WebProNews

Tag: Madison Square Garden

  • Christine McVie Returns, Completes Fleetwood Mac

    Christine McVie has officially returned to Fleetwood Mac, and recent concerts in Boston and at New York City’s Madison Square Garden are replete with rave reviews.

    On Friday night, at Boston’s TD Garden, Stevie Nicks introduced McVie’s return to the band.

    “Welcome back, Chris,” Nicks shouted to a screaming crowd. “Where have you been?”

    “Of course she delivered her early classics, ‘Say You Love Me,’ ‘Over My Head,’ ‘Don’t Stop,’ and closed the night with a wonderfully tender reading of ‘Songbird.’ Again: obvious, perfect,” the Boston Herald reports.

    “But it must be noted that Nicks’ twirls got an ovation equal to Christine’s introduction. For so many Nicks Chicks, this is Stevie’s band,” they added.

    What the band’s fans are no doubt noting is that Christine McVie’s return is a monumental completion that many believed they would never see.

    Just days before their Boston performance, Fleetwood Mac serenaded fans at Madison Square Garden in New York.

    The New York Times writes, “Fleetwood Mac can’t duplicate its youthful sweetness. Ms. McVie’s voice has held its richness, but sometimes falters at high notes. Ms. Nicks’s huskiness has grown harsher, and in her glittery shawls she turns slowly now instead of twirling across the stage. But Fleetwood Mac still has the intricacy, elegance and underlying punch of its songs.”

    It’s important to note that Christine McVie is 71 years old. Stevie Nicks is 66. These aren’t kids bouncing around the stage any more–and it’s not unfathomable that years of singing (and of some drug and alcohol abuse)–have taken their toll.

    McVie was the band member least wracked with substance abuse and alcohol issues, however–even though she recalls, “staying up for three days with the white powder, liberally washed down by Dom Pérignon.”

    Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie had a conversation about that return to Fleetwood Mac. The New York Times shares it as follows.

    “How would you feel if I decided to come back to the band?” (She had already made a guest appearance in September 2013 at a Fleetwood Mac concert in London.) Ms. Nicks added that she advised Ms. McVie to get a trainer because Fleetwood Mac’s shows are so “physical”; its concert set runs 2 ½ hours. And while Ms. McVie’s voice, like the others in the band, has roughened over the decades, it’s still hearty.

    A Chicago audience enthusiastically welcomed Christine McVie back.

    Fleetwood Mac’s songs ‘Don’t Stop,’ and ‘You Make Loving Fun’ now truly take fans back to the 1970s and early 1980s.

    Christine McVie is back. Fleetwood Mac is complete. How long will they stay together? Their North American tour has just begun. Their On with the Show tour continues through January of 2015.

  • Dick Bavetta Officiates 2,633 NBA Games Straight

    During the Brooklyn Nets vs. New York Knicks game Wednesday night, NBA referee Dick Bavetta officiated his 2,633rd consecutive regular season game, which beat MLB Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripkin Jr.’s long-standing record for the longest back-to-back participation in an American professional sporting event.

    Richard T. “Dick” Bavetta, 74, got his start as an NBA referee in 1975, and he has never missed an assigned game since. He began officiating after his brother Joe, a ref for the American Basketball Association at the time, convinced him that it would be a good career. Bavetta was a stock broker on Wall Street during those days, and began officiating games between fellow brokers in the Wall Street League, played at New York’s Downtown Athletic Club.

    Bavetta went on to referee high school games, before moving on to the Continental Basketball Association. In the mid-1960s, for nine years straight he was rejected during NBA referee tryouts, mainly due to his small, unimposing stature, though was finally hired on in 1975. His debut was on December 2, 1975 at Madison Square Garden in an NBA game between the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics. He soon became seen as a referee of the lowest tier, and led the league in technical fouls and ejections called.

    Bavetta eventually went on to become the highest paid ref in the NBA, raking in about $200,000 a year. His most well-known game was between the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics in the 1980’s. Celtics forward Larry Bird and 76ers guard Julius Erving began to strangle each other and were ejected by Bavetta.

    Here’s the clip:

    Commenting on what his record means to him, Bavetta said, “Well it means that I am here and alive and happy. And it doesn’t end here as they say. After tonight there is another game. That is what we do. I am just blessed that the ironman streak has been broken here (at Madison Square Garden), I couldn’t ask for something any better.”

    Regarding any plans for retirement, Bavetta said, “I can’t think of any reason unless it’s an act of God with weather problems and things like that, but I’ve been blessed by the good Lord above with good health. So that has enabled me to stay healthy over the years and I think it’s symbolic of our profession.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Alexa Ray Joel Follows in Famous Dad’s Footsteps

    Alexa Ray Joel is definitely following in her famous dad’s musical footsteps. While Billy Joel plays Madison Square Garden, his daughter now has a residency on a smaller New York stage. Alexa Ray will be the headliner from April 1st through April 12th at the Cafe Carlyle, inside the famed Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

    It was just a few months ago that the younger Joel appeared on Katie Couric’s talk show–Katie–and both talked about and performed her father’s renown hit Just the Way You Are. There’s no doubt whatsoever that she is a chip of the old block–she has the voice and the passion that Billy Joel has long been known for.

    It was just a few weeks ago that Alexa Ray Joel hinted via Twitter about something big that was in the works, but she wasn’t yet at liberty to share all the exciting details.

    She also shared an Instagram of the doodle she drew while “readying” herself for the excitement, and included more information about what’s to come in a caption.

    “As I’ve been readying myself for [surprise!!] an upcoming local performance-showcase…. {which I unfortunately am not at liberty to reveal the details to just yet}…. I’ve been vacillating between preparing new original material and fresh reinterpretations of other’s songs, plus reviewing some of my earlier pieces for consideration. It’s been a rather nostalgic experience revisiting my playful doodles on the insert of ‘Sketches’, my old EP…. I remember drawing this whilst residing in Brooklyn when I was 19 years old. ~Oh, how the time passes ever so quickly by… Within a mere, overlooked blink of an eye!~”

    It was just a short time later when her Instagram account revealed the details fans were no doubt thrilled to hear all about. Mom Christie Brinkley and Dad Billy Joel had to be incredibly proud, too.

    Alexa Ray Joel is a talent to be reckoned with–and she’s not in any way a carbon copy of her famous dad.

    “It’s a bit more soulful, more blues than my dad’s,” she said of her 2006 EP. “He’s more pop rock. And his piano playing is better than mine, but that’s okay. I don’t want to be the Piano Girl.”

    She’s definitely well on her way to something big. Might she join Dad one of these days at Madison Square Garden?

    Image via YouTube

  • Alexa Ray Joel Lands Cafe Carlyle Residency

    Alexa Ray Joel, the 28-year-old daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, will perform at Cafe Carlyle on Manhattan’s Upper East Side April 1-12.

    The lounge is located inside New York City’s Carlyle Hotel, where musical greats such as Judy Collins, Sutton Foster, Bobby Short, and Elaine Stritch have performed. Woody Allen and the Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band are currently playing Monday nights, a show that will continue until June 16.

    Joel’s famous father, six-time Grammy winner Billy Joel, is doing a residency of his own in New York City. He’s playing once-a-month, open-ended shows in Madison Square Garden.

    “I have no idea how long this is going to go,” the native New Yorker said. “What was I thinking?”

    Billy Joel’s shows are sold out through November, and tickets to the December 18 show aren’t expected to last long. He’s played 47 shows at the Garden since 1978, and set a record when he sold out 12 consecutive shows back in 2006.

    Joel is talking up her Cafe Carlyle gig on Instagram: “Guys & Dolls… Please join me for a wondrously-whimsical & intrinsically-intimate performance-showcase at ‘Cafe Carlyle’ in The Big Apple on April 1st-12th: Call OR visit their website to get your tickets today!!!”

    In 2006, Joel wrote and released a six-song EP, Sketches. At the time, she differentiated her musical style from her father’s: “It’s a bit more soulful, more blues than my dad’s. He’s more pop rock. And his piano playing is better than mine, but that’s okay. I don’t want to be the Piano Girl. ”

    The singer released her single “Notice Me” in May 2010. She followed that up with a residency at The Plaza Hotel’s famous Oak Room from December 2010 to January 2011.

    Mom Christie Brinkley is proud of her daughter’s upcoming musical engagement:

    Post by Christie Brinkley.

    Joel is currently dating restauranteur Ryan Gleason.



    Photo via Alexa Ray Joel, Instagram

  • Billy Joel Marks 50 Years as Performer

    Billy Joel Marks 50 Years as Performer

    Billy Joel will meet a benchmark this year in his career, as 2014 will be the star’s 50th year performing.

    It has been nearly two decades since the last time Joel released a new album, but the musician is still headlining sell-out shows; Madison Square Garden recently named a new “franchise” for their company, “Billy Joel at the Garden,” which began running out of tickets within minutes. “Billy Joel at the Garden” is an unlimited-show tour (that began January 27) in which the star will perform concerts at the Garden and other venues across the nation.

    Tickets for the nine shows already scheduled at Madison Square Garden were claimed in a record-breaking amount of time. Passes to watch Joel at the other US venues – including Chicago’s Wrigley Field, the Nationals Stadium in Washington, and the three-night Hollywood Bowl – sold-out rapidly, as well.

    Joel, 64, says that he got his start as a musician by playing in a piano bar and performing with various bands throughout his teenage and early-adult years.

    The “Piano Man” does admit, however, that not many people had much faith in his determination and desire to earn a living while making music.

    Joel related to Billboard that when he would say, “‘I’m gonna be a musician,’” people would respond by telling him, “‘You’re crazy, you’re gonna starve, you’re gonna be poor, a drug addict, go to jail, you’ll never make it, there’s too much competition, it’s a terrible business, etc.’”

    However, one person made a difference in the aspiring star’s life, as well as in the fate of American pop culture.

    According to Joel, “My chorus teacher in high school said, ‘You’ve got what it takes to be a really good professional musician, you should consider it.’ That was an epiphany for me.”

    While music – on most any type of instrument – came naturally to Joel, he says that being a “rock star,” did not; in fact, he attributes the majority of his success in the industry to the singer/songwriter phenomenon that was happening when he was first pursuing a career as a musician.

    “I started just concentrating on songwriting when I was abut 20; I’d been in rock bands six or seven years, kinda got that out of my system. I said, ‘Okay, you ain’t gonna be a rock star, you don’t look like a rock star, it probably ain’t gonna happen. So what you should do is write songs and maybe other people will do your songs.’ I just felt like I had something to write, and the advice I got from the music business people that I knew was, ‘Okay, now you should probably make an album of your songs.’ Get a record deal, make an album. This just happened to coincide with the era of the singer/songwriter. You had James Taylor, Jackson Browne, JD Souther, Joni Mitchell, singer/songwriters. So I got a record deal—a terrible record deal—made a record, and then the advice I got was, ‘Now you should go out on the road and perform and support the album.’ There I was, still 20 years old, so I went out on tours, didn’t get paid nothin’, but played, and it kinda turned into this ‘Billy Joel pop star/rock star guy,’ which to this day is still kinda funny to me, because that’s not at all what I set out to do. I’m not gonna disown it, it’s the best job I ever had, but it ended up happening kind of randomly.”

    Joel’s first album, Cold Spring Harbor, was released in 1971, and met with a disappointing amount of success. However, Harbor would later become the prologue to a staggeringly-successful career; Piano Man, Joel’s sophomore record released in 1973, earned the musician a Top 20 single, landing Joel on the musical map.

    Billy would go on to make numerous albums throughout the next three decades, and earn many different honors denoting success in his career at events such as the Grammy Awards and the People’s Choice Awards.

    In 1999, Billy Joel’s all-time record sales surpassed $100 million, an achievement few musical artists are ever able to attain; in December 2013, the singer was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors, a title that is reserved for an elite, select-few number of professionals who have experienced monumental success.

    In addition to the national “tour” Joel is embarking upon, he also recently appeared in a televised special on Showtime, Billy Joel: A Matter of Trust – The Bridge to Russia, a documentary about Joel that depicts the frenzy that surrounded his 1987 trip to the former Soviet Union. The film premiered on Showtime on January 31.

    Main image courtesy of minds-eye via Wikimedia Commons.

  • Watch Miley Sing at iHeartRadio: Live Stream Tonight

    If you’re a tad bummed that you didn’t snag tickets to tonight’s sold-out show at Madison Square Garden in New York City, don’t fret! You can still partake in the awesome, twerk-tastic fun all the way from your couch because the show is being live streamed. So pull out those Christmas pajamas and pop some popcorn because it’s going to be a fun night.

    The festive show features performances from Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Enrique Iglesias, Paramore, Pitbull, Austin Mahone and Jason Derulo.

    This is the first-ever iHeartRadio Jingle Ball national tour. The exciting, new show commenced in Dallas on Dec. 2.

    The two-hour concert special will air Dec. 18 at 8PM EST. Yahoo will offer live stream video of the show beginning at 8 p.m. EST, 5 p.m. EST.

    Here’s a little sneak at what’s in store from Miss. Miley
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVoQiM9wJ9w

    Photo Credit: YouTube