, the ’80s American rockabilly group, will return to the venue on Aug.1-2, rockin’ this town with a newly announced special guest, The English Beat.

Tickets start at $45-$125 and are now on sale to the general public at Tickets include same-day admission to the OC Fair, which runs July 19-Aug.18 at the OC Fair & Event Center.

Comedian and Emmy-winning television host Trevor Noah will bring laughs to the venue on Sunday, Aug.18.  El festival de Íconos de la Música Femenina Hispana, with performances by Paquita La Del Barrio, Lupita Infante, Jacqie Rivera and Flor de Tolache will take over on Sunday, Aug. 25. The reggae band Steel Pulse will perform on Sunday, Sept. 1 with support from The Green.

SEE ALSO:

Tickets for all shows will go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 18 at .

Last week, Pacific Amphitheatre announced alternative rock group would headline the Costa Mesa venue on Saturday, Aug.17 with support from Sweet & Tender Hooligans and The Agrrolites. Three more shows have also been added to the roster of tribute acts performing inside The Hangar at the OC Fair & Event Center, including same-day admission to the fair.

The 34th annual festival will feature eight straight hours of the performed by more than 60 Dylan-loving musicians.

“It’s obviously No. 1 about the music, and then a close second is the community that has formed around the event,” said Renee Safier, who along with her bandmate Andy Hill founded the festival. “People get to reconnect with friends from near and far and share the music that has meant so much to so many people for so many decades,” she added.

The festival began as a small Dylan-themed birthday party at the Hermosa Saloon where people wore outfits inspired by his songs. Then it became a 10-hour annual backyard party until the police shut them down. For the past decade or so it’s been an outdoor festival where hundreds of fans show up to hear some of Dylan’s best known songs as well as deep cuts and music from throughout his long career.

“The first time we did it was when turned 50 and we thought he’s so old we better honor him in some way before it’s too late. And now we’re all older than that,” Hill said.

The day of music will include bands taking the stage performing his songs while Hill and Safier’s band Hard Rain will act as the primary band playing backup music to singers belting out some of Dylan’s tunes. Fans can expect about 60 or so Dylan songs performed throughout the festival, with no song repeated.

“It’s just continuous music all day,” Safier said.

And since it all started as a costume party, people are also encouraged to come in costumes inspired by the music. So if you’re going to dress up think of songs like “Tangled Up In Blue,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” or maybe even “Hurricane.”

While the festival has obviously been a long-running success, Hill doesn’t think Dylan has ever even heard about it. So fans shouldn’t expect a surprise appearance from the singer anytime soon, especially since he’s known for skipping another pretty big honor when he won the in Literature in 2016 but didn’t attend the ceremony.

“If he couldn’t find the time to make it to Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize we doubt he’s going to come to Torrance,” Hill said with a chuckle.

Dylanfest

When: Noon- 8 p.m. May 25

Where: Torrance Arts Cultural Center, outside at the Torino Plaza, 3330 Civic Center Drive

Cost: $35 online and $40 at the door

Information:

“Ben had this idea,” says Nick Harmer, ‘s bassist since 1997 when Gibbard decided to turn his fledgling solo project into a proper band. “It was like, ‘Do you think it’s time? Do you think there’s a world where we sort of combine these things together for a celebration and do this together?’

“I think everyone in the band immediately was like, ‘I absolutely think that’s a wonderful idea,’” Harmer says. “You know, it’s a very unique accomplishment that hardly any other singer-songwriter can claim to have made. We’re all very proud of Ben for that.”

The tour that kicked off in September 2023 with Death Cab playing its album “Transatlanticism” followed by the Postal Service performing “Give Up” got extended into 2024.

But when the two groups play in Pasadena on Saturday, May 18, that will be the end of the road in the United States for this 20th anniversary celebration. If you want to see both albums played in full, this is likely your last chance without flying to Europe for a final handful of shows come summer.

Just Like Heaven also features indie acts such as , the War on Drugs, , and more, and Harmer says he and his bandmates are delighted to bring their album to Brookside at the Rose Bowl this year, too.

“We’ve been having an amazing time playing this record,” Harmer says. “I think when we were thinking about a way to sort of significantly mark the 20-year anniversary of ‘Transatlanticism,’ it’s kind of hard to isolate the success of it in 2003 from the success of “Give Up’ that Ben also wrote and released in 2003.

“Those two records, while they’re different projects, and certainly, we’ve done our best over the years to keep them separate in people’s minds as much possible, they still are very much related because of the central mind that they’re coming out of.

“And the response has been phenomenal. I don’t think I quite expected how strong of a response we would get for a record that we made so long ago. But it’s really nice to play this each night and realize how these songs have continued to live and find people over the years.

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Harmer talked about old memories the tour has stirred, the unique blend of Death Cab and the Postal Service on tour as well as the impact of “The OC” television series, which also debuted in 2003, on Death Cab’s rising popularity and more.

Q: Diving back into ‘Transatlanticism’ must have reconnected you to memories. What stands out?

A: Playing this record is as close to stepping into a time machine as I think I’ll ever get in my life. There’s so much that you don’t even think you have in your mind, or that you’re carrying with you, that suddenly a certain phrase in a song or a moment of playing will trigger some buried memory.

It’s been kind of a constant wash of these feelings and emotions and remembering who I was, and who we were when we made the record, and then reflecting on how much growth and evolution has happened since then.

Q: Any specific example?

A: Just like how my relationships to the songs have changed. Take a song like ‘Passenger Seat’ on the album. When we wrote and recorded that song and played it in 2003, that song was very much a love song. A pretty straightforward romantic song about driving with a partner.

But in the fall tour – I have a daughter now who’s 9 – I had this weird feeling where suddenly my relationship with the song, it’s like someday I’m going to be old and I’m going to be in a car and she’s going to be the one driving me from someplace we were together. Maybe a dinner or a medical appointment or something.

My relationship to the song completely changed in an instant, and I was overcome with emotion in a new way that I’ve never even processed. So it’s kind of fun that the songs can change for us as we move along. They’re, in some ways, fixed in a period of time, but they’re also these kinds of living things that ask to be re-interfaced with.

Q: Just to fact check – you made ‘Transatlanticism’ after Ben (and producer-keyboardist Jimmy Tamborello and singer Jenny Lewis) had done the Postal Service record?

A: Yes, he had been writing all of the material for both of the records concurrently. It just so happened that as he was in the demoing process he started mailing stuff back and forth to Jimmy and that record came together first. And then we were recording while they were prepping that record for release.

Q: So when Ben was doing the Postal Service, what was the reaction within Death Cab? I’d imagine some bands might be nervous about their singer-songwriter working on a different project.

A: We were all very cool with it. We had a long history in this band of encouraging members to kind of moonlight and do other projects on the side in between Death Cab stuff. And Ben was always clear with us that this was never going to be something that was going to become his (main group).

Death Cab’s always been Ben’s sort of vehicle. It’s been his center. So there was no world where the Postal Service suddenly was going to be his new thing and Death Cab wasn’t.

The fact that (‘Give Up) went on to be a runaway hit I think surprised everyone, including Ben. Certainly there was some adjustment period where some fans were coming to Death Cab shows expecting to hear Postal Service songs and couldn’t quite get their heads wrapped around that we were separate bands. We didn’t even know that material, but that kind of faded and it was fine.

Q: Why do you think ‘Transatlantacism’ connected so strongly with fans and propelled Death Cab to the next level?

A: Some of it was a result of just the years we had put in on the road and with the previous three albums. But I think that record sort of really started to connect and take off because there was kind of a cultural shift that was happening in 2003-2004. You had Modest Mouse’s ‘Float On’ suddenly being a huge radio hit. You had the Shins showing up in major motion pictures. You had licensing opportunities for bit TV shows suddenly coming to a lot of bands that were our peers. That we had been touring with in relative obscurity for a while and suddenly were a little bit more of the musical conversation.

Q: I have to ask you about ‘The OC’ – your songs weren’t just in the background, the character Seth was a huge Death Cab fan and the band eventually played itself on the show.

A: It was just kind of surreal. It was this time when things were starting to happen, like I said, for bands of our ilk. The Shins had ‘New Slang’ in a McDonalds commercial. And there was luck. All of these opportunities that were coming our way. So it started with, ‘Hey, can we use a snippet of one of your songs in a show,’ and we said sure.

We didn’t know they would take the creative license to write us into the scripts. I think at first we were sort of like whatever. Then there was a moment when we were all a little bit slightly nervous about it. We would run into people that would be like, ‘Oh, “The OC” made you, you were nobodies until “The OC.”‘

But this was kind of concurrently happening with the rise of the internet, and so I think pretty people figured out our story and could understand what had happened. The thing that I think probably surprised us the most was just the reach that show had internationally. We showed up in Singapore and there are thousands of fans in Singapore suddenly. They’re like, ‘Oh, (we) saw you on “The OC.””

Q: How does this tour work? Does Death Cab always play first and then the Postal Service?

A: Yeah, it works out that way mainly because of the scarcity of the Postal Service touring and playing shows. They’re a bit more of a draw in that way, the valuable commodity. But also just the tone of that record is more upbeat and dance-centric in some ways, and the Death Cab record is a fairly moody journey from start to finish.

I think there was some question of whether or not Ben was going to be able to do it and what that would be like for him. Just sort of more psychologically. Physically, and having the stamina to pull that off was never in question because it kind of falls within our normal show length that we’d been doing for years.

Q: So when Death Cab finishes ‘Transatlanticism’ what do you and the the guys do when Ben goes back out for ‘Give Up’?

A: When Death Cab is on stage, we’re all in black. We’ve committed to a certain color palette in the lights. And then when Postal Service comes out they’re dressed all in white and the lights switch to a different color palate.

who plays guitar in Death Cab switches and plays with Postal Service as well. Jason (McGeer, Death Cab’s drummer) jumps up and plays on a couple of Postal Service songs live. And Zac (Rae, Death Cab’s keyboardist) and I, we switch clothes to white and we all come back at the end.

Q: It sounds different, but fun for you, too.

A: It has been fun for me, because, you know, I was the first tour manager on the very first national Postal Service tour years ago. So I have really fond memories of driving around in a van with Ben and Jenny and Jimmy. This is before the record even really started to hit. We’re playing these small little clubs.

And now it’s just been so fun to watch the show every night and watch all these people just have these really powerful emotional experiences with that record and those things. It’s a different form of nostalgia for me. I’m not actually playing music, but I can also track growth from the beginning until now. That’s nice, you know?

Just Like Heaven

When: 12 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, May 18, 2024

Where: Brookside at the Rose Bowl, 1133 Rosemont Ave., Pasadena

How much: $199 for general admission, $379 for VIP, and $659 for clubhouse.

For more: See .com for the lineup, set times, and ticket information.

The Aloha Everywhere Concert Series lands at the Downey Theatre on Saturday, May 18 featuring a night of traditional laid-back Hawaiian music with three powerhouse groups.

“It’s going to feel like being at the beach with your friends and listening to beautiful music,” said Patrick Landeza, the producer and director of the show.

The three groups on the lineup are husband and wife duo, Kellen and Līhau Paik, who perform as ��ū�貹�Dz�, Hōkū Zuttermeister and Mark Yamanaka.

All the performers are multiple award winners who between them have more than 30 Nā Hōkū Hanohano awards, which is Hawaiian music’s equivalent of the . While they all have performed in Southern California on their own, this is the first time they have come together for the same event.

So say aloha and get to know the performers.

��ū�貹�Dz�

The husband and wife duo have been performing as ��ū�貹�Dz� since 2005 and will headline the show performing songs in their signature soothing style that according to festival officials is meant to linger in the ears and hearts of concert-goers.

“They are a leading force of the new Hawaiian music composers. They really really are just the carriers of the torch of Hawaiian music,” Landeza said.

Their music has also lingered with critics too as the couple have won several awards including multiple Nā Hōkū Hanohano awards in categories such as Island Music Album of the Year (2014), Best Hawaiian Language Performance (2014), and Christmas Album of the Year (2015).

Hōkū Zuttermeister

A native of Kāneohe, , he is part of a Hawaiian hula musical legacy. His great-grandmother and great aunt were both famous master hula teachers, so their influence is evident in his music, Landeza said.

“He rarely comes out, so we’re so happy to have him. Hawaiian music and hula is the theme of all this and he really represents that,” he said.

Zuttermeister taught himself to play ukulele, guitar, and bass and describes his music as Hawaiian with a contemporary flair. He cleaned house at the Nā Hōkū Hanohano awards in 2008, winning the Male Vocalist of the Year, Hawaiian Album of the Year, Entertainer of the Year awards.

Mark Yamanaka

The father of two has won 14 Nā Hōkū Hanohano award since the release of his debut album, “Lei Pua Kenikeni,” in 2010. Hailing from the Big Island, he’s known for songs that celebrate his love for his hometown and  his family and for his unique voice.

“His voice is just heavenly,” Landeza said, explaining that he sings in a falsetto, which is meant to hit very high notes.

“It’s traditional Hawaiian on steroids. It’s just crazy what he can do,” he said.

Aloha Everywhere Concert Series

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, May 18

Where:  Downey Theatre, 8435 Firestone Blvd.

Tickets: $55-$65

Information:

malingered magnificently as the headliner in 2022. was a keening Banshee in 2023 in a performance at the Brookside at the Rose Bowl festival grounds.

This year, with bands such as , , Adam Ant, and Simple Minds also on the bill, the headliner experience was something altogether diffferent.

, the ever-stylish English new wave group, headlined Cruel World on Saturday. The band has enjoyed a deserved resurgence in popularity post-pandemic with its induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022 and a popular tour that featured two sold-out nights at the Hollywood Bowl.

The 90-minute set was as colorful as the cream and lavender jackets worn by singer Simon LeBon and keyboardist Nick Rhodes, as sharp as bassist John Taylor’s cheekbones, and as powerful as Roger Taylor’s drums.

And, above all else, it was fun: How could it not be with so many hits in the Duran Duran catalog and so many memories for a crowd full of fans who were there when Duran Duran videos ruled MTV in the ’80s?

After opening with “The Chauffeur,” one of the few deep cuts in the set, Duran Duran jumped straight into the hits – “Wild Boys,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” and “A View to a Kill,” their James Bond movie theme followed in quick succession.

“The last month we’ve just been thinking (about Cruel World) and how we’re going to make it the best thing possible,” Le Bon told the crowd in the middle of that run of songs. “And now we’re here and it’s happening!”

All four original Durannies are in their early to mid-60s – older like their original fans, but young for elder statesmen of rock – and they and the touring musicians and backing vocalists all sounded strong throughout the performance. The middle of the set slowed things down a little with songs such as “Careless Memories,” “Ordinary World,” and “New Moon on Monday.”

The end of their night raced through more up-tempo bops. “The Reflex” and a mashup of Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” with the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” – they covered the latter song on the 2023 album “Danse Macabre” – finished off the main set.

“Save a Prayer” opened the encore with the field in front of the stage awash in twinkling cell phone lights before “Rio” sent the crowd and the festival home for another year.

Here’s what else we caught while wandering between the three stages at Cruel World on Saturday:

A rare reunion: Tones On Tail, a side project of guitarist Daniel Ash and drummer Kevin Haskins, reunited at Cruel World to play its first show since 1984, the same year it released “Pop,” the group’s one album. More post-punk than goth, Tones of Tail impressed those who’d slipped away from Duran Duran on the main stage to hear Ash scatter shards of electric guitar atop Haskin’s expressive drumming and the loping basslines of Diva Dompe, Haskins’ daughter.

With Saturday’s performance, Ash and Haskins have now played all three years of Cruel World in all three bands they share – Bauhaus was there in 2022, and last year, Love and Rockets performed. Highlights included the jazzy swing of “Happiness,” “Lions,” and “Go!” which, alas, we missed to head back for the final run of Duran Duran.

New kids, old block: Cruel World isn’t strictly a day for older acts. New groups inspired by the OG bands on the bill also show up, and on Saturday a trio of those stood out.

, which includes the three guys from – bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young – is fronted by singer Davey Havok of AFI. They play a kind of modern new wave and fans at the main stage in the late afternoon responded strongly to songs such as “We Rats,” “Kill For Candy,” and a cover of David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream.”

After nightfall, two more relatively younger bands showed off what they’ve learned from their post-punk elders, with the English band Placebo mixing singer Brian Molko’s electric guitars with shimmering synths on fan favorites such as “Every You, Every Me” and “Special K,” and the American band Interpol as powerful as always on highlights that include “The Rover” and “Rest My Chemistry.”

Rule Britannia: So much of the music of Cruel World has roots in the United Kingdom, and this year a handful of British bands made their Cruel World debuts.

Simple Minds drew a large crowd to the second stage for its anthemic Scottish rock. “Promised You a Miracle,” “All The Things She Said,” and a cover of the Call’s “The Walls Came Down” were all great singalongs, but they paled in comparison to the response to “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” the band’s biggest hit thanks to its placement in the soundtrack to “The Breakfast Club.” To hear the crowd sing an extended take on its melody as the sunset on the Arroyo Seco was truly moving.

Fellow Scots the Jesus and Mary Chain were also powerful on noisy pop that included songs such as “Happy When It Rains,” “Head On,” and “Just Like Honey,” while Heaven 17’s glossy synth-pop had the crowd dancing to tunes including “Let Me Go” and “Penthouse and Pavement.” and a cover of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.”

Bowie is also a touchstone for Gary Numan, whose chilly synths and guitars owe a lot to Bowie’s Berlin era. Numan returned to Cruel World on Saturday to play his solo debut album “The Pleasure Principle” in full, and the set felt much more successful than his 2023 turn which featured newer, less satisfying material.

New band, old beats: x Budgie x Jackknife Lee is a new trio made up of the Cure’s original drummer Tolhurst, Siouxsie and Banshee’s drummer Budgie, and Irish producer Lee. Their debut album “Los Angeles” arrived near the end of 2023, with guest vocalists singing vocals over the dual-drumkits and guitar of the band.

Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse sang on the album, and he along with album guests Arrow De Wilde of L.A. band Starcrawler and rapper-trumpeter Pan Amsterdam showed up to Cruel World to perform their songs live. Brock also stuck around for a cover the Cure song “A Forest,” another highlight in a day full of them.

“We wanted to work on a show that would blend both worlds and bring new fans into a traditional setting in front of a band they love, with music they grew up with and a whole new element of an orchestra,” Ben Mench-Thurlow said during a recent phone call.

The co-production by the Mench-Thurlows became Emo Orchestra, a pairing of a rock band’s live performance with an orchestra. The 15-piece group of instrumentalists, led by conductor Evan Rogers, first went on tour in the fall of 2023 with performing just under 30 shows in the U.S. Each of the events features original songs from a rock band, along with emo anthem covers from other acts including , New Found Glory, Panic! At The Disco,  and more.

The production’s second iteration will spotlight an orchestral collaboration with Escape the Fate and hit tour stops at the Garden Amp in Garden Grove on Friday, May 17 and the Orpheum Theatre on Saturday, May 18.

Escape the Fate’s performance includes their catalog of hits and new songs from “Out of the Shadows 2.0,” the group’s latest album released in April. For lead vocalist Craig Mabbitt, there was always hope he’d hear the band’s music with an orchestra.

“It’s been amazing on a personal artistic level to hear these songs with the orchestral arrangements, and just the whole vibe of the tour is amazing,” Mabbitt said. “It’s in beautiful theaters that you wouldn’t necessarily see these types of bands play normally without the live orchestra. It’s also a celebration of the music and nostalgia of the good (and) bad memories that you might have.”

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A subgenre of hardcore punk, emo, is short for emotional and is characterized by raw, pained and vulnerable lyrics. For the emo-naive, a sample serving of the music might include Rites of Spring’s “All There Is” to My Chemical Romance’s “I’m Not Okay” and Dashboard Confessional’s “Screaming Infidelities.” Today the subgenre has been fueled by angsty teens from pop star Olivia Rodrigo’s “pretty isn’t pretty” to the late rapper Lil Peep’s “Better Off (Dying).”

“Teenagers are going through the same, if not worse, things that we went through when we were teenagers, and this music really helped a lot of us growing up,” Mench-Thurlow said.

Emo music was the soundtrack of Mench-Thurlow’s adolescence, so becoming a booking agent for some of the genre’s most prominent names was a natural progression. Today, he is a music touring agent at Reliant Talent Agency.  As an emo at heart, he understood that the genre has a history of incorporating instrumentals, and what better way to pull on the broody heartstrings of fans than using the actual strings of an orchestra?

“Bands in the scene from The Used, Story of the Year and Underoath used string sections in those early and mid-2000s records,” he said. “It just pairs so well with this music and bands that helped shape this genre of emo and alternative rock. There’s something emotional and special about stringed instruments and hearing a cello or bass play that low. You can’t get that timber out of any other guitar, bass, keyboard or synth. It’s got to be live.”

Each Emo Orchestra show is meticulously curated to create a gothic and high-culture setting, the stage is lit with candles, and a ‘busking corner’ in the lobby provides a unique pre-show experience where performers play for attendees as they make their way to their seats.

“We sort of think of these shows as an apology letter to everybody that attended Warped Tour for 20 years, making everybody stand on blacktop and wait for 11 hours to see their favorite band for 30 minutes,” Mench-Thurlow jested.

The shows are geared to be for all ages where perhaps emo parents can bring their kids, or parents who are orchestra fans can find common ground with their emo-inclined children. The Mench-Thurlows’ production also aims to expose kids to music and instruments they may not otherwise encounter.

“While arts in schools are consistently at risk, we hope that our fans are bringing their families to inspire that next generation of [artists]” Mench-Thurlow said. “We hope that kids see violin, upright bass, cello, flute or clarinet players and see that no matter what instrument they play, they can be in a rock band, a hip-hop group or a country band. I hope they see that the instrument they decide to play is not defined by a genre.”

Emo Orchestra

Where: Garden Amp, 12762 Main St., Garden Grove,.

When: 6-10 p.m. Friday, May 17.

Tickets: $55 at .

Also: 6-10 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at The Orpheum Theatre, 842 South Broadway, Los Angeles. $29.50-$69.50 at .

Steve Albini, an alternative rock pioneer and legendary producer who shaped the musical landscape through his work with Nirvana, the Pixies, PJ Harvey and more, has died. He was 61.

Brian Fox, an engineer at Albini’s studio, Electrical Audio Recording, said Wednesday that Albini died after a heart attack Tuesday night.

In addition to his work on canonized rock albums such as “In Utero,” the Pixies’ breakthrough “Surfer Rosa,” and PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me,” Albini was the frontman of the underground bands Big Black and Shellac.

He dismissed the term “producer,” refused to take royalties from the albums he worked on, and requested he be credited with “Recorded by Steve Albini,” a fabled label .

At the time of his death, Albini’s band Shellac were preparing to tour their first new album in a decade, “To All Trains,” which releases next week.

Other acts whose music was shaped by Albini include Joanna ɫ����̳om’s indie-folk opus, “Ys,” and releases from bands like , the Jesus Lizard, Hum, Superchunk, Low and Mogwai.

Albini was born in California, grew up in Montana, and fell in love with the do-it-yourself punk music scene in Chicago while studying journalism at Northwestern University.

As a teenager, he played in punk bands, and in college, wrote about music for the prescient indie zine “Forced Exposure.” While attending Northwestern in the early ‘80s, he founded the abrasive, noisy post-punk band Big Black, known for its mordant riffs, violent and taboo lyrics and drum machine in lieu of a live drummer. It was a controversial innovation at the time, from a man whose career would be defined by risky choices. The band’s best-known song, the ugly, explosive, six-minute “Kerosene” from their cult favorite album, 1986’s “Atomizer,” is ideal evidence — and not for the faint of heart.

Then came the short lived band Rapeman — one of two groups Albini fronted with indefensibly offensive names and vulgar song titles. In the early ’90s, he formed Shellac, the ferocious, distorted noise-rock band — an evolution from Big Black, but still punctuated by pummeling guitar tones and aggressive vocals.

In 1997, Albini opened his famed studio, Electrical Audio, in Chicago.

“The recording part is the part that matters to me — that I’m making a document that records a piece of our culture, the life’s work of the musicians that are hiring me,” last year, when asked about some of the well-known and much-loved albums he’s recorded. “I take that part very seriously. I want the music to outlive all of us.”

Albini was a larger-than-life character in the independent rock music scene, known for his forward-thinking productions, unapologetic irreverence, acerbic sense of humor and criticisms of the music industry’s exploitative practices — as detailed in his landmark 1993 essay “The Problem with Music” — as much as his talents.

Later in life, he became a notable poker player for his past indiscretions.

“Ugh man, a heartbreaking loss of a legend. Love to his family and innumerable colleagues,” wrote actor . “Farewell, Steve Albini.”

Author Michael Azerrad, who included a chapter on Big Black in his comprehensive history, “Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991,” also “I don’t know what to say about Steve Albini’s passing,” Azerrad wrote. “He had a brilliant mind, was a great artist and underwent the most remarkable and inspiring personal transformation. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Albini is survived by his wife, Heather Whinna, a filmmaker.

LONDON — Thousands of ride-or-die Taylor Swift fans who missed out on her U.S. concert tour last year or didn’t want to buy exorbitantly priced tickets to see her again found an out-of-the-way solution: Fly to Europe.

The pop star is scheduled to kick off the 18-city Europe leg of her record-setting Eras Tour in Paris on Thursday, and planeloads of Swifties plan to follow Miss Americana across the pond in the coming weeks. The arena where Swift is appearing said Americans bought 20% of the tickets for her four sold-out shows. Stockholm, the tour’s next stop, expects about 10,000 concertgoers from the U.S.

A concert might sound like an odd raison d’etre for visiting a foreign country, especially when fans can watch the Eras Tour from home via the documentary now streaming on Disney+. Yet online travel company Expedia says continent-hopping by Swift’s devotees is part of a larger trend it dubbed “tour tourism” while observing a pattern that emerged during Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour.

Some North American fans who plan to fly overseas for the Eras Tour said they justified the expense after noticing that tighter restrictions on ticket fees and resales in Europe made seeing Swift perform abroad no more costly — and potentially cheaper — than catching her closer to home.

“They said, ‘Wait a minute, I can either spend $1,500 to go see my favorite artist in Miami, or I can take that $1,500 and buy a concert ticket, a round-trip plane ticket, and three nights in a hotel room,’” said Melanie Fish, an Expedia spokesperson and travel expert.

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That was the experience of Jennifer Warren, 43, who lives in St. Catharines, a city in the Niagara region of Ontario. She and her 11-year-old son love Swift but had no luck scoring what she considered as decently priced tickets in the U.S. Undeterred, Warren and her husband decided to plan a European vacation around wherever she managed to get seats. It turned out to be Hamburg, Germany.

“You get out, you get to see the world, and you get to see your favorite artist or performer at the same time, so there are a lot of wins to it,” said Warren, who works as the director of research and innovation for a mutual insurance company.

The three VIP tickets she secured close to the stage — “I would call it brute-force dumb luck” — cost 600 euros ($646) each. Swift subsequently announced six November tour dates in Toronto, within driving distance of Warren’s home. “Absolute nose-bleed seats” already are going for 3,000 Canadian dollars ($2,194) on secondary resale sites like Viagogo, Warren said.

TOUR TOURISM: IS IT REALLY A THING?

Travel and entertainment analysts have spoken of a pent-up consumer demand for “experiences” over material objects since the coronavirus pandemic. Some think the willingness of music lovers to broaden their fandom horizons is part of the same mass cultural correction.

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“It does seem like it’s more than a structural shift, maybe a personality transformation we all went through,” said Natalia Lechmanova, the chief Europe economist for the Mastercard Economics Institute.

As Swift hopscotches across Europe, Lechmanova expects restaurants and hotels to see the same boost that Mastercard observed within a 2½-mile radius of concert venues in the U.S. cities she visited in 2023. The U.S. dollar’s strong value against the euro may also increase retail spending on apparel, memorabilia, beauty products and supplies for the friendship bracelets fans exchange as part of the Eras Tour experience, the economist said.

Former college roommates Lizzy Hale, 34, who lives in Los Angeles, and Mitch Goulding, 33, who lives in Austin, Texas, already had tickets to see the Eras Tour in L.A. last summer when they decided to try to get ones for Paris, London or Edinburgh, Scotland. They saw a Europe concert trip as a makeup for travel plans they had in May 2020 to celebrate Goulding’s birthday but had to cancel due to the pandemic.

Goulding managed to secure VIP tickets for one of Swift’s three Stockholm shows. He, Hale and two other friends scheduled a 10-day trip that also includes time in Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

“As people who enjoy traveling and enjoy music, if you can find an opportunity to combine the two, it’s really special,” Hale said.

FOR STOCKHOLM, 120,000 SWIFTIES CAN’T BE WRONG

In Stockholm, 120,000 out-of-towners from 130 countries — among them 10,000 from the U.S. — are expected to swarm Sweden’s capital this month, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Chief Economist Carl Bergqvist said. Stockholm is the only Scandinavian city on Swift’s tour, and airlines added extra flights from nearby Denmark, Finland and Norway to bring people to the May 17-19 shows, he said.

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The city’s 40,000 hotel rooms are sold out even though prices skyrocketed for the tour dates, Bergqvist said. Concert visitors are expected to pump around 500 million Swedish kroner, or over $46 million, into the local economy over the course of their stays, an estimate that does not include what they paid for Swift tickets or to get to Sweden, he said.

Houston resident Caroline Matlock, 29, is making friendship bracelets and trying to learn a few words of Swedish as she prepares to see the 3½-hour show in Stockholm. Also on the itinerary: visiting the Scandinavian cities of Oslo and Gothenburg.

The concert is the last night of the trip and Matlock looks forward to interacting with Swifties from other countries: “Americans tend to have a very obsessive culture, especially Taylor Swift-related, so I’m curious if the crowd will be more toned-down.”

WILL TOUR TOURISM ENDURE AFTER ERAS?

It remains to be seen if the music tourism trend has legs as long and strong as Swift’s and Beyoncé’s, and if it will carry over to Billie Eilish, Usher and other artists with world tours scheduled next year. Expedia’s Fish thinks other big-name artists in Europe this summer will prove that booking a foreign trip around a concert is catching on.

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Kat Morga, a travel consultant based in Nashville, isn’t so sure. Morga saw Swift perform in Nashville last year and helped two clients with school-aged children book European family vacations this summer that include seeing Swift in concert. But she thinks the difficulty of navigating ticket purchases through language barriers, currency conversions, international banking regulations and the risk of cancellations will limit the appeal of regular gig getaways.

“I think this is an anomaly,” Morga said. “People aren’t typically going to build their $20,000 huge family vacation only because Taylor Swift is there. She’s the one-off. She’s special.”

Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel, whose company operates Booking.com, priceline.com, agoda.com, Kayak and OpenTable, is even less enthusiastic about concert tours as a tourism instigator. The Swift Effect causes a “little blip” when the superstar goes to smaller destinations, but for the worldwide travel industry, “one star touring around does not make a difference,” he said.

AP journalists Colleen Barry in Milan, Chisato Tanaka in Stockholm, Anne D’Innocenzio in New York, David Koenig in Dallas, Thomas Adamson in Paris and Brian Melley in London contributed reporting.

What is Concert Week?

Concert Week is a promotion in which select shows are available for $25. The world’s biggest concert promoter, Live Nation/Ticketmaster, created Concert Week 10 years ago, and the event has grown to include more than 5,000 shows around the world.

When is Concert Week 2024?

Concert Week runs from May 8-14. T-Mobile and Rakuten customers are given early access starting May 7.

Fans will want to act soon, as many shows will run out of $25 tickets quickly.

Which artists are participating in Concert Week?

Dozens of artists will have concerts on sale via Concert Week, though exact shows vary based on location.

Some of the bigger artists participating include: Alanis Morissette, Blink-182, Brooks & Dunn, Cage the Elephant, Chicago with Earth, Wind & Fire, Dierks Bentley, The Doobie Brothers, Hootie & the Blowfish, Iron Maiden, Janet Jackson, John Fogerty, Kings of Leon, Luke Bryan, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top, Maroon 5, Meghan Trainor, Missy Elliott, New Kids on the Block, P!nk, Pitbull, Rob Zombie with Alice Cooper, Santana with the Counting Crows, the Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Styx and Foreigner, Tim McGraw and Train with REO Speedwagon.

For a full list, . Once the sale begins, fans will be able to sort available shows by region, event, venue or artist.

Are the tickets really only $25?

Yes, the tickets are $25, far less than most concert tickets of this caliber. The $25 ticket prices include all service fees, though taxes are not included. Taxes could include city, state or venue fees.

Is it only for concerts?

Concert Week includes shows that are not musical acts. Comedians like Dane Cook and Whitney Cummings will have $25 tickets, as well as the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race.

“I’ve gotten a lot better with the anxiety and nervousness of playing live these days,” Maker shared over a phone call before the duo hit the stage at La Cigale in Paris. “I had to find ways to get out of my head because I used to hate going on stage to play. But I’ve learned to disconnect from what we’re doing a little bit because once you’re up there, you can’t get out of it, so I’ve learned to train myself on that.

“Last night, we played in Amsterdam, and the crowd was singing back our lyrics, which is pretty mental for us because we haven’t really made music like that,” Maker continued

The duo got its start in the London underground electronic music scene, forming what the world knows now as Mount Kimbie nearly 15 years ago. These days, the group is influenced by everything, from techno to dubstep, post-punk to hip-hop, R&B to ambient lo-fi and a handful of uncut DJ mixes that have floated throughout the internet, all intertwining to make up a sound the two consider “forever changing,” a superpower of sorts since having a definite sound has never been Mount Kimbie’s niche.

However, in 2016 the band announced it would go on hiatus; the two felt it was time to dabble in other ventures while allowing each other to grow. That break ended up lasting five years during which Campos delved into DJ culture and Maker produced the likes of Rosalía and SZA.

Reuniting in 2021, the group explored new musical territory for the newest record “ɫ����̳set Violent.” The nine-track record, released in April of this year, is a mix of shoegaze and synthesized rock created while the duo were in Yucca Valley, California, a departure from its London roots. They felt it was necessary to seek refuge in the desert landscape, seeking peace, tranquility and as “a last minute effort to get away from all distractions.”

In the scorching summer heat, there wasn’t a clear goal, only the intent to potentially produce a track or two. But as they settled into a secluded Airbnb for six weeks, it became the ideal setting for crafting a California-tinged record, giving birth to what the world now knows as “ɫ����̳set Violent.”

“The desert is probably the best place you could go when you want to get away,” Campos said. “We didn’t have a goal go out there; it was initially just to try and basically to come up with some ideas and we hadn’t worked together for about five years at this point. So there was quite a lot of uncertainty about what we were going to do and whether it was even going to be any good. But the landscape out there provided way more for us than we expected; it’s a very surreal place. It’s completely different from where we’re from and the music we make that was usually done in London. It was also the first time we were abroad to write. It was the perfect canvas and environment to write in, especially that the guitar was such a loud voice in this record, it made sense.”

Campos found himself drawn to the home radio, turning the knob that always happen to land on the local country music station. Inspired by the genre’s use of catchy melodies and profound lyricism, it influenced the direction the group was taking. “All of these elements combined created a rich tapestry of visuals that deeply influenced the entire body of work we created.”

The band, now expanded to a four-piece with the addition of Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pell, is currently embarking on the Dumb Guitar Tour across the globe. The 15-date run includes a stop at The Fonda Theatre, originally slated for the El Rey. However, due to high fan demand for tickets, the venue size was expanded.

“The last time we played in Los Angeles was at the Masonic Lodge over at Hollywood Cemetery, and that felt like ages ago for us,” Maker shared with a laugh. “It’s hard to keep up with the times at this point. But having the interest that we do from the States in such a healthy way that we’ve seen over the years and especially with the comeback of this release has been so interesting and amazing for us to watch.”

For both Maker and Campos, performing in Southern California is a significant full-circle moment. For them, it’s an homage, a tribute and an opportunity to reconnect with the roots that initiated “ɫ����̳set Violent.”

“Even the last three nights, there’s like a different level of understanding between us all as a band and when you get to the last few months you to start to really communicate in a nonverbal where you’re on stage kind of sharing experiences through music, it takes on another life,” Campos said. “And I think there’s something really special when it comes to sharing that, especially with an audience and certainly an area that allowed us to create what we do. I think that’s the whole point of it all for us.”

Mount Kimbie: Dumb Guitar Tour

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, May 18

Where: The Fonda, 6126 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles

Tickets and more information: General admission floor seats are $28; general admission balcony are $28 at