Year: 2013

The Bucks are headed to the NBA Playoffs!  Milwaukee has a few regular season games to play, and then they face what will most likely be the Miami Heat in round one. Our Bucks Playoff tickets are on sale now.  The game dates have yet to be announced, but it’s looking like the team will play their first game near the end of April.  The first two games will be on the road, then Milwaukee Comes home for a pair. If Milwaukee manages to win the first round, the next series is also a best of seven round, with three away games set in the middle.

We can expect the actual playoff dates to come at the end of the regular season, which is around mid week, next week.  Milwaukee’s last regular season game is at Oklahoma.  Their final home game is on April 15, against the Nuggets.  At the time of this posting, they have three road and one home game yet to play. 

Bucks Might Struggle In The First Round

Will Milwaukee make it interesting in the first round of the upcoming playoffs?  It seems that nobody is predicting that to happen.  Even though the Bucks took care of business against the Heat back on 12/29, the team is 1-4 overall against the 2012 NBA champions.  You never know what will happen in a playoff situation, and Milwaukee fans are hoping for a miracle.    

The on again, off again Violent Femmes will perform at Summerfest 2013, headlining at the Marcus Amphitheater on June 26.  Also on the bill will be The Avett Brothers.  Femmes Summerfest tickets are on sale April 12.  This year, the Femmes will move from a free stage to the big time.  Will they fill the 23,000 seat Marcus Amphitheater? That’s a pretty big venue for a band that hasn’t made an album since 2000.  One would suppose that their debut album (the only one to go platinum,) could carry the day, and bring in thousands of fans. 
The fact that they tend to draw well in their home town is also a plus.  The highest charting album for the Femmes was their 1986 release, The Blind Leading The Naked.  That one topped out at #84.  This is why some folks wonder why the Femmes are taking the top spot during Summerfest.  Most times, you will see the band (when they are not on hiatus,) performing at local state fairs and 1500 seat theaters.  You can find tons of funny, quirky self promotion (and a bit of name dropping,) here on their band page.   

Avett Brothers The Carpenter 

 The Avett Brothers are a band that hasn’t taken a break since their debut in 2000.  Their last two albums have gone top 20, and will surely bring the fans into the Marcus Amp.  They continue to support their 2012 effort, titled The Carpenter.  The band is putting together a beefy 2013 tour, playing southern venues this month.  They will also perform at Somerset Wisconsin on June 29.  

On June 27, Fun the band joins up with Tegan and Sarah at Summerfest 2013.  With their popularity rising, Fun is traveling across Europe this spring.  Their tour starts April 10, with a show in Utrecht.  Their first date on their North American leg of the tour is at our very own Marcus Amphitheater. Well, they do have a “one off” show in Boston on May 25, but we can’t call that the start of their American tour, because they are right back over to Europe for nine more shows.  These guys will be busy criss-crossing the globe until late October. A quick scan of their European dates in April reveals that the band is selling out most venues. 

The hit song Fun is touring on is called We Are Young.  All it took was a big name producer to lay hands on the tune, a popular TV show play it, and for hundreds of millions of football fans to hear the song during a commercial, and the rest is history.  Would Fun be anywhere without the magical touch of Jeffrey Bhasker? It seems that most pop bands need some sort of influential producer or lucky break like a commercial deal to get their foot in the door.  That’s not to say that the band didn’t try their best to hit the big time on their own.  They just got lucky three times over. 

Tegan And Sarah Open For Fun

Tegan and Sara have been performing all over the world for the past 18 years.  Yes, that means the twins were belting out songs at a very youthful age.  They managed to take advantage of their high school recording equipment to create some pretty fun music.  Seven albums later, and they are still going strong.  Their new song Closer charted very high, right out of the box.  It’s hard to find copies of their very early work titled, Under Feet Like Ours.  That disk was released fourteen years ago on a small label.      

The Eagles come to the Marcus Amphitheater on July 7, during Summerfest 2013.  Fans of the band will be treated to hit songs that go all the way back to their first album, created in 1973.  Eagles tickets go on sale this weekend.  The band performs on the final night of Summerfest. Will the original band come back together for this tour?

Don Henley and Glen Frey will certainly be part of this tour. Some would say that that Joe Walsh is “almost” an original member, because he has been in the band for a very long time.  True fans of the band have to give a nod to three members that will not be on this tour.  Those three men are Bernie Leadon, Don Felder and Randy Meisner.  Don Felder jumped on board in 1974, so he’s pretty darn close to an original member of the band.  Bernie Leadon was certainly an original member, and so was Randy Meisner.  Glen Frey and Don Henley became the face of the band as the years rolled on, but their best selling album was made up of songs that were created by the original members.

The rock and roll lifestyle isn’t for everyone, and the grind of touring is what drove Randy Meisner out of the band.  As for Leadon, he didn’t like the direction that the band was taking.  He loved the country music aspect of the group. The rest of the group was ready to move towards rock.  Something had to give, and it was Leadon who gave in.  If you play their first album, and the album titled The Long Run back to back, you will certainly notice that the country sound is long gone by 1980.  The Eagles had evolved, and that certainly didn’t make their fans unhappy. They came out in droves when the band got back together in 1994.  Since that time, the Eagles have managed to put together great tours, but little new music.  The band released a pair of new songs for the 1994 tour, but those songs were part of a live album that featured songs from the past.

The Long Wait For Long Road Out of Eden

The Long Road Out of Eden came out in 2007. It was an album made up of new material.  As for songs charting, the album got some traction on “Adult Contemporary” radio stations, but no single song from the disk cracked the top 100 on the US charts.  Long Road Out of Eden sold close to five million copies world wide, so it would seem that their die-hard fans we happy to pick up the disk.  As for getting radio airplay, that’s a different story.          

Brewers fans love opening day at Miller Park.  To many, that first game in Milwaukee marks the start of spring. Fans scramble for tickets, and hope for great tailgating weather.  Miller Park is filled to capacity that day.  The next game? Let’s just say that there are low priced Brewers tickets available for the day after opening day. Why not take advantage of that opportunity? Ticket King has great seats for all home Brewers games.  From the bleachers to the diamond box seats, we have it all.

The Brewers host the Colorado Rockies for three games, starting on April 1.  The Arizona Diamondbacks come to Miller Park for a three game series April 5-7. The Cubs host the Brewers for three games, then it’s off to St. Louis.  The Brewers come home on April 16, and face the San Francisco Giants for three games.

The Zac Brown Band returns to Wisconsin this summer, opting to perform at Alpine Valley. The date is set for June 8.  As of now, there is no opening act listed.  Their latest album titled Uncaged has won a Grammy, and the band will be sure to play tracks from all three of their records.  Keep in mind that the band has been around since 2002, but released their first major label album in 2008.  Their first two efforts on disk were released independently.

In 2006, they put out “The Foundation.”  As luck would have it, the album hit number two on the Billboard country music charts.  Their 2008 big hit on that album is titled “Chicken Fried.” Just one year later, four more songs from that same disk also charted on the top five. Foundation has since gone triple platinum. The band is up for a pair of ACM awards.  One is for Top Vocal Group, while the other is for their video supporting the song titled “The Wind.”

Tom Petty is coming back to Summerfest in 2013.  That makes show number 13 at the Marcus Amphitheater for Mr. Petty, and his fans could not be happier. He loves coming to town for the Big Gig.  The show is set for June 28. Tom Petty Summerfest 2013 tickets go on sale later this month.

What was Tom Petty’s first song to hit the top 100?  It was titled Breakdown, and it came out 36 years ago.  The band’s second effort reached more listeners, with songs like Listen To Her Heart, and Don’t Do Me Like That. Five years later, Mr. Petty teamed up with Stevie Nicks.  Their song titled Insider, off the Hard Promises album cracked the top 20, and went gold.

On of Mr. Petty’s more interesting diversions was when he spent time as one of the Traveling Wilburys.  The Wilburys got together, just to record one song for George Harrison.  They had so much fun, that they decided to make an album. In 1989, Petty went back to work with his Heartbreakers, releasing Full Moon Fever.  That disk contains the songs Free Fallin’ and Runnin’ Down A Dream.  Petty has gone on to host his own radio show, and he continues to perform live with The Heartbreakers from time to time.

New Kids On The Block will perform at Summerfest on July 2. Tickets for the show are available now. Backing the group will be none other than 98 Degrees and Boyz II Men. These three groups have over 200 million in album sales combined.

New Kids On The Block was a creation of Maurice Starr, who put out a casting call in the Boston area back in 1984. Hundreds of kids tried out, with Donnie Wahlberg being a standout in the crowd.  Eventually, the final lineup came to be.  It would be Donnie, Danny, Joey, Jonathan, and Jordan.

At first, the band failed to get traction in the Boston area.  Starr was convinced that he could take these boys to the top. He did that with the band’s second album titled Hangin’ Tough.  The song Please Don’t Go Girl was a ballad that the band put all their efforts into.  After a retooling of their accompanying video, the song hit the top of the music charts.  The band would go on to find success for the next four years.

As with most “boy bands” their advancing age dictated that their expiration date had come.  By 1992, the band was facing allegations of lip syncing.  Couple that with the fact that musical tastes were changing, and it seemed that their time had passed.  Despite the writing on the wall, the band separated from the “star maker” Mr. Starr, and tried their best to continue as NKOTB. By that time, they were no longer playing huge venues.  They are now back once again and on tour with two other great boy bands.  Their devoted fans still come out in the thousands.