an investigation by the Competition And Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK which found that the ticketing platform was guilty of ‘drip pricing ’, where consumers are told about fees and charges on top of the initial price. The practice was banned in the UK last year.

The CMA found that between April and December last year many customers buying tickets for gigs and sports events via StubHub were required to pay mandatory costs such as delivery and service fees – ie unavoidable costs, but, crucially, only added at the final checkout stage.

In a statement, Emma Cochrane, Executive Director of Consumer Protection at the CMA said: "Hitting customers with hidden fees is illegal. It's not fair to draw people in with what looks like a good deal, only for them to find the real price is higher when they get to the checkout due to extra charges that can't be avoided.”

StubHub has also been fined, but because they admitted breaking the law, they have received a 40% reduction to their penalty, meaning that they will have to cough up just £900,000. Their customers are liable to receive, on average, a £10 refund – enough for a pint and a packet of crisps, then.

The platform has said it has taken steps to end the conduct, and said in a statement: "Our UK platform is designed to display all fees upfront," adding it had "identified and corrected the issue promptly, and all affected customers will receive an automatic refund".

The CMA have a number of organisations in their sight regarding the practice of drip pricing, including BSM Driving School, Appliances Direct and one of StubHub’s rivals: Viagogo. The CMA has said that its investigation into Viagogo over its fees was ongoing and that an update was due “later this summer”.

Meanwhile, Cochrane added that: "Going to a live gig or sports game is an event many people save for – and our action today means thousands of fans will get back money taken unfairly through hidden fees”.

"Our message to businesses is simple: be transparent on costs or risk CMA action."

It’s clearly going to be Harry Styles’ summer. In addition to that record-breaking run of shows at Wembley he’s playing, he’s also currently revelling in the role of taste-maker, by curating this year’s Meltdown Festival.

Meltdown is an annual event at the Southbank Centre in London where over a week a ‘culturally-significant’ artist puts together a programme to reflect their personality. Being asked to curate it is some honour, one bestowed previously on the likes of David Bowie, Patti Smith, Scott Walker and Nick Cave. Cultural heavyweights, in other words.

Anyway, we’re nearly a week into Styles' Meltdown and last night saw the singer team up with the Jules Buckley Orchestra and the Gospel House Choir for a special gig that saw Styles re-interpret his solo back catalogue. Styles himself played the piano and guitar.

“I’ve always been a lover of orchestral music, classical music, and it’s quite an intimidating field to step into as someone who doesn’t - cannot - read music,” Styles told the crowd. "I met Jules and we worked together and I’ve never felt so welcomed into the space. He never made me feel like I didn’t belong there in any way, and it’s been beautiful collaborating with him.”

The setlist drew upon all four of his solo albums, including the recently released Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. And the singer rounded the thirteen-song set with a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters. You suspect more than a few tears were shed...

The festival still has another five days to run, and among the diverse attractions to come are ‘For Vini: A Tribute To The Durutti Column’ which celebrates groundbreaking guitarist Vini Reilly, there’s ‘the father of Ethio-jazz’ Mulatu Astatke and the composer Beverley Glen Copeland. As well as those there’s also Dev Hynes (of Blood Orange fame), a DJ set from LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Belgian shapeshifters Soulwax.

Tickets for all those will be limited, but there are a number of free events too as part of Meltdown – for further information head over to the website at southbankcentre.co.uk

And Styles himself? Well, he’s clearly multitasking at the moment. He’s already played two shows of that run of twelve at Wembley Stadium. The third is tonight.

We’re only a week into Rush’s Fifty Something reunion tour and already the superlatives are stacking up. Fans and contemporaries have hailed the comeback – and Anika Nilles’ performance in place of the late Neil Peart - as a triumph.

Now the band have reacted to the outpouring of affection the shows have produced and put a statement on social media. “Thank you for making this week so effin’ amazing!” the band wrote in their message. “For embracing Anika, Loren so profoundly. Aimee Mann for joining us on Time Stand Still in tribute to Neil. To you, our fans, your steadfast support is what has made this a reality. Forever grateful!”

The reviews of the first few shows of the tour have been rapturous. Mojo have called it “an epic comeback”, whilst Rolling Stone described as “one of the most emotional Rush concerts ever” and praising the performances of all three members of the trio.

Anika Nilles, of course, was under the most scrutiny, and by all accounts did a superlative job behind the kit. Writing on Instagram last week, prog drumming legend Mike Portnoy was unstinting in his praise: “Anika absolutely KILLED IT in the best way imaginable... She really is the perfect choice for this!”

What the Oasis tour was last year to the Britpop crowd, Rush’s reunion is to the prog community. They’re touring through to April next year, but if you’re still wavering about getting a ticket you’re advised to move fast.

Rick Beato has sat down with Anika Nilles and found out a bit more about her preparation in the run-up to her big gig last weekend – the opening night of Rush’s Fifty Something reunion tour.

The first show in LA on Sunday was a triumph for Rush – and Nilles personally – with fans and contemporaries of the band such as Mike Portnoy queuing up to praise her performance.

Nilles started off by talking about the new Bubinga kit she’s using for the tour. “A Maple kit is more of an all-round kit so you have all the frequencies there which is really in balance, but with the Bubinga you have that bottom end, it’s more phat and depending on the tuning you can still really have that super punchy tone. It’s what I played on the Jeff Beck tour.

"For huge stages and big venues, the Bubinga works really good. It’s not my go-to choice when I play in smaller venues, because it’s too boomy. But for this kind of stage, it’s the perfect wood.”

Asked how she learned Rush’s extensive back catalogue, she admitted: “I have no idea. Sometimes I was sitting there and thought, 'I have no idea how I'm learning that,' but somehow it's working because I learned those songs in a completely different way. My preparation was so different to how I prepare myself usually.“

"Usually I just listen, then I make a quick chart for myself to have it visually in front of my eyes and then I just listen, read and play. And I figured with this, it doesn't work right. So sometimes you cannot really write it out because a lot of it is also kind of a feeling."

Writing it out would have just taken too much time, she said. “And I thought, I don't have that time. I just have to listen, make chunks for myself and just learn it step by step and then this is how I did it. But just memorizing all the parts is one thing and then learning the feeling is a different thing.”

Nilles got the gig via Geddy Lee’s bass tech John ‘Skully’ McIntosh, who also worked with Jeff Beck. Once she signed up to joining the band it was a matter of deep research. “I was diving directly into the Rush rabbit hole and just listened to everything I could catch – music, videos, live shows – everything you could find online, just to get to know the songs a bit better, because I just knew a bunch.”

She explained that in a way they were learning or re-learning together. After all, Lee and Lifeson hadn’t played as Rush for over a decade. “We all kind of started a little bit together from scratch,” she said. “I mean, they didn't really start from scratch, but as a trio, we had to find a way to come together.

"And it's one thing when you come into a band and everyone knows everything and it's just like playing, it’s smooth because they're doing it every day onstage and you're the newbie (who) has to adjust and learn all this. It didn't feel like that. So (that) definitely took the pressure a little bit off my shoulders.”

It’s remembered as one of the greatest electronic music performances in history – and the one that 'broke' EDM in the US – but Daft Punk’s legendary 2006 set at Coachella was no walk in the park for its protagonists.

This marked the debut of the band’s now iconic LED pyramid stage, which the duo the duo – Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo – went on to use on their Alive tour.

The only problem, Bangalter now tells The Times, is that the performance took place in the intense heat of the desert, which meant that performing in their trademark robot helmets and leather jackets was uncomfortable, to say the least. So, knowing that conditions were going to be difficult, Bangalter came up with an unconventional way of preparing when they had their final rehearsal.

“I said to Guy-Man, ‘Let’s wear ski jackets – if we get through that anything will be easy,’” he remembers. “And that’s what we did – it was the worst ever.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bangalter reflects on Daft Punk’s legacy, and says that there was never any grand plan.

“We accidentally worked on these structures that ended up becoming retro-futuristic electronic pop music,” he confirms.

Bangalter also touches on how he feels now that Daft Punk are over – “I was one of the robots, but now I’m just a human without any superpowers" – and says that he made a conscious effort to move away from electronic music after he and Homem-Christo called time on the band in 2021.

“After Daft Punk, I almost took the resolution of saying, ‘I don’t want to program things.’ It’s a very tedious [means of] construction,” he says.

Sure enough, Bangalter’s first post-Daft Punk project was a 90-minute orchestral score for a new ballet, Mythologies, but he did return to the DJ booth alongside Fred Again in 2025, their set featured plenty of his former band’s songs.

Bangalter is quick to shut down any talk of a reunion, though. “Most of the Daft Punk songs were played by Fred,” he points out, before suggesting that he wouldn’t want to risk damaging the band’s legacy by going back to it.

“I’m really happy that throughout our long run we were able to not screw it up,” says Bangalter. “There are other things to explore.”

Mike Portnoy has given an unequivocal thumbs-up to Anika Nilles after the first show of Rush’s Fifty Something tour on Sunday night.

Nilles, of course, is stepping into some big, big shoes – Neil Peart’s no less. But the opening gig of the prog legends’ reunion tour at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum went without a hitch, and fellow drummer Portnoy was fulsome in his praise of her.

Writing on Instagram, Portnoy said: "What can I say that hasn't been written already by everybody online today…? It was magical! The setlist was absolutely PERFECT!! (and to think they still have around three other variations up their sleeves to come…) Anika absolutely KILLED IT in the best way imaginable. I was so happy for her…nailing all of the big Neil moments with a giant smile on her face the whole time! She really is the perfect choice for this!”

“The tributes to Neil throughout the show were so tasteful and emotional. (Yes I'll admit I cried at a few points) The production was absolutely INSANE... And most importantly of all, I am so happy for Geddy and Alex to be able to do this again! Seeing this tour come to life, it very obvious this needed to happen. As not only a proper tribute to Neil, but most importantly to honour the legacy of this band. Geddy and Alex deserve it. And the fans deserve it as well…"

Like countless other Rush fans around the globe, Portnoy caught the show via Youtube. "I'm still trying to figure out which show I will be able to attend (likely NYC or Philly),” he continued. “But I will be counting the days until I can witness this in person and soak up every single moment… Welcome back Rush!”

There had been rumours that the Dream Theater man might be the one to replace the late Peart, but in an interview with the Brazilian podcaster Regis Tadeu, Portnoy said that he had never been approached. “I'd be lying if I denied that, of course, playing with those guys would be a dream come true. Of course. And I love and respect not only Rush's music, but Neil Peart as a person and as a drummer.”

“But in a way I'm kind of relieved they didn't ask me, because that's a very tough role to walk into. I think for Anika, she's gonna have a lot of people making inevitable comparisons. There's no way around it. So that's gonna be a very tough gig to have.”

Tough gig or not, Nilles appears to have passed her biggest test with flying colours.

Olivia Rodrigo is officially in her Robert Smith era. First, she namechecked one of his songs, Just Like Heaven, in her comeback single, Drop Dead, and then its follow-up turned out to be called The Cure (although she later clarified that this has "nothing to do with the band, The Cure")

Now, ahead of the release of her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love, she’s not only confirmed that it contains a duet with Smith, What's Wrong With Me, but also debuted it during her surprise set at this weekend’s Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona.

Introducing the song, Rodrigo noted that this is the first time she’s had a featured artist on any of her studio albums, and that she’s over the moon to have Smith involved. “I just can’t believe that this song exists with the person that it exists with,” she said.

The star then sang the first verse and chorus of What's Wrong With Me – a sweet but anguished tale of longing, by the sounds of it – before introducing Smith so that he could sing his verse. The pair then harmonised on more choruses and a bridge.

Writing on Instagram after the performance, Rodrigo said: “I am still in disbelief that Robert who is in my eyes one of the most brilliant, legendary, wonderful people to ever exist is on this record with me. I had the most memorable evening singing it with him at primavera tonight and I cannot wait for this song and record to be yours.”

While Smith’s involvement on You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love had not previously been confirmed, it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. After joining Rodrigo on stage at Glastonbury last year to sing two Cure songs with her, he later said that they’d stayed in touch and “enjoyed a couple of memorable nights in the studio together.”

“I bought Sour, and then Guts (both on CD!),” Smith told British Vogue. “Although most of the songs on those two albums are not really ‘aimed at my demographic’(!), they are all so good that it is hard not to fall in love with them.”

Rodrigo’s Primavera set also gave her the opportunity to give a live audience debut to The Cure, though she did previously record a version of it for BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge.

Having heard two singles – Drop Dead and The Cure – we already know what a portion of Olivia Rodrigo’s third album is going to sound like, but she may just have given us another hint of where her musical head is right with the revelation that her current listening is focused on just one band and album.

“Weezer is like my favourite band at the moment,” she reveals in an interview with Dazed. “I’m super into Pinkerton – it’s the only album I listen to these days.”

Though now regarded as one of Weezer's finest hours, the band’s frontman, Rivers Cuomo, recalled in a 2010 interview that the critical reaction to Pinkerton, the band’s second album, was anything but pretty. A rougher, more ragged record than their eponymous debut, it was self-produced by the band and designed to better reflect what they sounded like on stage.

"We put out Pinkerton, and it seemed like what I was hearing at that point was, 'What happened to our fun band?’” reflected Cuomo. “‘They're catchy and poppy and fun and energetic, and now they're...bizarre, grotesque, obscene, noisy...' And at the same time, it was such a personal record for me. I felt like I was saying, 'OK, world! Here's the truth. Here's what I'm really like.'

"I guess part of me assumed that it was going to be very successful, and I'd become like this superstar, because the record was so focused on me. And it came out and sold a tenth of the Blue Album...That was just crushing for me - all of that together - and it took a while to build up the confidence to even step back in the spotlight again."

Critics and fans have now reappraised Pinkerton, to the extent that it’s now considered a ‘90s classic. Rodrigo wasn’t even born when it came out, in 1996, but that hasn’t stopped her forming a deep relationship with both band and album. In fact, she invited members of Weezer to perform with her during a festival show in 2025.

“I was so lucky to get to perform with them at Lollapalooza last year,” she says now. “It was so, so special and those songs are just so well made and brilliant. I just love them and they inspire me to be weirder and more myself.”

Speaking of festivals, Rodrigo also reflected again on her performance at Glastonbury last year. “I think it truly was the best weekend I’ve ever had in my 23 years,” she says. “All the people that I love, my whole family and all my friends, came over.”

Much as she enjoyed it, though, the fact that she got to perform with another of her musical inspirations meant that one particular member of her family may have cherished the experience even more.

“I got to sing two songs with Robert Smith from The Cure, who is one of my heroes,” she says. “I think it was the happiest that I’ve ever seen my dad, too. His screensaver is still a picture of him and Robert Smith.”

With the release of her new album just a week away (it comes out on 12 June), Rodrigo also discussed her own music-making, and one instrument that‘s of particular importance to her.

“Piano is the first instrument that I learned how to play – I was, like, nine when I started,” she says. “I’m no maestro by any means, but it’s so much fun for me to play and I love writing songs on piano. I wrote a few of the songs on You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love on piano, and one of them is my favourite song on the record I think – it always changes.

“But good old faithful piano – always there for me when I need it.”

Barry Manilow says that he’s unsure that his voice will ever return to what it was after undergoing surgery for lung cancer.

The 82-year-old MOR star has been battling cancer for some time and last December had to have a tumour removed from his lung, forcing him to cancel a number of shows as well as his Las Vegas residency.

Now in a new interview with Good Morning America, the singer admitted: “My voice, I don’t know whether it’s coming back.”

“I did my first sound check about a month ago, and I didn’t sound like me at all. I just couldn’t believe that it’s over.” He added that the discovery is “really upsetting because I don’t want to stop.”

“I looked at my band, and they were all looking at the floor,” he continued. “So that was the first hint that something was not right. I’ve always taken my voice for granted. I don’t take it seriously. Now I do, because it doesn’t seem to be there the way it always was.”

Hmmm. He had better locate it soon, for the sake of his UK fans, at the very least – Manilow starts a short British tour next week in Glasgow, what are being billed as ‘The Last Last Concerts’.

Except that they really aren’t. At the end of this month, he starts a two-month US tour, followed by the rest of that Las Vegas residency.

Other than the little matter of not being able to sing, the singer/songwriter behind such standards as Could It Be Magic and Mandy told the TV show that: “I’m doing good. It took longer than I thought it was going to take to get past this lung cancer.”

He admitted that when he was first diagnosed, he “paid no attention to it. It was just too heavy for me.” Doctors suggested that he have the surgery rather than go through chemotherapy, but then he had a setback when he contracted pneumonia. “I was in the ICU for seven days, because they couldn’t grasp this pneumonia that was just about killing me.”

But he insists he’s right as rain now, aside from the little matter of his pipes: “I’m in great shape, I’m ready to go. I just hope my voice is there. If I sound good, that would be just great!”

In the tinder box that is the United States in mid-2026, it seems the smallest of gestures can start a fire. And so it is that the Black Crowes – not a group who have ever really been known as political firebrands – have found themselves caught up in a controversy that ended with them getting booed at a gig on Sunday night in Tampa.

The band were playing a date on their Southern Hospitality tour when a visual on the big screens showed the band’s Black Crowe character dressed as Uncle Sam. At this, a section of the crowd started chanting ‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’

Frontman Chris Robinson responded to the crowd, saying: “Thanks for the geography lesson.” When they continued, the singer added: "I don't know what you have to be so proud of right now."

This, it quickly became clear, was a red rag to a bull and booing ensued, with many in the crowd choosing to leave the gig altogether.

This prompted Robinson to address the crowd, saying: “Some of us have real faith. AND for those of you f***ing booing us, some of us are not afraid and most assuredly are not f***ing ignorant.”

In a career that dates back almost 40 years, the Crowes have rarely addressed political issues in their music. Indeed in a Mojo interview from early this year, Chris Robinson said: "I'm not interested in politics.”

However, he did add: "(But) I know what’s right and wrong – and this sh*t going on right now is wrong. Look man, I’m almost 60, alright? I don’t tell anyone what to do, because I don’t like to be told what to do. But I know right and wrong. The world’s teetering on the edge with all this bulls**t, but if there’s a street fighting man out there, he’s got to be a young man, right? But these kids don’t seem to give a f***"

Anyway, the band have another 12 dates on their US tour to go, including a show tonight in St Augustine, Florida. It will be interesting if they receive a similar reaction...

They might be musically adventurous, but Radiohead have tended to favour wired instrument and mic setups over wireless solutions when they’re performing on stage.

That changed in 2025, though, when the band reunited and performed a run of European live shows. This time, they made use of the Sound Devices Astral Wireless technology, and Radiohead’s FOH mixer Simon Hodge has now been explaining what convinced them that it was time to make the switch.

“The technology always needed to catch up in a sonic sense,” he says. “The band doesn’t tend to change how they operate for the sake of changing; they only are interested in upgrades that will serve their musical goals.

“Although the band have used RF systems for guitars in the past, the opinion was always that it never sounded as good as a cable and would not be adopted,” he continues. “When we became aware of Sound Devices Astral, we realised that the team had gone to some effort to make sure it truly did sound like a jack and cable input with customizable capacitance and impedance. I remember thinking ‘We might finally have something interesting here.’”

The change wasn’t made without careful consideration, though. “After listening to it myself, we brought it into Jonny [Greenwood]’s studio and did some blind tests between Astral and their preferred cables,” Hodge says. “We all listened and even the most cynical guitar techs were impressed! The quality of the audio path was obvious, and it wasn’t changing the sound at all.”

In the end, Radiohead ended up using three Sound Devices Astral ARX32 Wireless Receivers, 42 Astral TX Digital Wireless Bodypack Transmitters, and six Astral HH Wireless Handheld Microphones for their stage show. There was also the Astral Guitar Cable, which appealed to the band because of its selectable input impedance and cable capacitance, which enabled them to match their cabled setups.

The wireless gear also helped with when band members switched guitars during the set. Together with Radiohead’s RF Tech Matt Hayes, Hodge designed a custom solution which fed the Astral ARX32 inputs into a Prodigy Audio Processor via Dante and, used custom Streamdeck controllers to provide easy accessibility to both the band and their respective guitar techs.

“The band travels with dozens of guitars, Ed O’Brien himself had 32 on this run,” Hodge reports. “This was the first time we could have all 32 at once accessible and easily switchable in the same interface, a choice that either the musician or tech can make as needed.

“The need for quick, seamless changes in a live show is incredibly important and often more challenging when done in an ‘in the round’ setup as we had,” he continues. “The ease of use in the Astral UI allowed us to manipulate the signal flow seamlessly, which worked really well for the logistics of the show and allowed us total control with no compromises.”

It sounds like the Astral Wireless gear is here to stay, then, having stood up to the challenges of live performance without detracting from the overall spectacle.

“The band is very invested in the experience being as real as possible without any ‘fixes’ or gimmicks,” says Hodge (there are no backing tracks or Auto-Tune in play). “There’s a lot of pressure for these shows to be amazing given the following that the band have. This is countered by the fact that the band are extremely reasonable people who are very invested in their output and their fans, so they enjoy the challenge to get the best results, rather than deferring to ‘easier’ solutions.”

Summarising what makes the Sound Devices kit different, Hodge says: “It was an excellent experience for both the band and the fans because the setup allowed it to be intimate while still giving us excellent control of all the sonic and visual details that are so important,” he says. “We are all very invested in that personal experience and anything added only makes the cut if it’s guaranteed to do that.”

“The Astral Guitar System ended up being a game changer for us, and the band have been quite happy with the results on stage.”