**UPDATE: TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE AT TICKETMASTER HERE:

Vans Warped Tour
Saturday, August 9, 2008, 11 AM -
Gorge Amphitheatre, Quincy, WA
Venue . Seating . Map . Tour . MySpace . Craigslist

Angels and Airwaves / The Academy Is… / Reliant K / Every Time I Die / Gym Class Heroes / Katy Perry / Cobra Starship / Schwayze / Anberlin / Family Force 5 / Story of the Year / Reel Big Fish / The Aggrolites
3OH!3 / A Day to Remember / Alesana / All That Remains / All Time Low / Beat Union / Between the Trees / Bring Me the Horizon / Broadway Calls / Charlotte Sometimes / Classic Crime / Confide / Danger Radio / Dr. Manhattan / Evergreen Terrace / Fall From Grace / Fear Nuttin’ Band / Forever the Sickest Kids / Four Year Strong / From First to Last / GBH / Gil Mantera’s Party Dream / Greeley Estates / Hi-Fi Hand Grenades / Horrorpops / Ludo / Mayday Parade / MC Chris / Norma Jean / ORESKABAND / Pierce the Veil / Protest the Hero / Revolution Mother / Rise Against / Say Anything / Set Your Goals / Single File / Sky Eats Airplane / Steve Steadham / Street Dogs / Street Drum Corps Presents BANG! / The A.K.A.s / The Audition / The Briggs / The Bronx / The Color Fred / The Devil Wears Prada / The Fabulous Rudies / The Human Abstract / The Lordz / The Pinker Tones / The Randies / The Vandals / We The Kings

Warped Tour #14 will soon roll through the Gorge with 17 buses and 19 trucks, and even though that’s a lot of (expensive) gas, founder Kevin Lyman is making things “interesting” for this summer’s edition, which has so far enjoyed a successful renaissance. Acts vary wildly from punk to metal to ska to girl-kisser Katy-Perry.

See you there!

**UPDATE: SATURDAY AND 2-DAY PASSES ARE SOLD OUT; AFTERMARKET ONLY. TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE AT TICKETMASTER FOR SUNDAY HERE:

Sub Pop 20th Anniversary Festival
Saturday, July 12 - Sunday, July 13, 2008, Noon -
Marymoor Park Amphitheatre, Redmond, WA
Venue . Seating . Map . Sub Pop Records . MySpace . Craigslist

Saturday: Flight of the Conchords / Iron & Wine / Mudhoney / Fleet Foxes / The Vaselines
Eric’s Trip / Seaweed / The Helio Sequence / Pissed Jeans / The Fluid / Low

Sunday: Green River / Wolf Parade / Grand Archives
The Ruby Suns / Kinski / Foals / Les Thugs / No Age / Red Red Meat / Comets on Fire / Beachwood Sparks

Local independent superlabel Sub Pop Records has been going out of business since 1988, and its year-long anniversary celebration is culminating with a two-day lineup of Sub Pop’s groundbreaking artists. As if that isn’t enough, all proceeds are being donated to charity. Nope, I don’t know why The Shins aren’t booked. Okay, read on..

“Sub Pop would not have been Sub Pop without Seattle,” Poneman says. “Seattle is an essential component to the story. Sub Pop is less geographical [now] - it has less of a regional focus. But Seattle is still home - I can complain about the irresponsible development going on downtown, I can complain about the traffic and real-estate prices, but it’s still my home. And I think I can speak for Sub Pop: The people living in Seattle have always been very supportive of Sub Pop.” — Seattle Times

Class A Face-melting, Stomach-churning, Palm-sweating, Loin-tingling Two Day Music Candystore Assault That’s Not Bumbershoot or Sasquatch. — Northwest Music Blog

20 years ago this month, Sub Pop Records’ Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman threw caution (and their dayjobs) to the wind and rented an office in Seattle’s Terminal Sales Building. Two decades on, that little Pacific Nortwestern upstart has become an indie juggernaut. — Pitchfork

See you there!

That wacky Weezer is presenting several West Coast mini-concerts, and invite you to learn the songs and jam right along (with any instrument, or just your hands and voice). The End 107.7 will be recording the session and playing it on-air. Expect a real tour sometime in the fall. Instructions on how to play the setlist are below, and you can win one of the 200 slots HERE:

WEEZER
Location To Be Announced
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Time To Be Announced

Check back often for the Complete Seattle Calendar and updated presale passwords.. Concerts just added by Vienna Teng, Natasha Bedingfield, and Conor Oberst. GOOD LUCK!

Wayback English prog-rockers Yes has cancelled their WaMu stop on August 15. In fact, the whole 40th-Anniversary summer tour has been cancelled, due to lead singer Jon Anderson’s case of acute respiratory failure. Normally such an announcement is PR-speak for poor ticket sales, but I have a feeling this is the real deal. Get well and come back soon.

So many great shows coming to Puget Sound this summer, and a slew of them will be appearing on national television in the next few weeks. As they say, check your local listings. Or do as I do and check YouTube later. Enjoy!

Friday, May 23:
Good Morning America: Counting Crows
Live With Regis & Kelly: Jesse McCartney
Jimmy Kimmel Live: Neil Diamond

Monday, May 26:
Today Show: The B-52’s
Tonight Show With Jay Leno: The B-52’s
Jimmy Kimmel Live: Stone Temple Pilots

Friday, June 13:
Good Morning America: Cyndi Lauper

Radiohead wrapped up its current U.S. leg of the worldwide tour in Dallas, with this setlist via ateaseweb.com. Of course you know they’ll be at the White River Amp on August 20..
1. All I Need
2. There There
3. 15 Step
4. Bangers and Mash
5. Nude
6. Pyramid Song
7. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
8. The National Anthem
9. Dollars and Cents
10. Faust Arp
11. Videotape
12. A Wolf At The Door
13. Optimistic
14. Reckoner
15. Everything In Its Right Place
16. Idioteque
17. Bodysnatchers
Encore:
18. Fake Plastic Trees
19. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
20. House of Cards
21. Exit Music (For A Film)
22. The Bends
23. You and Whose Army?
24. Paranoid Android

Capitol Hill rock venue Neumo’s has seen an unexpected (if not unforeseen) crackdown on its capacity practices.

Neumo’s has been “fooling” the City of Seattle by counting “capacity” as everyone who could safely fit in:
1) the main show floor
2) the upper balcony (”mezzanine”) surrounding the show floor
3) the completely separate Moe Bar

Anyone who’s bought a ticket isn’t going to stay on the Moe side, and that’s why we’re all so accustomed to shows being “oversold” at Neumo’s. Everyone wants to crowd onto the show floor or the balcony as the lights go down, and then it’s sardine-time.

The new, temporary policy allows for a very-slow-motion flow between these areas (keep in mind that the restrooms are NOT on the main show floor).

Anyone with an understanding of the tragedy in Rhode Island in 2003 (as well as Seattle’s progressive mindframe and unwillingness to take a backseat attitude in West Coast politics) knows how surprising it is that the crackdown has taken this long. It won’t be the first (cough-rebar-cough-chopsuey-cough).

Currently there’s a lot of discussion on both sides of this issue. Many folks seem to have the issue confused with the condo-fication of Pike/Pine. Many others think that Neumo’s shows are always too crowded and now they’ll have a better view of the stage and be able to move more freely, with only 223 people on the main show floor.

Can’t be good news for continuing to attract top acts (and by attract I mean paying them). Those shows by high-profile acts like Moby and M83 will still have to be paid their guarantees, and that’s a big problem for the viability of Neumo’s as we know it..

Neil Diamond will be bringing his show to KeyArena in September. To get an idea of how popular this tour is going to be, let’s take a look at the weekly “Power Ranking” from industry-centric tour publication TicketNews:

Power Scores are based on ticket sales from the TicketNetwork Exchange, the world’s largest secondary market exchange. Two factors are used to calculate a power score: total ticket sales from the given event and total ticket sales within the category.

A popularity contest, in other words. Looking further down the list, you’ll see James Taylor at #7 and The Police at #10, both of whom will be making Seattle-area stops in the next few months. Something to be thankful for, this embarrassment of riches.

You won’t get with this, you see.

Robyn has postponed her May 14 show at Neumo’s, in order to perform this Thursday on “The View.” Sorry, Portland, you’re ditched too.

At least she had a good reason (unlike Avril Lavigne), but given the fragile indie egos and long memories of Northwest music fans, could she expect a bit of “Seattle Chill” when she comes back in August?

You and I both know the real reason for Avril Lavigne “postponing” her May 10 concert in Everett, don’t we? Turns out that no one likes to sing to a half-empty arena, and no one likes to pay for it either.

From her MySpace page:

After Avril Lavigne performed 37 shows across the country, she announced this evening that she must postpone the next six dates of her North American “The Best Damn Tour” due to her acute laryngitis.

Don’t worry, now you can go to see KT Tunstall instead. I guess you probably already were.

Nine Inch Nails won’t be coming to KeyArena till July, and there’s STILL no ticket information available, but in the meantime..

Nine Inch Nails is GIVING AWAY “The Slip” for free. That’s right, free, not just the pay-what-you-want model of Radiohead.
From nin.com:

as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.

the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon.

You are encouraged to “remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc.” You’ll need to supply your email address to receive a download link. Good stuff! Stay tuned for ticket presales.