Legends to rock at mega concert – Tyler plays benefit for abuse victims

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LOS ANGELES, May 4, (Agencies): The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who — the most celebrated acts in rock’n roll — will perform at a mega festival in October, organizers said Tuesday.

The iconic artists have been confirmed for the Oct 7-9 concert at the Empire Polo field in Indio, in the California desert, an event being billed by music lovers as one of the greatest concerts ever.

“I can’t think of a concert as big as this one,” Jim Guerinot, a talent agent and former promoter, told the Los Angeles Times. “Neil Young opening for Paul McCartney — are you kidding me?… I think it’s a stupendous achievement.”

Gary Bongiovanni, editor of the concert industry site Pollstar, told AFP that the presence of the legendary rock stars at the same event was a “unique concept” that was sure to prove successful.

“It is historic in that having just six headline acts over three days has never been done before and it really is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said.

Tickets for the event, which has been rumored for weeks, will go on sale Monday and will range from $199 to $1,599, concert promoter Goldenvoice said. Customers are limited to buying a maximum of eight sets of tickets for the festival, which is being called “The Desert Trip.”

Incomparable

“With performances starting after sunset, each artist will play a full set, serving up three incomparable nights of rock ‘n roll,” Goldenvoice said on its website.

The same venue hosts the annual Coachella music festival, one of the world’s highest-grossing festival that attracts tens of thousands of fans.

Bongiovanni said given that the majority of the concert goers will likely be graying music fans, most tickets will be for reserved seats rather than general admission.

All of the artists except the Stones’ 68-year-old guitarist Ronnie Wood are in their 70s. The acts all remain active and pull in major audiences eager to see them for nostalgia reasons.

Concert organizers said Dylan and the Stones would launch the concert October 7, Young and McCartney would perform on Oct 8 and the Who and Waters will close the three-day event on Oct 9.

The festival could mark a final appearance for The Who, whose members have hinted at imminent retirement.

The group was scheduled to end their tour in May, but have already added June dates to appear at festivals in Europe.

The Who frontman Roger Daltrey called the lineup for the October concert “the greatest remains of our era.”

“It’s amazing really. It’s amazing we’re still here,” he told the BBC last month when rumors about the concert began swirling.

The megashow by the six Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees immediately created a buzz on social media, with many dubbing the concert “Oldchella.”

One tongue-in-cheek posting on Twitter described it as “Desert Trip and Fall: The Broken Hip Tour.”

Another tweet said: “Desert Trip, the classic rock festival is going to be pretty badass!”

Steven Tyler stood behind a mic in David Geffen Hall on Monday wearing a dark vest, patterned shirt and tight jeans in front of a crowd that reflected his decades of music-making — an older man in a vintage tour T-shirt, an Aerosmith purist; a middle-aged blonde woman waving an American flag blanket, pulled in by the band’s magnetic run in the ’90s; and a boy barely in his 20s who learned about Tyler through his parents, or his judging turn on “American Idol,” or both, and has followed him right up until his most recent foray into country rock.

The performance benefited Tyler’s philanthropic interest, Janie’s Fund, which raises awareness for girls who are victims of abuse. Tyler’s Nashville-based band Loving Mary rattled the hall, and Brett Ratner joined in to direct the show titled “Steven Tyler… Out On a Limb.” The stage, home to the New York Philharmonic was transformed into a multi-tiered setup, littered with cowboy kitsch, set against the backdrop of projections, partially masked by a white fringe scrim.

Fresher

Some of the evening best moments stemmed from Tyler departing from the classics, and singing some his newer, fresher tracks. At times his ego showed, like saying “I think you heard this on the radio” before “Red, White & You” which debuted at number 64 on the iTunes charts and peaked at number 47. Other times, his rare off-script moments made him seem more aware, like before a song called “Only Heaven”: “I haven’t done this song yet, so put your phones away.”

But most of the performance gave the audience what it wanted: the hits. “Was ‘Sweet Emotion a number one hit?” Tyler asked to cheering audience (the song peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100). “What the f***, right?” The rest of the set list included “Cryin’,” “Come Together”, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, “Dream On” and, of course the inspiration for the philanthropy’s name, “Janie’s Got a Gun.”

Although most of Hollywood’s gaze was directed toward the Met Gala, happening at the same time on the other side of Central Park, Bruce Willis, Melissa Joan Hart and several of Tyler’s family moments were among the other stars to attend.

As the band played the last chords of the final encore, “Walk This Way,” four young women, representatives from Janie’s Fund, walked onstage to take a final bow with the band. “We’re told that one in five girls are sexually abused before they’re 18 years old. But because the subject is so taboo… clearly that number is much greater,” Tyler said earlier in the evening about his involvement with Janie’s Fund, adding what the charity means to him. “I am in awe of young women out there who standing up against abuse,” he said. “They are the rock stars.”

Also:

LOS ANGELES: Three concerts will be live-streamed from Tennessee into high-traffic areas in Chicago later this month in what promoters are calling “the first long-distance concert of its kind.”

Performers in three Tennessee cities and the audience in Chicago will be able to see each other and interact thanks to a 360-degree, panoramic camera angle, according to the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development.

Citizen Cope will perform live May 23 from the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis. Jason Isbell will perform live May 24 from Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame. Ashley Monroe will perform May 25 at the Tennessee Theatre in her hometown, Knoxville.

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