Roger Hodgson Returns This Weekend With Breakfast In America Summer Tour

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Fresh on the heels of sold-out performances earlier this year in the U.S., South America, and Europe, Roger Hodgson, co-founder and original singer-songwriter from Supertramp, brings his Breakfast in America tour back to the United States.

Hodgson’s 34 date U.S. tour resumes on August 5 in Park City, Utah - marking his first major national U.S. tour since his departure from Supertramp in 1983.

Many may not know his name but would instantly recognize his voice and the classic hits he wrote and composed such as, “The Logical Song,”  “Breakfast in America,” “Give a Little Bit,”  “Dreamer,” “School,” “Take the Long Way Home,” “It's Raining Again,” and “Fool's Overture,” -  and other fan favorites including “Hide in Your Shell,” “Child of Vision,” “Don't Leave Me Now,”  and “Lord is it Mine.”

Uniting generations at his concerts, Hodgson transports baby boomers back to their youth and gives younger generations a taste of why his heartfelt songs have endured. Audiences are once again experiencing the magic and spirit that Hodgson created with Supertramp, a global success that resulted in sales of over 60 million albums.

For his U.S. Breakfast in America tour, Hodgson will be accompanied by a four piece band and promises an assortment of the classics he wrote and originally recorded with Supertramp, as well as select highlights such as “Only Because of You,” and “Lovers in the Wind” from his five solo album releases.  Hodgson’s latest CD,  “Classics Live,” is available through iTunes, Topspin or from the Roger Hodgson Store.

BREAKFAST IN AMERICA U.S. DATES:

8/5 - Park City, UT - Deer Valley Resort Amphitheater
8/9 - Snoqualmie, WA - Mt. View Plaza, Snoqualmie Casino
8/10 - Portland, OR - Oregon Zoo Amphitheater
8/11- Brooks, CA - Cache Creek Casino
8/12 - Saratoga, CA - Saratoga Mountain Winery
8/16 - Hampton Beach, NH - Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
8/17 - Lincoln, RI - Twin River Casino
8/18 - Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata Music Box
8/21 - Lewiston, NY - Art Park
8/23 - Highland Park, IL - Ravinia Pavilion
8/24 - Blue Ash, OH - Blue Ash Town Square
8/25 - Chautauqua, NY - Chautauqua Institute Amphitheater
9/16 - Newport Beach, CA - Taste of Newport
9/18 - San Diego, CA - Humphreys
10/26 - Rancho Mirage, CA - Agua Caliente
10/27 - Modesto, CA - Gallo PAC, Mary Stuart Rogers
11/1 - Glenside, PA - Keswick Theatre
11/2 - Westbury, NY - Westbury Theatre
11/3 - Ridgefield, CT - Ridgefield Playhouse
11/7 - Englewood, NJ - Bergen PAC
11/8 - Morristown, NJ - Mayo PAC
11/9 - Shippensburg, PA - Shippensburg University
11/13 - Carmel, IN - Center for the Performing Arts

• For complete information on Summer and Fall concerts go to: http://www.rogerhodgson.com/documents/tour.html
• Click here for a video montage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzrd3PmVCkw
• Roger Hodgson Website - www.RogerHodgson.com
• Official Facebook - www.facebook.com/RogerHodgsonOfficial
• Official Twitter - www.twitter.com/RogerHodgson
• Official YouTube Channel - www.YouTube.com/MrRogerHodgson

San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival Sells Out

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Another Planet Entertainment and Superfly Presents have announced that the 2012 Outside Lands festival has sold out. Tickets are no longer available on line and will not be available on site during the weekend of the festival. Please do not come to the festival unless you have a ticket.

The fifth annual Outside Lands, which will feature Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Stevie Wonder and Jack White among dozens of others, takes place in San Francisco's historic Golden Gate Park August 10 - 12, 2012. A significant portion of every ticket sold directly benefited San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department.

The Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival has become a cherished event that the city of San Francisco has embraced as fans from across the country flock to spend a incomparable weekend in one of America's greatest parks.

Each year, festival organizers ensure that every facet of the event highlights the Bay Area and all of the components that make it one of the most desirable places to live and visit. They also like to the say thank you to the city and the local communities surrounding the park by giving back in substantial ways, raising over $4.3 million in the first four years for the San Francisco Recreation And Park Department.

Last year alone, the festival had a $60 million impact on the city as a whole. Outside Lands would like to thank its partners Heineken, PayPal, AT&T, Toyota, eSurance, StubHub, Intel and Sierra Nevada. For a complete list of partners, please our website, sfoutsidelands.com. Festival organizers would also like to thank the fans, the San Francisco Recreation & Park Department and the City and County of San Francisco.

Tom Petty Performs At Scammed Groom's Wedding

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You'd think that a groom with enough spare cash around to spring for Tom Petty to perform at his wedding would be pretty savvy about scam artists. But no one is immune from thieves, and when Brian Valentine, a senior VP with Amazon.com thought he had in fact booked the artist behind "I Won't Back Down" and "Refugee," it turned out he'd been conned, according to The Smoking Gun.

Fortunately, there's not just one, but two happy endings here.

As Valentine told FBI agents, he and his fiancee Gianna Puerini (also an Amazon employee) got engaged in 2010, at a Tom Petty concert, and decided to wed in 2012. In late 2011, Valentine "decided that he wanted to have Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers perform at his wedding as a gift to his fiancee," FBI agent Eric Petersen explained in a document obtained by The Smoking Gun.
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Research led Valentine to Chad Christopher Lund's website (lundlive.com, no longer active), which claimed he could book Run-DMC, Kansas, Ludacris and Tom Petty, among others. Lund said he talked Petty's representatives down to a mere $330,000 for the gig, and Valentine signed a contract, then wired off half of the fee -- $165,000 -- to Lund's bank account.

After a series of bogus email addresses sent by Lund to Valentine to contact Petty's management failed to pan out, Valentine tracked down Petty's actual manager, who told Valentine in an email that he "had been defrauded." So the groom went after Lund with a private investigator -- and then the FBI. So, happy ending No. 1: Lund was arrested in Illinois on Aug. 2 by the feds on felony charges.

But the real happy ending occurred in July -- when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers actually did show up at the July 21 Seattle wedding reception. According to the Facebook page of wedding planners True Colors Events, "After over a year and a half of working with an absolutely incredible couple in complete secrecy, it was beyond amazing to surprise the guests of their wedding with these amazing performances."

As The Smoking Gun reported, "The guy and his wife were the nicest people in the world," said one member of the road crew.

Foghat's Roger Earl To Be Inducted Into Blues Hall Of Fame

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Foghat's contribution to classic rock is immortalized, as they penned such classic party anthems as "Slow Ride" and "Fool for the City," both of which remain rock radio standards to this day. But the group was never shy about their blues roots and now they are being recognized for it. On Sunday, August 19th at Kenny's Castaways in New York City, Foghat drummer Roger Earl will be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Alongside Earl (who has kept Foghat going for over 40 years, while the other members either exited, took multi year breaks or sadly passed on), many other blues contributors will be inducted, including Joe Louis Walker, Steve Holley, and the Uptown Horns, among others.

The event will be hosted by the Michael Packer Blues Band, and tickets are priced at $10 each. The ceremony begins at 3pm, and Kenny's Castaways is located at 157 Bleecker Street, New York City. This legendary club will be closing its doors for good after 45 years in September.

"I’m not quite sure why I am deserving of this award because all I ever have been is a fan of the Blues and American music," explains Earl. "I kind of feel that there are so many others that are much more deserving. Lonesome Dave for one. But I do appreciate it, because hey, I am in good company."

In addition to containing unmistakable blues elements in their songs (and scoring a hit with a cover of Willie Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You"), Foghat went one step further back in 1977, when they assembled a "Foghat Blues Tribute Concert" at New York's Palladium, which included performances by such blues legends as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Paul Butterfield, Johnny Winter, Honeyboy Edwards, Pinetop Perkins, Eddie “Bluesman”  Kirkland, and Willie Big Eyes Smith among others.

“That event was the highlight of my musical career,” exclaims Earl. “We wanted to literally give something back to the blues. We were playing with these guys and hanging out backstage sharing a drink with them. It was pretty heady stuff.”
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And Foghat (who in addition to Earl, is comprised of singer/guitarist Charlie Huhn, guitarist Bryan Bassett, and bassist Craig MacGregor) remain true to the blues, as their last studio effort, 2010's Last Train Home, paid tribute to the genre, with such covers as Elmore James' “Shake Your Money Maker” and “It Hurts Me Too,” Muddy Waters' “Louisiana Blues,” and original tunes that replicated vintage blues rock sounds (“Born for the Road,” “Last Train Home,” “495 Boogie”). The album also featured Rogers’s long time friend, Eddie ‘Bluesman’ Kirkland, in one of his last recording appearances before his 2011 death.

While many rock bands have expressed their gratitude to the blues over the years, few made such an effort as Foghat to bring attention to the oft-overlooked bluesmen that helped forge rock n' roll. So it is fitting that Roger Earl will be recognized for his efforts at the Blues Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in New York City later this month.




For more information, visit the NY Blues Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Facebook.

Best Of British Rock Closes London Olympics

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American viewers didn't have a chance to see all of the closing ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics after NBC cut away to air a new sitcom, but England called on the Who for a headline performance, with support from the Spice Girls, Muse, Fatboy Slim and more.

NBC nixed performances by the Who, Ray Davies and Muse for a commercial-free airing of the new show Animal Practice, a decision that sparked no small amount of vitriol online. More's the pity: Many countries would have exhausted their star power after an event like the Olympics opening ceremony, but England showed it had plenty left in reserve when it concluded the games last night in London with "A Symphony of British Music."

The Who provided a spectacular finale to both the night and the games, playing classics like "Baba O'Riley" and "My Generation." The band was granted a multiple-song set, which was a blessing in a ceremony whose historical breadth necessitated sprints through minute-long covers of British classics and rapid-fire cultural references.

Earlier in the evening, the Spice Girls reached out to another generation entirely, reuniting for the first time since 2008. After arriving onstage in taxis, the girl group sang their Number One hits "Wannabe" and "Spice Up Your Life" in a special one-off performance not tied to any future tour.

While the opening ceremony focused on British culture in general, the closing ceremony zeroed in on music as the country's chief contribution to global culture, with appearances by British stars from Annie Lennox and Liam Gallagher to Ed Sheeran and One Direction. The ceremony's artistic director, Kim Gavin, did his best to condense roughly half a century's worth of British musical history into just a couple of hours, zig-zagging through musical history with stops in the 1980s (Madness and the Pet Shop Boys), 1990s (Fatboy Slim), 2000s and beyond (Jessie J and Tinie Tempah).

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, who has risen to prominence more recently than most of last night's acts, covered Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" with the help of an all-star backing band that consisted of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and Genesis co-founder Mike Rutherford.

To look back on earlier decades of musical history, the ceremony relied on archival performances from John Lennon and Freddie Mercury. A video of Lennon singing his call for global peace, "Imagine," played while the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir sang along. During the song, performers assembled a 3D puzzle-sculpture that formed Lennon's likeness when viewed from above. Later, footage played of Freddie Mercury leading a crowd through the opening to "Day-O" at a 1986 concert in Wembley. Afterward, Queen guitarist Brian May stepped onstage to lead the crowd through a rollicking rendition of "We Will Rock You" with the help of Jessie J.

With one visual spectacle after another, the ceremony often felt more like Broadway than a rock concert. Annie Lennox entered the stage on what can only be described as a gothic-inspired ghost ship while she sang her 1993 hit "Little Bird," and the Pet Shop Boys performed "West End Girls" among a parade of cyclists wearing polygonal neon helmets.

While the ceremony was centered around Britain's musical contributions, it dwelled briefly on other cultural objects of British pride. Models Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell strutted across the stage while David Bowie's "Fashion" played over the stadium's speakers, showcasing England as a hub of style.

Additionally, the ceremony's Union Jack-shaped stage was flecked with newsprint that displayed quotations from famous British writers like Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Dickens, while fireworks frequently shot off overhead.

Any overview of British cultural exports would be incomplete without a reference to comedy. After pantomiming a failed attempt at being launched out of a cannon, comedian Eric Idle popped right back up and burst into "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,"which found even the notoriously stone-faced British royalty whistling along.

Near the end of the closing ceremony, Brazil presented a brief musical interlude as the host of the 2016 Olympics. Rio turned to national hero Seu Jorge for a vocal performance accompanied by Brazilian Carnival-style dancing. Rio's quick burst of tropicalia served as a teaser trailer for ceremonies to come.

While the closing ceremony took place, Blur, New Order, the Specials and Bombay Bicycle Club performed in Hyde Park as part of the "Best of British" concert series that had run throughout the Olympics.