Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples Roar Through a Heroines’ Double-Header at the Greek: Concert Review

Democratic lawmakers Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., are pushing for the U.S.

Emanuel Okusanya Fast-rising Nigerian star Asake roared into New York Friday night with a show in support of his debut album, “Mr. Money With the Vibe,” which features Afrobeats icon Burna Boy as well as American rapper Russ. Asake (full name: Ahmed Ololade) released his first single in 2018 and has struck an individual blend of West African Afrobeats and South Africa’s Brazilian-tinged ampiano. His set Friday night at New York’s Palladium Times Square — the largest venue on his tour — saw him backed by a full band, including horns, to bring his jazz-influenced sound into a live setting. Clad in an all-denim ensemble and his trademark black sunglasses, he performed his entire debut album in order, starting with the album’s mid-tempo opener, “Dull.” But as the setlist continued and the songs became more lively, so did Asake.

Pep Guardiola was pleased that Riyad Mahrez is getting better but acknowledged that he must still do more after a rare start for Manchester City.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Back in the day (“the day” being the 1990s), Pavement became so typecast as a cliché-lambasting, anti-rock band that they never really got credit for what a great rock band they were — and, as their ongoing 30th-ish anniversary tour shows, still are. The stereotypical scrawny, bookish, indie vibe and image of the group’s early records had become so cemented that few seemed to notice how tight and accomplished they became after drummer Steve West joined the group in 1993. Although they always downplayed their ability to “rock out” and still do, when the band locks in on hypnotic grooves while singer-guitarist Stephen Malkmus plays solos with a Lou Reed-ish combination of soaring melodies and brittle squall (usually finishing with some self-mocking gesture), they can hold their own with virtually any rock band. On their later albums, that seasoning carried over to their songwriting, as Malkmus’ almost run-on melodies were delivered in a cleaner, sharper manner, as if he were no longer quite so embarrassed by how pretty or catchy they can be.

Lily Moayeri Over the weekend, Desert Daze, California’s psych-rock festival (and two-time nominee as Pollstar’s festival of the year), celebrated its 10th anniversary as a destination event for the free-spirited, open-minded, anti-commercial, pro-instrument music fan. It was a veritable Australian takeover of the desert with two out of the three headliners being from that region: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, who are practically the Desert Daze house band, and Tame Impala, who in 2018 had their set cut very short due to weather conditions and were returning to somewhat finish what they started. The hippie-natured festival’s titular ethos has involved several different locations in its decade-long history, with its latest headquarters, on the sand at Moreno Beach, Lake Perris, being one of the most scenic. The backdrop of craggy mountains and a crystal-clear lake is life-affirming for festival-goers who brave the relatively rough terrain of Desert Daze, where the focus is more on the vibe than it is on logistics.

William Earl “Don’t you pretend that I’m not alive” were the first words whispered by the Mars Volta vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s during the group’s reunion stop in New York City on Sept. 29. The tour, in support of a new self-titled record that marks the end of a decade-long hiatus for the Texas rockers, is a reminder not only that the group itself is back but keenly aware of their legacy as a taut, adventurous live act ready to blend genres at a breakneck pace. Their first four records, especially their beloved 2003 studio debut “De-Loused in the Comatorium,” have been a gateway for younger generations of prog fans, fresh to polyrhythms and double-digit song lengths. Yet the band’s final two pre-hiatus albums — 2009’s “Octahedron” and 2012’s “Noctourniquet” — felt like a group in need of a break. This year’s comeback album is perhaps their most far-afield, as it’s their approximation of a pop music, with the average song hovering at three minute mark and produced with a flatter palette than previous work.

Ethan Shanfeld Very few modern bands have a “Mr. Brightside.” Even fewer are able to whip it out in the first five minutes of a show and continue to entertain an arena for another 90 minutes. And even fewer are those who can hold their own in a three-song duet with Bruce Springsteen as he beams with excitement announcing their name to the crowd: “THE KILLERS!” “Everybody knows God made Saturday nights for rock ‘n’ roll,” frontman Brandon Flowers declared toward the beginning of the band’s set, the second of two consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden. And the Killers delivered on that, taking New York City on a tour of its greatest songs from “Hot Fuss” to “Pressure Machine.”

Thania Garcia With only one more show left on the docket, Bad Bunny has just about finished the North American leg of his “World’s Hottest Tour.” That title has certainly lived up to its promise, as the Puerto Rican phenom achieved the top-grossing tour of August with this trek, consisting of several stops in the country’s biggest venues. Last night, he pulled out all the stops for the first of two back-to-back shows at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium. He brought out several guests — including the reggaeton pioneer Ivy Queen, who played a medley of her hottest hits — and declared his love for L.A., inciting cheers throughout the night with: “¡Los Latinos in L.A., que se sienta!”

A.D. Amorosi There’s a handsome backstory to Friday night’s concert “The Town Hall and T Bone Burnett Present a Tribute to Bob Dylan” — produced in partnership with the Bob Dylan Center — that went beyond present-day artists merely doing a set of covers. Dylan. New York City’s Town Hall. The two go hand-in-hand like whiskey and soda. In 1963, when the bourgeoning poet-folkie could no longer be confined by Greenwich Village’s coffee houses, his shrewd then-manager Albert Grossman chose the civic hall built by the League for Political Education to mark Dylan’s major league debut and unite his social consciousness with commerce for the first (but not the last) time.Dylan and T Bone Burnett also go hand-in-hand like whiskey and pretty-much-anything. Not only did Dylan pluck Burnett to be a guitarist on his legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour of the late 1970s, Burnett recently produced Dylan’s one-off recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” for Burnett’s Ionic Original acetate-format project with an auction price of nearly $1.8M. (Burnett is also linked to Town Hall with his smart co-production of 2013’s “Another Day, Another Time at the Hall”) in celebration of the Coen Brothers’ cinematic ’60s folk love letter “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

Moving on. Kenan Thompson‘s estranged wife, Christina Evangeline, is dating his former Saturday Night Live costar Chris Redd, a source exclusively tells Us Weekly.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In what is expected to be a surefire hit, Buendia Estudios revealed an upcoming TV series adaptation of Antonio Gala’s erotic novel, “La Pasion Turca.” The popular novel was last adapted into a hit feature film in 1994 with the late Vicente Aranda directing and Andres Vicente Gomez of Lolafilms producing. It starred singer-actress Ana Belen in what is considered her most successful film. Buendia Estudios’ director general Ignacio Corrales and editorial director Sonia Martínez jointly announced the new project at the 2nd edition of the Iberseries & Platino Industria television event in Madrid. The new six-episode series set to air on Spanish free-to-air channel Antena 3 and streamer AtresPlayer Premium will start shooting by the end of October in Turkey for seven weeks before moving to Madrid. The cast will be made up of Spanish, Turkish and Italian talent.

greeted with accusations of Islamophobia after its Sundance premiere from several Muslim and Arab filmmakers, Meg Smaker has told The New York Times that very few festivals have chosen to screen her film while she has struggled financially to promote it. “I don’t have the money or influence to fight this out,” Smaker said. “I’m not sure I see a way out.”“In my naïveté, I kept thinking people would get the anger out of their system and realize thisfilm was not what they said,” she added.

A.D. Amorosi What does one do for an encore after winning five honors at the 64th Grammys (including album of the year for “We Are“), an Oscar for best original score (for co-composing Disney-Pixar’s “Soul”) and leaving the bandleader gig at a top-rated talk show (“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”)? If you’re protean pianist and megawatt personality Jon Batiste, you write a symphony — an”American Symphony” no less, its title raising the stakes on the grandeur of the piece that premiered at Carnegie Hall Thursday night.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian art wing of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most unique and visually arresting places in a city filled with them, containing the 2,000-year-old Temple itself along with other sculptures and pieces of art, a large reflecting pool and a giant, 25-foot-tall floor-to-ceiling window that extends the entire length of the hall and overlooks Central Park. It also may be the most unique and visually arresting music venue in the city. Over the years the room has hosted concerts by everyone from Interpol to the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, but it’s hard to think of a more fitting artist for such a setting than Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab, who won a Grammy earlier this year for her song “Mohabbat” from her latest album “Vulture Prince,” and was also nominated for Best New Artist.

Ethan Shanfeld As the Arctic Monkeys waltzed onstage at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre Thursday night, they were met with such rapturous applause and overwhelming screams that when Alex Turner sat at the piano and sang, “Don’t get emotional,” it was as if he was speaking directly to the audience. While the band opened the show with new single “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball,” which came out just a few weeks ago, the crowd embraced it like an old classic. As Turner sang the song’s title for the final time, in falsetto, a giant disco ball lowered from the ceiling and lit up the exuberant Kings Theatre.  To be clear: there’s good reason for the Monkeymania. Thursday’s show marked the band’s first headlining concert in the U.S. since 2018, and even though their seminal album “AM” came out nearly a decade ago (feel old?), the Tumblr-era thirst for Turner is still very much alive. The audience erupted in shouts at the frontman’s every move — cheering when he ditched his guitar for “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?,” when he hoisted the mic stand above his head during “Arabella” and, of course, when he snarled between songs, “How’s everybody doing,” in a British accent thicker than the bass tone on “Crying Lightning.”

Emanuel Okusanya It hardly seems possible that, more than three years after the blockbuster success of “Old Town Road” — which became the longest-charting single in Billboard history and the most-platinum-certified single, with 15 at last count — and many, sometimes-controversial videos and television performances, Lil Nas X is only now on his first major tour. The artist’s 29-date “Long Live Montero” tour made two sold-out stops at New York’s prestigious Radio City Music Hall this week, and he didn’t disappoint in terms of music or visuals (although he did keep things relatively PG, apart from kissing one of his male dancers behind a curtain).

So loved! Christina Hall (née Haack) and Tarek El Moussa’s daughter Taylor turned 12 years old — and her blended family went all out for her birthday.

easy life is the latest band to take part in DHL’s FAST-TRACK programme, where fans can win the chance to see the band live at Abbey Road Studios, London.DHL FAST-TRACK connects music fans across the world with their favourite artists while spotlighting exceptional new talent and fast-tracking their rise to global stardom.Ahead of the release of their upcoming second album, ‘MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE…’, easy life has teamed up with the series to offer fans a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Taking over Studio Two at the iconic Abbey Roads Studios on the day of the album’s release, Friday, October 7, fans will experience an immersive visual world inspired by the new album, as well as a live performance from the band.One lucky winner will win the Dream House model and attendance to the event with a +1, and 14 runners-up will receive an invite to the event with a +1.“We’re so excited to be part of DHL FAST-TRACK, the collaboration allows us to get closer to our fans and share our music across the world,” said easy life frontman Murray Matravers.

A.D. Amorosi Since the pandemic’s start, songwriting singer Halsey has changed their world several times over with the release of the dystopian multi-genre pop of 2020’s “Manic,” then the industrial earth mother vibe of 2022’s “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.” During that time, they also announced “they/them” pronouns and had a baby. But even with all that, performing in an intimate setting – SiriusXM’s Small Stage series, for subscribers and contest winners held at Philadelphia’s 1,200-capacity Union Transfer on Tuesday – was perfect Halsey’s whisper-to-scream vocals and dramatic, personal asides. Plus, as a native of nearby Edison, New Jersey, Halsey rhapsodized about being a fan in attendance at many a gig at the venue. “I used to wonder if the people on stage here could see me in the audience,” said Halsey to a brace of fans pressed against the stage, some of whom had waited in line since 4 a.m. “The answer is yes, because I can see all of your faces clearly.”

NewsNation will broadcast three of the most high profile election race debates this fall – the race for Texas Governor, and the Senate races in Pennsylvania and Georgia.The Texas debate – featuring incumbent, Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke, will be broadcast live from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburgh, Texas. NewsNation will air the debate at 8-9 p.m. ET/7-8 p.m.