Fan Fare

Perez Hilton’s ambitious concert tour dogged by apathy

Gossip columnist Perez Hilton probably hoped for bigger crowds and better buzz for his inaugural North American tour of up-and-coming musical acts. But the three-and-a-half week trek ended on a high note on Saturday as upwards of a thousand people showed up at the Avalon Hollywood theater to check out the vibrant lineup of would-be superstars.

Numbers may have been boosted by the addition of a not-so-secret mystery headliner, indie rock band The Gossip, who are probably better known internationally. The other performers on the final stop of the “Perez Hilton Presents” club tour included the B-52s-like rock band Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, English singer/songwriter Julian Perretta, the glam-rock New York band Semi Precious Weapons, and usual headliner New Zealand dance-pop-rock starlet Ladyhawke (pictured at left).

And, of course, the excitable Hilton drew loud shrieks from his core demographic of young women packed into the front rows each time he took the stage to introduce the next act. “I have this little gossip site, but music is really my passion,” he said at one point. “This is a dream of mine.”

Whether the dream will yield a second tour is questionable. The trek drew modest crowds, and tickets for some of the all-ages gigs were given away. Tickets for the Hollywood show could be bought at the window for $25, down from the advertised day-of-sale rate of $31. Norwegian singer Ida Maria, one of the headliners, dropped out after a week claiming “total exhaustion.”

It also passed under the radar of the music industry, whose denizens are neither enamored of Hilton’s day job nor thrilled that he landed his own label at Warner Music Group. Hilton was aware that his stamp of approval could backfire on the artists, telling the Seattle Weekly that “if you love Ladyhawke, you shouldn’t let your dislike for me get in the way from coming to the show. Just get over it. It’s not about me.”

On the other hand, the promoters did seem to keep costs down, judging by the fact that many of the artists set up their own equipment. Ladyhawke (a.k.a. Pip Brown) recounted that she had driven 8,000 miles in a van with both her bandmates and with Semi Precious Weapons. Presumbly Ladyhawke and Semi Precious Weapons’ cross-dressing frontman Justin Tranter had plenty of time to swap makeup tips and pantyhose tricks.

Kanye West’s arena tour with Lady Gaga killed off

If Taylor Swift had any intentions of catching Kanye West on the rapper’s North American concert tour with Lady Gaga, she will now have to make other plans. The trek is off, according to a terse statement issued Thursday afternoon by concert promoter Live Nation.

“Live Nation announced today that the Kanye West and Lady Gaga ‘Fame Kills’ tour has been cancelled. Refunds are available at the point of purchase. Tickets purchased online and via phone will be refunded automatically.”

A spokesman for Live Nation declined to elaborate. Publicists for West and Lady Gaga could not be reached. The arena tour was supposed to begin on Nov. 10 in Phoenix, and wrap on Jan. 24 in Dallas.

Details of the tour were announced amid the worldwide furor that greeted West’s outburst at the MTV Video Music Awards last month, when the controversial star interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech to say that her prize should have gone to Beyonce instead. An apologetic West told comedian Jay Leno the following day that he planned to take some time off and “just analyze how I’m going to make it through the rest of this life, how I’m going to improve. Because I am a celebrity, and that’s something I have to deal with.”

Lady Gaga had eagerly discussed the tour, which would have been a stylish coming out for the biggest new star of 2009. Her album “The Fame” ranks as the best-selling debut album of the year in the United States with 1.3 million copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and has yielded two No. 1 singles: “Just Dance” and “Poker Face.” It’s also the fifth-biggest-selling album of the year overall in the U.S.

UPDATE – The Aerosmith tour cancellation you saw coming

Word has finally come from camp Aerosmith that the band will cancel its tour. It really came as no surprise, considering the extent of the injuries suffered by lead singer Steven Tyler last week.

Before the official word of the cancellation, Tyler, 61, described what happened when he fell from the stage and broke his shoulder during a concert on Aug. 5 near Sturgis, South Dakota.

“I landed upside down, and after twenty stitches on the back of my head, and a broken left shoulder, I just want to say that I’m plain grateful that I didn’t break my neck!,” he wrote. “In truth, after thousands of live shows, falling off the edge four times ain’t too bad.”

Five Canadian shows were scrapped in the aftermath of the South Dakota incident. Before the cancellation, the next show was to be on Monday in Seattle. Despite the dire prognosis for the tour, a radio station in Los Angeles continued until the last minute promoting the band’s stop in the city next Friday.

It sounds like Tyler narrowly avoided serious injury, so fans can be grateful that the worst thing to come out of the whole mishap so far is a tour cancellation. But given the difficulties the band had pulling off this latest series of gigs, what can we expect the next time Aerosmith hits the road? Will it be a tamer, safer version of the band? Dream on.

(Additional writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Yusuf Islam lets Cat out of bag, launches first tour in 33 years

Yusuf Islam, the British folk singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, has largely shunned the pop-music grind since he converted to Islam in the 1977 and devoted his life to his family and his faith.        But he is starting to dip his toe back in the waters, releasing his first mainstream album in almost 30 years in 2006 and playing his first concert in 28 years in 2007. He returns to stores next week with a new album, “Roadsinger,” and will play a handful of intimate shows around the world to promote the release.        First up is a May 3 stop at the Highline Ballroom in New York City, followed by a May 3 show at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. Each venue holds about 700 people.        Islam, now 60, last toured in 1976. After converting to Islam, he slowly withdrew from his pop-star life, and finally hung up his guitar after a London show in 1979.        In a 2006 interview with Reuters, he said he planned to perform occasional concerts although his songs such as “Peace Train” and “Moonshadow” often lose their intimacy in big concert venues.        “Even though you’re singing in front of people live, you’re actually distanced by the stage and the whole presentation of music,” he said.

Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal spreading the blues for first time together

Strange but true: blues guitarists Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal, longtime admirers of each other, have never toured together. Until now. ***    ***The road warriors, who have kept the blues alive for decades, will join forces in August on a 30-date U.S. tour with an unusual fan-driven charity element. They will each perform separately with their own bands, and then take the stage together for a blues jam.***    ***The “BonTaj Roulet” tour of amphitheaters, casinos and wineries begins on Aug 6. in Williamsport, Pa., and wraps on Sept. 25 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.***    ***”We’ve been like ships passing in the night,” said Taj Mahal, who co-produced Raitt’s third album, 1973′s “Takin’ My Time.”***    ***”I watched a lot of the new generation coming up back then. She just got right in there and stomped it down — she took it from where it was really being done.”***    ***For her part, Raitt praised Taj Mahal for “pushing the blues into new territory, digging into his own African and Caribbean roots, collaborating with African and world music as far back as the ’70s.”***    ***Tickets will be priced between about $35 and $85. Raitt and Taj Mahal hope to set aside $1 per ticket for their BonTaj Collective Action Fund, with an online vote by concertgoers at (http://www.bontaj.com/thecollective) determining how the funds are distributed. The designated organizations focus on energy, the environment, human rights, and music education. Additional funds will also be raised by VIP ticket packages.

Aerosmith takes flight in June after being grounded in 2008

Summer’s almost here, and the time is right for Aerosmith’s first North American shows in almost two years.

America’s rock ‘n’ roll bad boys, sidelined last year by singer Steven Tyler’s rehab stint and guitarist Joe Perry’s bad knee, said Monday they would begin a three-month amphitheater tour in St. Louis on June 10.       The trek will take the band to 33 cities, including Washington on June 21, Houston on July 17, Chicago on Aug. 28, Toronto on Sept. 3, and finally Detroit on Sept. 16. Opening act ZZ Top will join the tour on June 16, when Aerosmith play to a hometown crowd in Boston.

The band is taking a break from recording its first album of new material since 2001′s “Just Push Play.” A band spokeswoman said there was no scheduled release date yet.      Aerosmith last toured in 2007, playing 20 countries between April and September. It was forced to scrap a planned festival show in Venezuela this past February because Perry, 58, had to undergo emergency knee surgery caused by unforeseen complications from a total knee replacement in March 2008.      Tyler, 61, went into rehab last May, saying he needed “a safe environment” to recover from a series of foot surgeries that proved to be more painful than expected. He will be the top draw at the upcoming Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, which allows civilian rockers to jam with and learn from their heroes. It runs from April 29 to May 3 in Hollywood.      Both Perry and Tyler — nicknamed “the Toxic Twins” — and their bandmates were infamous for their hard-partying ways during the 1970s. Since a carefully engineered comeback in the late 1980s, they have largely been models of sobriety.

AC/DC returning to North America in summer

Break out the flashing devil horns and industrial-strength earplugs. AC/DC will return to North America in the summer for the second leg of their “Black Ice” world tour.

The Anglo-Australian hard rockers on Monday announced the first nine dates of the trek, which begins July 28 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., about 22 miles southwest of Boston.     Other dates include:     July 31 – East Rutherford, NJ (Giants Stadium);     Aug. 16 – Detroit (Palace of Auburn Hills)     Aug. 18 – Grand Rapids, Mich. (Van Andel Arena)     Aug. 30 – Tacoma Dome, Tacoma, Wash. (Tacoma Dome)     Sept. 2 – San Jose, Calif. (HP Pavilion)     Sept. 4 – Los Angeles (Staples Center)     Sept. 6 – San Diego (Sports Arena)     Sept. 8 – Anaheim, Calif. (Honda Center)

The world tour began on Oct. 28 in Wilkes Barre, Pa., and AC/DC played 43 mostly sold-out shows through the end of the first leg in Nashville on Jan. 31. The band’s European swing kicked off in Oslo on Feb. 18, with dates on tap through June 30 in Glasgow.

AC/DC is touring to promote its first album in eight years, “Black Ice,” which debuted at No. 1 in 29 countries last October. It has sold 2 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Britney Spears mostly pleases with new kind of circus

The critics largely enjoyed their trip to the circus with Britney Spears, as the 27-year-old troubled pop diva opened her latest Circus tour in New Orleans on Tuesday night to mostly positive reviews.       The New Orleans Times-Picayune said Spears, who was performing in her home state of Louisiana, nailed the first stop on her comeback.

“With so much at stake, and so much to prove, on the tour’s first night, she was fully focused on executing the complex concert. And execute she did,” Times-Picayune reviewer Keith Spera reported in a blog.

Los Angeles Times music critic Ann Powers wrote that  despite singing with a backing track, relying on “nothing special” dance moves and looking less strikingly beautiful than when she first gained fame at 17, Spears “nonetheless renewed her claim as one of the world’s most adept manipulators of the public interest.”

But People magazine writer Chuck Arnold was left feeling like the Circus Tour was full of hot air. “Don’t call it a comeback quite yet,” Arnold wrote, adding that Spears appeared nervous and hardly acknowledged or talked to the audience.      Arnold also said the show reminded him of Cirque du Soleil. “When she wrapped the concert about 90 minutes after emerging, she seemed more relieved than anything that it was all over,” he wrote.      Most agree the Spears show was heavy on spectacle and technically impressive, and almost everyone noted her lip syncing.  Some felt the production overwhelmed the star, while others said Spears looked great but seemed overburdened and distant. The show also was heavy on erotica, even though Spears still attracts many families with children in tow.

Spears will shuttle across the country at a dizzying pace in the coming months. She performs in Atlanta on Thursday, followed by Miami on Saturday and another show in Tampa the next night. Until the tour ends on June 14 in London, Spears will perform on many consecutive nights, as her Circus tour makes stops in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and other cities.

 Will she be able to keep up with it all, or will the newly resplendent Spears start to get frayed at the edges?   (Additional reporting by Kathy Finn)

Photo credit: Britney Spears performs for “Good Morning America” December 2008.  Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Wassup with Janet Jackson?

Janet Jackson’s Rock Witchu North American concert tour is turning into a wash-out, and no-one is saying why.

 The kid sister of Michael Jackson postponed yet another concert, set for Monday night, and hasn’t performed at all since her show in Montreal was called off at the last minute on Sept 29.

Jackson was rushed to hospital in Montreal but quickly released and no details have been released on what health issues the singer is suffering from.

  A statement on the Web site of the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, New York, announced Monday’s postponement. Meanwhile, Jackson’s planned show in New York City has been postponed from Thursday to Nov. 1. 

 Scheduled shows in Boston, Philadelphia, Greensboro, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale and Uncasville have all been postponed this month,  in some cases only a day after looking set to go again.

The 42-year-old singer launched her Rock Witchu tour in Vancouver, Canada, on Sept. 10 in a show that the Vancouver Sun called a “high-voltage performance.” Jackson’s concerts in Los Angeles and Las Vegas sold out last month. The tour was originally scheduled to end in Dallas on Oct. 22.      Jackson’s people have repeatedly declined to release any information on what is ailing the famed singer.  Janet Jackson’s career has also hit a crossroads, since during the tour she announced that she and her record company, Island Def Jam, were parting ways.   (Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)