Newcastle-born singer-songwriter Sam Fender has announced three stadium headline shows for next summer in support of his forthcoming album, People Watching.

The CAA-repped act will perform at the 75,000-capacity London Stadium on Friday 6 June, marking his first stadium show outside Newcastle and his biggest-ever headline show.

He’ll then return to the north for two hometown shows at Newcastle’s St. James’ Park on Thursday 12 and Saturday 14 June.

It’ll be the third and fourth time the North Shields-hailing musician has performed in his home city stadium, having sold out two nights back in 2023. He will overtake The Rolling Stones who have performed at St James’ Park on three previous occasions.

CMAT will support Fender at all three shows, and The War on Drugs will play on 6 and 14 June.

Next month, the 30-year-old will embark on his first UK tour since spring 2022, along with a slate of arena dates across Europe.

Sam Fender will deliver his first stadium show outside Newcastle and his biggest-ever headline show at London Stadium

Oasis have announced South Korea and Japan dates for their eagerly anticipated 2025 reunion tour.

Liam and Noel Gallagher will perform at the Goyang Stadium in South Korea on 21 October, as well as two shows in Japan at the Tokyo Dome on 25 and 26 October.

Since confirming their return to the stage earlier this year, the brothers have announced stadium gigs in the UK and Ireland, followed by a string of dates in North America.

They’ll then return for two extra dates at London’s Wembley Stadium in late September, before heading to Australia for shows in Melbourne and Sydney and then playing further dates in South America.

Meanwhile, Charli XCX today announced a run of US arena dates for next April and May, following her joint headline run with Troye Sivan on the 2024 SWEAT Tour.

Produced by Live Nation, the BRAT 2025 arena tour will stop at Moody Center (Austin, TX), Target Center (Minneapolis, MN), Allstate Arena (Rosemont, IL) and Barclays Center (Brooklyn, NY) for two dates. Her UK arena tour is due to kick off next week.

Shakira has announced a seventh and final date at the Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City as part of her historic Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour.

With this announcement, she becomes the first artist in Mexico’s history to sell out seven consecutive shows at the 65,000-capacity venue. The Colombian star has already sold over 1 million tickets in Latin America alone.

Shakira becomes the first artist in Mexico’s history to sell out seven consecutive shows at Estadio GNP Seguros

Last month, the 47-year-old upgraded from arenas to stadiums in several markets in response to “incredible fan demand and production changes”.

Rod Stewart has announced that he is done with “large-scale world tours” when his current run of dates is complete.

The music legend has a number of shows locked in for 2025, including North American tours in February/March, Las Vegas residencies in March and May/June, a European tour in April/May and another North American tour in July/August.

Now, he has confirmed that these shows will be the final major arena shows of his career in a post on social media.

“This will be the end of large-scale world tours for me, but I have no desire to retire,” he said.

“I’d like to move onto a Great American Songbook, Swing Fever tour the year after next – smaller venues and more intimacy. But then again, I may not…”

And finally, Childish Gambino has announced the cancellation of his Australian and New Zealand tour dates next year.

Gambino – aka Donald Glover – was due to perform in New Zealand in late January 2024 and Australia in February.

“Unfortunately, my path to recovery is taking longer than expected,” he explained in a statement. “Know that I will do what I can to give you an exceptional experience when the time is right.”

The cancellation comes after Gambino in October similarly cancelled his North American, UK and European tour dates to undergo surgery for an undisclosed issue.

The tour and it’s subsequent cancellation followed the release of his new album Bando Stone and The New World, which was released earlier this year and marked the final album under his Childish Gambino moniker.

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American rapper Childish Gambino has cancelled the remaining North American and European dates of his The New World Tour due to reported health complications.

The AEG Presents-promoted tour was set to span three continents across 56 shows, bringing the star to arenas in North America, Europe, and Oceania until February 2025. After 18 shows, Gambino (real name Donald Glover) postponed the remaining North American dates in August before scrapping the NA and European legs on Friday (4 October).

“After my show in New Orleans, I went to the hospital in Houston to make sure of an ailment that had become apparent. After being assessed, it became clear I would not perform that night, and after more tests, I could not perform the rest of the US tour in the time asked. As of now I have surgery scheduled and need time out to heal.

“My path to recovery is something I need to confront seriously. With that said, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the remainder of the North American tour and the UK and European dates. Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase. I want nothing more than to bring this show to the fans and perform. Until then, thanks for love, privacy, and support,” Gambino said online.

His third headlining tour, The New World Tour was set to be a farewell tour to the Childish Gambino pseudonym

It is unclear whether the performer’s Oceania leg, which is set to kick off on 28 January 2025 at New Zealand’s Spark Arena (cap. 12,000), will go ahead. Following the first round of postponements, tour promoters Frontier Touring confirmed to The Music that the leg would still go on as planned, but have not issued a statement following the latest round of cancellations.

Gambino launched the outing in August at Oklahoma City’s Paycom Center (cap. 16,591) and played the first 18 shows before postponing his 8 September show at Houston’s Toyota Center due to the undisclosed ailment. The following day, the This is America singer shelved the remaining 15 shows on the North American leg to prioritise his physical health.

“Unfortunately I have to postpone the rest of the North American tour to focus on my physical health for a few weeks,” he said at the time. “Hold onto your tickets. ALL tickets will be honoured for the upcoming dates in North America when they are rescheduled.”

Less than a month before he was due out for the European leg, the 41-year-old has called off the next 33 shows of the tour, with the final five still up in the air.

His third headlining tour, The New World Tour was set to be a farewell tour to the Childish Gambino pseudonym. Glover rereleased his fourth studio album 3.15.20 as Atavista this May, followed by his final record, the film soundtrack album Bando Stone & the New World, in July.

Childish Gambino is represented by Brent Smith at Wasserman Music worldwide.

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The first weekend of Goldenvoice’s California-based festival took place from Friday 12 to Sunday 14 April, with headline performances from Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and Ariana Grande.

Tickets for weekend one of the 125,00-capacity festival sold out in just forty minutes this year. Here’s what ticket holders experienced over Coachella’s opening weekend…

Performances
Ariana  Grande broke records as Coachella’s youngest-ever headliner, whereas Blackpink became the first all-female K-pop group to play at the festival.

Grande appeared on stage with a host of guests including *Nsync (without Justin Timberlake), Diddy, Mase and Nicky Minaj. Technical difficulties related to microphones affected Grande’s set, along with that of other performances over the weekend.

Donald Glover, who performs as Childish Gambino, was one among several acts to pay tribute to the late rappers Nipsey Hussle and Mac Miller.

Gambino also used the festival to premier the film Guava Island, in which he stars alongside Rhianna. The film is available to stream for free via the Coachella YouTube channel and Amazon Prime for the duration of the festival.

New additions
Coachella debuted its new augmented reality (AR) experience over the weekend at its AR-enabled Sahara Tent stage, where acts including Jaden Smith, Kid Cudi, Whiz Khalifa and Diplo performed.

“We want to provide fun and cutting edge experiences for the people who attend the show”

Fans were able to access AR filters through their phones using the Coachella Camera page of the festival app, superimposing outer space-themed objects onto the festival stage and throughout the tent. Festivalgoers could also save photos and videos of the AR experience.

“We want to provide fun and cutting edge experiences for the people who attend the show,” says a Goldenvoice spokesperson. “During sets, attendees can use a number of different AR filters that react to the audio coming out of the speakers.”

Another new addition at this year’s Coachella came in the form of on-site Amazon Lockers, enabling attendees to order festival-approved items including food products, phone chargers and suncream straight to the lockers on the Empire Polo Club grounds.

Health and safety
A fire broke out in a shower block located in the festival’s campsite, causing panic and distress among festivalgoers, many of whom posted videos of the incident on social media.

Firefighters attended the scene to quench the flames, containing the blaze within half an hour. One trailer was damaged and another destroyed. No injuries were reported.

The incident follows the death of the festival’s lead rigger during set-up on Saturday 6 April.

Coachella is back for weekend two from 19 to 21 April.

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American data scientists correctly predicted Childish Gambino’s song of the year win at the 61st Grammy Awards, held at Staples Center in Los Angeles last night (10 February).

Using its machine learning platform, Boston, Massachusetts-based DataRobot analysed all Grammy song of the year winners since 1959, identifying common traits – including the genre of the song, amount of profanity, general sentiment, total word count and various audio features derived from Spotify, such as tempo, time signature, key and duration – to determine this year’s most likely victor.

After six minutes, during which the artificial intelligence (AI) generated 140 data models, DataRobot’s Taylor Larkins established the best model, which “performed about 44% better than randomly guessing during my testing period [from 2012–2018],” he explains.

“Machine learning … can have applications well beyond the traditional ones we are used to seeing in fields such as banking or insurance”

This model correctly predicted Gambino’s ‘This is America’ as most likely song of the year candidate, with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s ‘Shallow’, from A Star is Born, as a close runner-up (screenshot courtesy of DataRobot):

“With this experiment, we’re demonstrating that machine learning cannot only be fun but can also have applications well beyond the traditional ones we are used to seeing in fields such as banking or insurance,” explains Larkin.

“The music industry could tap into its potential, studying what makes a song successful and understanding why people listen to the songs that they do. With the volume of great music being produced, having quick insights into song popularity could be another tool to help musicians and music producers to refine their expertise.”

Kacey Musgraves won the Grammy for album of the year, for Golden Hour, with Dua Lipa taking home the prize for best new artist. Gaga and Cooper’s ‘Shallow’, meanwhile, won best pop duo/group performance.

See the full list of winners at the Recording Academy website.

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Tickets for April’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2019 went on sale at 11 am PST on Friday 4 January. General admission passes for weekend one of the mega-festival had sold out just 40 minutes later, Billboard reports.

A post on the Coachella Twitter account announced that all remaining passes for both weekends of the festival, including shuttle and VIP tickets, had sold out six hours post release.

Event promoter Goldenvoice has since declared that a limited number of additional tickets will be available for purchase by local residents of Coachella Valley, on sale in early February. Buyers must reside in one of a small number of local post codes and will be able to buy just two tickets per weekend.

“General admission passes for weekend one of the mega-festival sold out in just 40 minutes”

Despite seemingly speedy sales, figures are down in comparison with previous years. Tickets for the 2017 and 2018 editions of Coachella sold out in half the time of this year’s batch, with all passes purchased after just three hours.

The festival will take place over two consecutive three-day weekends from 12 April. General admission tickets cost US$429, whereas weekend VIP tickets set buyers back just one dollar short of $1,000.

The 2019 festival will see headliners Childish Gambino, Ariana Grande and Tame Impala perform to fans in the heat of the California desert. It is a year of firsts for the increasingly pop-orientated event, as Grande will become the youngest-ever artist to headline the festival, and the fourth woman to do so.

The subject of headliners has proved controversial this year. Kanye West is believed to have dropped out of the billing in objection to stage restrictions, while Justin Timberlake is similarly rumoured to have backed out of his festival appearance following a persistent vocal cord injury.

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Goldenvoice has announced the line-up for April’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2019.

Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and Ariana Grande will headline both weekends of the 125,000-capacity mega-festival, which returns to the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, on 12–14 April and 19–21 April.

Other notable performers include Janelle Monáe (pictured), the 1975, Khalid, Diplo, Weezer, Aphex Twin, Zed, Billie Eilish, Bassnectar and Christine and the Queens.

According to US gossip site TMZ (so take with a hefty pinch of salt), Kanye West pulled out at the last minute after a dispute over the size of the festival’s stages.

“It’s not the boomers’ Coachella anymore”

The 2019 line-up sees Coachella – widely regarded as marking the beginning of the international festival season – continuing the youth-focused booking philosophy demonstrated by last year’s Beyoncé-headlined event, with music industry pundit Bob Lefsetz writing in his popular Lefsetz Letter column that the bill is “an extremely accurate picture of what’s happening in music today, when it’s less about gravitas than social media presence, when the album is secondary to the single – when it’s not about history but today.”

“It’s not the boomers’ Coachella anymore, nor the Gen-Xers,” he adds.

Coachella 2019 tickets are on sale tomorrow (Friday 4 January) from Coachella.com, with single-weekend general admission passes starting at US$429.

See the full line-up below:

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