The Nashville Rising benefit concert led by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw has raised more than $2.2 million for flood victims in Tennessee.

The total came from sold-out ticket sales, donations and sponsorships. It will be distributed through the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

Last month’s all-star concert included performances by Hill, McGraw, Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, LeAnn Rimes, Luke Bryan, Michael W. Smith, Miranda Lambert, Taylor Swift, Toby Keith and ZZ Top.

Record amounts of rain the first two days of May caused more than $2 billion in damage in Nashville alone. The water forced thousands from their homes, struck some of the city’s biggest landmarks and destroyed the gear of scores of musicians.

New Jersey rocker Jon Bon Jovi didn’t even need “Something For The Pain” to finish a concert in his home state, despite tearing a calf muscle toward the end of the show.

Bon Jovi injured himself toward the end of the band’s 2 1/2-hour concert at the New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford on Friday night, then limped back and forth across the stage for an encore, “Livin’ On A Prayer.”

The singer, who grew up in Sayreville, N.J., injured his leg during a cover of the Dave Clark Five hit “Glad All Over.” About halfway through the song, he leaned heavily on his microphone stand to support his injured leg.

“My calf muscle just blew out! Whoa!,” he said from the stage. “I got another leg. I don’t need this one.”

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A slow economy and a glut of choices are turning the summer tour season into something of a gamble.

The evidence is everywhere. The always bankable Eagles have canceled dates. Christina Aguilera shut down an entire tour before it started. Rihanna just canceled her tour opener. And on Friday, the Lilith Fair tour canceled 10 dates, including the stop scheduled for the Cruzan Amphitheater in West Palm Beach.

Add in what seems like a large number of injuries, illnesses and mysterious happenings that have led to sometimes legitimate cancellations — U2′s tour was postponed due to Bono’s back surgery — and at least outwardly it looks like summer tours are starting to see the strain the rest of the music industry has been experiencing.

Korn’s Jonathan Davis calls it “scary.”

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Event Details: Buy tickets, directions, more

It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while an opening act eclipses the headliner.

It may happen Saturday at Cruzan Amphitheatre when the hottest act in country music, Lady Antebellum, opens for 20-year-veteran Tim McGraw.

Lady A burst onto the scene in the summer of 2008 with a debut single, Love Don’t Live Here. They scored their first No. 1 with their third single, I Run to You, a year later, in July 2009. Read the full story

By SALVATORE FAZIO

When Sara Arevalo started playing the violin at 8, she learned to express her feelings through the emission of sound. Now at 13, she is exploring a new facet of her musical growth: being part of an orchestra through the Greater Miami Youth Symphony.

"It’s going to be exciting to play with the orchestra," said Arevalo during a recent Sunday afternoon rehearsal. "It’s kind of a new way to expand my horizons."

Arevalo will be one of more than 300 of South Florida’s most promising young musicians who will take the stage at Florida International University’s Wertheim Performing Arts Center on Sunday when the Greater Miami Youth Symphony and the Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County join forces for their third annual Youth Orchestra Collaboration Concert.

The concert:

* Florida International University Wertheim Performing Arts Center, 11200 S.W. Eight St., Miami

* 4 p.m. Sunday, March 21

* $15 adults, $7 seniors and students; available only at the door

Greater Miami Executive Director Melissa Lesniak, 32, said the concert will showcase six segment orchestras from both groups playing side by side to take on a musically diverse program.

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Just in time for Halloween, Anthony Daniels is taking off the costume.

You may have a hard time recognizing the actor, but then you hear that unmistakable voice . . . It’s C-3PO. Read the full story

Apparently, now’s the time for major acts to announce their 2010 plans. Only days after Bon Jovi talked about their world tour and hours after U2 released their new U.S. dates, country megastar Tim McGraw let everyone know about his tour dates for next year.

The Southern Voice 2010 tour will make stops in more than 60 cities, including suburban West Palm Beach. McGraw will appear at Cruzan Amphitheatre on May 8, 2010.

The supporting acts for the Cruzan stop will be hot young trio Lady Antebellum and Love and Theft, a country-rock group who just put out their debut LP.

Ticket information is not yet available, though McGraw has already begun offering tickets for two shows on the tour — the Houston Rodeo and Country Fest in Cadott, Wis.

For every minute of her 16-song set, Jo Dee Messina kept the energy flowing last night at the Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce. For more than an hour and a half, she bantered with the crowd and answered questions from the audience about everything from her family traditions to her desire to sabotage Alan Jackson’s Christmas lights to what she does in the back of her bus (writes songs.)

Messina took the stage shortly after 8 p.m. in faded jeans and a long sleeved graphic T. When people arrived late and disrupted the show, she put them in the spotlight saying, “Nice of you to show up.” And then she laughed that beautiful boisterous laugh that seems to come straight from her toes.

A bottomless sense of humor may be the most notable thing about Messina, besides that voice. She seems to see the humor in just about everything. When someone’s cell phone rang, she said, “Seriously? Your cell phone is on?” And laughed.
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Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, 75, considered himself a retiree not long ago. He had not planned on the tour that has occupied the last two years of his life: It was a response to the discovery that he was broke, and by now it has probably met its financial goals, or at least lifted him out of poverty.

Add it up, and circumstances point to Cohen’s first-ever concert in Florida — about 40 years in the making — also being his last. There was an undeniable sense of hello-and-goodbye to the old pop laureate’s performance on Saturday night at BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise.

“I don’t know when we’ll pass this way again,” he said early on, “so we’re going to give you everything we’ve got.”
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Technology got the best of Trent Reznor in the end.

Try as he might to make the opening night of Nine Inch Nails’ farewell tour, Wave Goodbye, a fully interactive multimedia cybershow, the tech wizard was foiled by a lousy PA.

Friday night’s NIN/JA show at the Cruzan Amphitheatre was a feast for the technophile set. Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction fans were allowed to bring personal cameras, video and audio recorders. A running photo blog documented the action on NIN.com and fans who had downloaded the NIN iphone application posted real-time updates and commentary, chatting with nearby friends on the “app” since long before the gates even opened.

But someone turned off the PA before Nine Inch Nails could come out for their encore, “Hurt”.

Nails frontman Reznor shared his thoughts via a Twitter update he posted around 11 p.m.: “NIN/JA temper tantrum #1 thrown tonight in celebration of the PA being turned off for our encore, ruining an otherwise good set.”

If you don’t follow @trent_reznor or @nineinchnails on Twitter there’s a good chance you missed the beginning of the set, which started with the sun still out, at 7:45 p.m. You also may have missed the “tweet” explaining that the headliners would actually go on before Jane’s Addiction because, as Reznor is alleged to have posted on NIN.com, “there’s no way that we could rock after them.”

But they rocked. Hard. With sonic brutes like “March of the Pigs,” “Mr. Self Destruct,” “Burn,” “Wish,” “Survivalism,” “The Hand that Feeds,” and “Head like a Hole,” it’s a wonder no one got carried out of the mosh pit. The pulverizing industrial romps were balanced out by ominous and calm tracks, “Home,” “The Fragile,” “Gone, Still”‘ and “Right Where It Belongs”, scattered sparingly throughout.

Sherry Lanza, of Wellington, who had never seen Nine Inch Nails before, was left wanting more.

“I wish they would have played more from Pretty Hate Machine,” she said. “But the show was awesome. They were incredible.”

Reznor, a man of few words, rarely seen in anything other than all-black clothing, did pause briefly to tell the crowd, “We’re trying some different (stuff) out tonight.” Then after a long pause: “White pants.”

But the only visible difference was the make-up of the band, with guitarist Robin Finck, drummer Ilan Rubin and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen. The group of relentless professionals melded together so perfectly that any kinks in the chemistry weren’t audible.

“They sounded beautiful,” said David Kievit of Sebastian, who drove to West Palm for the night for the show. “They have really emotional songs. The music is just beautiful.”

It’s possible Reznor knew his white pants really couldn’t compete with Perry Farrell’s frontman fashions. The Jane’s Addiction lead singer dazzled in his black sequins slacks, an embroidered shirt and, of course, a black sequined boa.

Jane’s Addiction is sharing the stage with Nine Inch Nails for the first time since Lollapalooza 1991. Farrell, touring with original band members Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins and Eric Avery, may have scared off a few Nails fans with his shine, as the crowd thinned out a bit.

But Farrell didn’t notice. He was in paradise.

“My friends, we have been here all week, setting this up, enjoying your beautiful, beautiful coastline. There ain’t a more beautiful place in the world to start this off,” he says with a smile. “The girls are fine. The men are macho. The water’s warm. You can’t wear much clothes out here. I love it.”

And so did Jane’s Addiction fans. The set was a bit shorter than Nails’, but it was filled with the rocking classics that made Jane’s the quintessential alternative band of the ’90s.

“Jane’s was radiant,” said Fernando Aguado of Miami. “To start a set with ‘Three Days’ means you’re telling people ‘I’m gonna throw down a set right here’.”

By the end of the show Farrell, now in a gleaming satin sage suit, had them all screaming for more.

The concert was rounded out with an opening set by Street Sweeper Social Club, a new project of Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morella and The Coup’s Boots Riley.

“I thought the whole show was amazing,” posts user Cinder8887 at 2:10 a.m. to her nearby NIN app friends. “I will def be checking out SSSC and would never have heard JA without this show. Nails left me shaking they were so good.”

” It was a great show!! ‘The Fragile’ and ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’ — I have no words to describe how good it was..” posts Mitcky53 on NIN.com.

And so begin the hundreds of catalogues of NINcasts which will be charged with capturing the final farewell of the techno-genius who, by the way, is doing daily ticket giveaways on Twitter.

That’s, of course, if there aren’t any more bugs.

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