Cassyette and Bryan Adams took the stage together at Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus in Sheffield and turned Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” into something entirely their own. The pairing works better than it has any right to, with Cassyette’s raw edge meeting Adams’ road-tested authority in a live performance that crackles from start to finish. It’s bold, it’s loose in the best way, and it’s the kind of spontaneous collaboration that reminds you why live music still wins.
Video: Dire Straits’ Mandela Concert 1988 Gets a Stunning Widescreen Upgrade Worth Your Full Attention
The 1988 Mandela concert at Wembley Stadium was one of those days that mattered beyond the music, and Dire Straits showed up and delivered one of their greatest live performances on that stage. Now, thanks to a meticulous reframing and enhancement job by Yann Stratosound, the full concert is back in an almost 16:9 widescreen format with upgraded image and audio quality, making it the most immersive way to experience this footage yet. It’s not a native widescreen source, but the careful reframe preserves everything that made the original essential while finally giving it the fullscreen treatment it deserves.
Pink Floyd’s Last Stand: Four Legends, One Stage, One Last Time In 2005
Twenty-four years is a long time. That’s how long it had been since Pink Floyd shared a stage as a quartet before July 2, 2005, when David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright walked out together at London’s Live 8 concert and made history one more time. Four songs, “Speak to Me/Breathe,” “Money,” “Wish You Were Here,” and “Comfortably Numb,” delivered with the kind of weight that only comes from musicians who built something together decades earlier. It was one of Richard Wright’s final major performances before his passing in 2008, and knowing that now makes the whole thing land even harder.
Country-Pop Duo 2 Lane Summer Arrive With a Debut Album Built on Love, Faith, and Harmony
2 Lane Summer’s debut album ‘Flawless’ is out now via QHMG/Quartz Hill Records, and it arrives as one of country-pop’s most warmly intentioned debut statements in recent memory. Joe Hanson and Chris Ray have put together 12 tracks that celebrate love in its fullest sense, romantic, brotherly, and faith-based, without ever losing the melodic sharpness that makes the songs stick. Produced by Ash Bowers, the record pairs raw emotional honesty with clean, bright country-pop production and the duo’s signature vocal harmonies that Billboard has called “bold and beautiful.” Listen here.
The two men behind 2 Lane Summer took different roads to Nashville, Hanson from Illinois, Ray from Mississippi, but found each other in Music Row writing rooms where their voices and musical backgrounds turned out to be a near-perfect match. Both grew up singing in church, both came up as multi-instrumentalists, and when they started harmonizing together, the case for a duo was immediately obvious. They co-wrote nine of ‘Flawless’s’ 12 tracks, working alongside some of Music City’s most trusted names in the craft.
The title track anchors the album with a heartfelt promise, a man telling his partner she’s beautiful even when the mirror and the world are telling her otherwise. It’s co-written by Hanson and Ray alongside Houston Phillips and Kyle Schlienger, and it captures the album’s central warmth without a wasted word. Elsewhere, “Known for Loving You” delivers a roll-the-windows-down summer groove, “Life is Good” leans into banjo-driven singalong energy, and closer “Keeps Me Falling” wraps the record in an up-tempo, danceable celebration of enduring love.
Ray explained the album’s title with straightforward conviction: “We all have insecurities and, being human, we all struggle with that. But we want to uplift people with this album and want people to know we’re right there with you.” That message has already connected: the duo has surpassed 800,000 social media followers and 20 million catalog streams, and their music has inspired fans to invite them to perform at weddings and engagement proposals across the U.S.
‘Flawless’ Tracklist:
- “Known for Loving You”
- “Flawless”
- “Here’s to You”
- “Life is Good”
- “Made by Him”
- “Chances”
- “First Dancin’ (Forever Version)”
- “When You Love Somebody”
- “No Going Back”
- “Til I Found You”
- “Eyes That Ain’t Yours”
- “Keeps Me Falling”
Braxton Keith’s “Don’t No More” Proves He’s as Good at Heartbreak as He Is at a Good Time
Braxton Keith has spent the early stretch of 2026 proving he can do just about anything country music asks of him. Today he adds another dimension with “Don’t No More,” a wistful, aching ballad co-written with Liz Rose and John Pierce that moves slowly through sepia-toned memories of lost love, carried by swirling mandolin and steel guitar. It’s the kind of sad song that reminds you why sad songs matter in country music. Listen here.
Keith put it plainly: “‘Don’t No More’ is one of my favorite songs, it’s one of those story songs that you can close your eyes and see the whole storyline playing out vividly. Sad songs are just such a big part of what country music is to me. It’s a lot of telling the truth.” That directness is all over the track, and it arrives as one of the stronger previews yet of his debut album ‘Real Damn Deal,’ due May 15 via Warner Records Nashville.
Produced by Alex Torrez and David Dorn, ‘Real Damn Deal’ features 15 tracks, 10 of them co-written by Keith, circling the full range of country tradition with his crisp, high-and-lonesome vocal twang. Earlier singles have already drawn serious attention: “Little Bit by Little Bit” earned praise from All Country News, “I Ain’t Tryin'” had Whiskey Riff calling him “the perfect cowboy casanova,” and “I Own This Bar” landed as a genuine barstool anthem. Named one of “2026’s Artists to Watch” by both Amazon Music and Rolling Stone, the momentum is real and building fast.
This weekend, Keith makes his Stagecoach debut with sets on both the Palomino Stage and Bud Light Stage on Saturday, April 25. From there, he performs at ACM Next Wave: Country’s Beach Bash on May 16, then hits CMA Fest on June 6 at the Chevy Riverfront Stage. His THIS AIN’T MY FIRST TOUR continues with sold-out headlining dates across the country, and a fall run with Gavin Adcock is already confirmed. Last year, Keith logged over 130 shows, made his Grand Ole Opry debut, and earned his first RIAA Gold certification for “Cozy.” ‘Real Damn Deal’ is available to pre-save and pre-order now, including an Amazon exclusive vinyl with a bonus cover of George Strait’s “The Chair.”
The Legend of Vox Machina Returns June 3 With Its Darkest Season Yet
The Legend of Vox Machina is back, and Season Four looks like the one that puts everything on the line. Prime Video dropped the official trailer today, and it’s immediately clear that the stakes have been raised considerably. A long-slumbering evil has awakened, Vox Machina has scattered in search of love, family, and purpose, and now they have to pull it back together to face the most challenging foe the group has encountered across four seasons.
The series premieres June 3 on Prime Video with a three-episode weekly rollout, available in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. All three previous seasons hold a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, a consistency that’s genuinely rare for any animated series, let alone one with this scope and ambition.
The full Critical Role founding cast returns, with Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Matthew Mercer, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham all reprising their roles as executive producers and voice cast. Joining them are previously announced voice actors Wayne Brady, Kevin Michael Richardson, Debra Wilson, and Tom Cardy. The series is produced by Amazon MGM Studios, Critical Role, and Titmouse, the animation studio behind Big Mouth, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and The Venture Bros.
YOSHIKI Brings a Cinematic National Anthem to Dodger Stadium Before a Summer Walt Disney Concert Hall Run
YOSHIKI is taking the field at Dodger Stadium on April 27 for Japanese Heritage Night presented by Daiso, performing his own arrangement of the U.S. national anthem before the Los Angeles Dodgers face the Miami Marlins. For a composer and pianist who has sold more than 50 million records and been named to the TIME100: Most Influential People of 2025, it’s the kind of high-profile moment that fits naturally into a career built on scale and spectacle.
YOSHIKI described his approach with characteristic ambition: “I am approaching this rendition as a cinematic fusion, blending a modern, cutting-edge aesthetic with a classical operatic foundation, all while maintaining the utmost respect for the anthem’s tradition.” That combination of reverence and reinvention is exactly what you’d expect from one of Japanese rock’s most celebrated figures.
The Dodger Stadium appearance sets up a bigger return. YOSHIKI headlines Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on July 16 and 17 as part of his “Classical 2026” concert series, with the two nights titled “Scarlet Night” and “Violet Night” respectively. Each performance features a different setlist, making both nights distinct experiences. The shows mark his return to the U.S. stage following his third cervical spine surgery in late 2024. Tickets are on sale now.
LCD Soundsystem Hits the Road This Summer With Red Rocks, Feist, and Victoryland in Tow
LCD Soundsystem is back on the road this summer, and the routing is exactly as good as you’d hope. The New York dance-punk institution has announced a run of North American dates that stretches from a four-night residency at Roadrunner in Boston through a September appearance at Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta, with two nights at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado as the centrepiece. Last August, they grossed nearly $975,000 at Red Rocks off 8,852 tickets sold. Demand is not in question.
Victoryland supports on select dates, with Feist joining for the two Red Rocks nights. The summer run kicks off August 7 at Freedom Mobile Arch in Vancouver before moving through two nights at McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater in Troutdale, stops at KettleHouse Amphitheater in Bonner, Montana, The Armory in Minneapolis, and a three-night stand at College Street Music Hall in New Haven. The fall stretch brings the tour to Portland’s Thompson’s Point, Hellbender in Asheville, and the Shaky Knees Festival closer in Atlanta.
General on-sale begins May 1 at 10 a.m. local time. An artist presale opens April 28 at 10 a.m. Tickets and full details at lcdsoundsystem.com.
LCD Soundsystem 2026 North American Tour Dates:
April 30 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner
May 1 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner
May 2 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner
May 3 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner
May 23 – Napa, CA – BottleRock Napa Valley
May 24 – Reno, NV – Grand Theatre
Aug. 7 – Vancouver, BC – Freedom Mobile Arch*
Aug. 8 – Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater*
Aug. 9 – Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater*
Aug. 12 – Bonner, MT – KettleHouse Amphitheater*
Aug. 13 – Bonner, MT – KettleHouse Amphitheater*
Aug. 15 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre*^
Aug. 16 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre*^
Aug. 18 – Minneapolis, MN – The Armory*
Aug. 22 – Pasadena, CA – Just Like Heaven
Sept. 9 – Portland, ME – Thompson’s Point*
Sept. 10 – New Haven, CT – College Street Music Hall*
Sept. 11 – New Haven, CT – College Street Music Hall*
Sept. 12 – New Haven, CT – College Street Music Hall*
Sept. 17 – Asheville, NC – Hellbender*
Sept. 20 – Atlanta, GA – Shaky Knees Festival
*with Victoryland ^with Feist
Ontario’s Anti-Scalping Law: I Want It to Work. Here’s Why I’m Not Sure It Will.
I want to be clear about something before I say anything else: I get it. I really do.
When Blue Jays fans were paying $16,000 for World Series tickets last fall, something was broken. When a family of four can’t afford to see their favourite artist without taking out a second mortgage on their summer, something is wrong. The frustration that drove Ontario Premier Doug Ford to this legislation is completely legitimate, and the instinct to protect fans from being gouged is one I share deeply.
I work in this industry. I’ve watched people get priced out of live music for years (original ticket price not included, that’s a whole other side). Nothing about what follows is a defence of scalpers.
But here’s where I find myself, quietly, honestly, trying to make sense of whether this new law actually helps the people it’s meant to help.
We’ve been here before.
In 2017, Ontario passed broadly similar legislation, capping resale at 50 per cent above face value. It felt like progress. It was celebrated. Then the Ford government shelved it in 2018, with their own spokesperson calling it “unenforceable.” Their words, not mine.
What’s changed since then to make a stricter version of that same law, a full face-value cap this time, suddenly workable? I’ve been looking for that answer and I haven’t found it yet. The internet is the same. The global platforms are the same. The scalpers operating from outside Ontario’s borders are the same. I’m genuinely asking, not rhetorically: what’s different now?
The part that worries me most is where the tickets go.
Capping prices on regulated platforms doesn’t make high-demand tickets less desirable. It just moves the transaction somewhere less safe.
When a Ticketmaster or StubHub resale listing has to be priced at face value, the economic incentive for those platforms to operate a secure, fraud-protected marketplace disappears. And when those regulated options shrink, the tickets don’t disappear. They show up on Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji, in DMs, in cash deals outside venues. Places with no buyer protection, no fraud guarantees, no recourse if the ticket turns out to be fake.
Richard Powers at the Rotman School of Business said it plainly: without a profit incentive, legitimate platforms will pull back, and that will push sales toward the unregulated market. StubHub said the same thing when the law was being debated, that price caps “expose fans to a massive increase in ticket fraud, but don’t bring costs down.”
I don’t love defending resale platforms. But a fan losing $300 to a scammer on Kijiji is a worse outcome than a fan paying $50 over face value on a platform with a money-back guarantee.
The fines aren’t built to actually deter anyone.
The law sets penalties of up to $10,000 for businesses that break the rules. I understand why that number is in there. But a professional broker clearing tens of thousands of dollars on a single FIFA World Cup match isn’t lying awake at night worrying about a $10,000 cap. And many of the platforms doing the selling are headquartered outside Ontario, which makes enforcement even more complicated.
Manitoba has had anti-scalping legislation for years. Quebec too. Both provinces will tell you enforcement has been difficult at best. Ontario hasn’t shown us the infrastructure that would make this work differently here.
The deeper issue this law doesn’t address.
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to. Scalpers are a symptom. The disease is primary market pricing.
Dynamic pricing. Platinum tickets. Surge pricing applied at the moment of the original sale, before a ticket ever reaches the secondary market. A ticket that starts at $400 on Ticketmaster didn’t get expensive because of scalpers. It got expensive at the source.
Ontario’s law caps what you can charge when you resell. It does nothing about what Ticketmaster charges you when you buy. And it’s worth noting, carefully, that Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, was among the first to publicly support this legislation. A company found last week by a U.S. jury to have illegally monopolized the live music industry came out in favour of a law that limits its competitors while leaving its own primary pricing untouched. That detail deserves more scrutiny than it’s gotten.
I still hope I’m wrong.
None of this means I’m rooting against the law. I’m rooting for fans. I’m rooting for the kid who’s been saving up to see their favourite artist and deserves to pay a fair price through a safe platform. That person is who this is supposed to be for. Not the bots. Not the insiders who can re-sell that ticket for three times the original price.
But wanting something to work and believing it will work are two different things. Ontario has tried versions of this before, walked it back, and is now trying again with higher stakes and the same unresolved questions about enforcement.
The government’s heart is in the right place. The music industry needs more protection for fans, not less. I just hope the mechanisms catch up to the intention, because right now, the gap between the two is where the scalpers live.
Cowboy Troubadour Dalton Davis Freezes Time With Slow-Burning New Single “Blue”
Dalton Davis has a way of making country music feel lived-in, and his new single “Blue” is no exception. Out now via MCA/Republic Records, the track is built around slow-burning melody and vivid imagery, anchored by the refrain “It’s a blue feelin’, watchin’ you leavin’, deep as the ocean, all in slow motion.” It’s a proper country cryin’ song, and Davis knows exactly what he’s doing with it. Listen here.
Davis described the feeling precisely: “‘Blue’ is about the music and roots of what we do in country music. It’s not just sadness, it’s everything feeling heavier, quieter, and somehow frozen in time.” That stillness is all over the track, from the way the melody moves to the way the lyrics sit inside moments that won’t quite let go. It lands with the kind of raw emotional honesty that defines the best outlaw-adjacent country writing.
The North Carolina native has been building steadily since signing to MCA/Republic Records, with “Cows In The Front Yard” and “Redneck and You Know It” already establishing his voice in the conversation. Earlier this year, his song “Fireproof,” co-written by Billy Bob Thornton, Ronnie Bowman, and Mark Collie, appeared on the Landman (Songs From and Inspired By The Paramount+ Original Series) Volume II soundtrack. Davis has opened for Kameron Marlowe, Brantley Gilbert, Midland, Ashley McBryde, Gary Allan, and Dwight Yoakam, and the stage experience shows.
Dalton Davis Tour Dates:
April 25 – Columbus, OH – Ohio Stadium (Luke Combs Pre Show Tailgate)
June 25 – Cadott, WI – Hoofbeat Country Fest
August 28 – Ocala, FL – Rock The Country Ocala
September 11 – Hamburg, NY – Erie County Fairgrounds