Terry Gilliam will direct the live webcast of Arcade Fire’s concert at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

The Arcade Fire show kicks off “Unstaged,” a new online concert series being launched by American Express and streamed on YouTube. The Montreal-based band will live stream their Aug. 5 concert at 10 p.m. EDT, the second of two shows at MSG.

Gilliam, whose films include “Brazil” and “12 Monkeys,” last released “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus” in December.

The concert will stream on the Google Inc.-owned YouTube via Vevo, the music video site owned by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Abu Dhabi Media Co.

It’s the first in a planned series of five live streamed concerts, with John Legend and the Roots to follow.

Jay-Z and Justin Bieber. Kanye West and T.I. John Legend and Prince.

Hosted by Queen Latifah, Sunday night’s BET Awards promise to be a star-studded affair, and organizers say it will be packed with more performances than in previous years.

West and T.I. will make their TV comebacks on the show. West is set to perform, returning to the spotlight after keeping a low profile since last year’s MTV Video Music Awards, when the rapper swiped the microphone from stunned “Best Female Video” winner Taylor Swift and declared that Beyonce should have won the award. T.I. will also return to the stage for his first televised performance since his release from prison in December.

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The world came to Soweto on Thursday for a celebration of soccer, music and unity on the eve of Africa’s first World Cup.

A concert featuring headliners Shakira, the Black Eyed Peas and Alicia Keys drew thousands to Orlando stadium

Warm-up acts played for hours before the internationally televised portion of the concert began at 8 p.m. with a frenzy of flag-waving, drumming and African-inspired dancing.

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John Legend is like a lot of Americans — he’s not an avid soccer fan, but when the World Cup comes around, he gets into it.

Legend watched the last World Cup in 2006, and that piqued his interest.

“When you get down to it, it’s an interesting sport. It’s a sport that’s easy to follow, and when there’s the extra kind of excitement of such a big event, it’s something that I definitely can watch,” he said in a recent interview.

Legend also said he’s glad that the World Cup, which begins Friday, is coming to Africa for the first time, and said he is excited that South Africa got the opportunity to host such a big event.

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A convenient truth greeted John Legend when the singer contacted documentary director Davis Guggenheim about collaborating on a film to examine the nation’s public-school system.

Legend had been working with the hip-hop group the Roots on an album exploring 1960s and ’70s music, which led to a discussion about the civil-rights movement and then education, which he considers the civil-rights issue of our time.

The Grammy winner whose albums include “Evolver” and “Get Lifted” thought Guggenheim, an Academy Award winner for his global-warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” was just the man to look at what’s wrong with America’s public schools.

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Lady Gaga and Kid Cudi will be in two different locations in Miami Beach as we head into 2010. (Gaga: AP/Cudi: Stephanie Colaianni/maggish.com)

When Lady Gaga takes the stage on New Year’s Eve at the James L. Knight Center as scheduled, she won’t have her opening act with her.

According to The Miami Herald‘s Miami Music Matters, Kid Cudi, an up-and-coming hip-hop star, has dropped off Gaga’s Monster Ball tour.

(Blogger Adrian Ruhi mentions that Cudi’s exit may have been hastened by a fan-punching incident in Vancouver on Dec. 12, as reported by Billboard.)
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The Black Eyed Peas visit AmericanAirlines Arena on Feb. 6. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP)

If you’re the kind of person who gives concert tickets for holiday gifts — first, you’re really bold; second, this is a good weekend to do it, with a lot of shows in 2010 going on sale.

The Black Eyed Peas, pretty much the best-selling pop band of the last few years, will be coming to Miami’s AmericanAirlines Arena on Feb. 6.

The Peas followed up their huge-selling albums Elephunk and Monkey Business with 2009′s The E.N.D., which has spawned two of the biggest singles of the year, “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling”.

Tickets for the Peas’ show in Miami go on sale Saturday.
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John Legend and India Arie at Hard Rock Live in Sunrise. (Rhonda Swan / pbpulse.com) | See more photos

Electrifying best describes the vibe at the Hard Rock Live Thursday night when Grammy winning neo-soul and R&B artists India Arie and John Legend performed to a packed house.

Arie opened the show with nearly an hour of melodies from her four studio albums.  “My mission,” she said, ” is to spread love healing and peace through the power of words and music.”

She did just that with songs like Therapy, There’s Hope, and Ready for Love.

She enthralled the audience with her hit I Am Not My Hair and to prove it she removed her wig/scarf combo to reveal a nearly bald head.  She stayed that way the rest of her magnificent performance.

Legend’s grand entrance  – swaggering down the middle aisle singing Bob Marley’s Redemption Song as he made his way to the stage -  stopped the show before it even began and had the ladies screaming and swooning.
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The inaugural concert telecast Sunday on HBO from the Lincoln Memorial had a sense of history and seriousness of purpose – sprinkled with a little frat party.

The latter came when Garth Brooks, backed by a youthful chorus, sang the rock staple “Shout.” Thousands of spectators raised their hands in the time-honored dance.

What was “Shout” doing there? What, for that matter, was Garth Brooks? The crowd didn’t seem to care, perhaps grateful for a little goofiness and a chance to move in the chilly weather.

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