Loading Photo Gallery Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com Flanakin and his traveling partner, Allyssa Milian, 25, of Austin, were among the 750 people who had purchased tickets to festival that boasted a 14 band line-up and two stages by Saturday afternoon. “I expect it to pick up tonight with the headliners ... |
Saturday, 31 August 2013
Loading Photo Gallery - Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com
Concert Review: Sacred Music Festival - Jerusalem Post
Concert Review: Sacred Music Festival Jerusalem Post ... by Jaan-Eik Tulve and the Greek Tropos choir conducted by Konstandinos Angelidis – were crammed into a single never-ending performance in what amounted to amateurish programming on the part of the Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival's organizers. |
Dehydration, heat exhaustion at Ohio music fest - Sacramento Bee
Dehydration, heat exhaustion at Ohio music fest Sacramento Bee TROY, Ohio -- Firefighters treated at least 50 people at a southwestern Ohio music festival for dehydration, exhaustion and related illnesses. Safety officials in Troy, north of Dayton, blamed the heat and humidity on Friday and music lovers "simply ... |
MLB to Co-Produce Music Festival in New York's Central Park - Hollywood Reporter
MLB to Co-Produce Music Festival in New York's Central Park Hollywood Reporter The New York Times reports there are currently negotiations underway to condense the concert into a two-hour special that will be aired on a major television network. The festival lineup includes Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Kings of Leon and John Mayer. |
Friday, 30 August 2013
Michigan Mosaic Music Festival offers multicultural fun - Lansing State Journal
Michigan Mosaic Music Festival offers multicultural fun Lansing State Journal “Mosaic is an ancient art form of small, multi-colored stones placed carefully to form a larger mural pattern, and the Michigan Mosaic Music Festival aims to emulate that by bridging the Lansing area's different communities in an outdoor celebration of ... |
Thursday, 29 August 2013
Final Preparations Underway for Lockn' Music Festival - The Charlottesville Newsplex
Final Preparations Underway for Lockn' Music Festival The Charlottesville Newsplex Next week, about 30,000 people are expected to converge on a Nelson County farm for the first Lockn' Music Festival. "The site is just unbelievable. The first time I saw it, I just said, 'This is going to be great,'" said festival organizer and co ... |
Boston Calling music festival: 5 must-see acts - Boston.com (blog)
Boston.com (blog) | Boston Calling music festival: 5 must-see acts Boston.com (blog) In Kendrick Lamar, Boston Calling landed "the most talked about person in hip-hop right now," according to Kevin Hart. Ready for the second Boston Calling festival of the year? Along with food trucks, twin beer gardens, and hopefully better weather ... |
Huntington Lighthouse music festival speed limit 5 mph - Newsday
Huntington Lighthouse music festival speed limit 5 mph Newsday For the second consecutive year, the Town of Huntington will impose a 5-mph speed limit within a half-mile of the Huntington Lighthouse during the annual music festival on Saturday. The speed limit will be in effect from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., in an effort ... |
Music festival coming to Plano - Star Community Newspapers
Music festival coming to Plano Star Community Newspapers A multi-day music festival in the vein of the Austin City Limits Music Festival is coming to Plano's Oak Point Park in May 2014. The Plano City Council approved an agreement Monday night between the city and Live Nation, one of the country's leading ... |
American Music Festival - The Virginian-Pilot
American Music Festival The Virginian-Pilot Big beats on the beach: Stand close enough to the stages at this weekend's American Music Festival and you'll feel the Oceanfront sand vibrate around your toes. It's a cool sensation. Try it during one of several concerts by several acts on several ... |
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Michigan Mosaic Music Festival coming to Lansing - MiamiHerald.com
Michigan Mosaic Music Festival coming to Lansing MiamiHerald.com LANSING, Mich. -- The Michigan Mosaic Music Festival is coming to Lansing this weekend. The free community music festival produced annually by the Michigan Institute for Contemporary Art will take place Saturday and Sunday at Adado Riverfront Park. |
The Lonely Wild At The Boulevard Music Festival Chicago [Concertgoers Blog] - 93XRT Radio
93XRT Radio | The Lonely Wild At The Boulevard Music Festival Chicago [Concertgoers Blog] 93XRT Radio This past weekend Los Angeles natives The Lonely Wild charmed the good people of Logan Square at The Boulevard Music Festival. As the quintet started their set, there was no surprise as the crowd began to expand to almost 100 intrigued listeners. |
Music festival funds still missing, no leads in case, organizer says - Helena Independent Record
Music festival funds still missing, no leads in case, organizer says Helena Independent Record Police have little information on the whereabouts of cash that went missing June 29 at the Mount Helena Music Festival, but its chief organizer said bills related to the event are being paid and there's no danger that the festival will be derailed next ... |
Valley Conservatory's Early Music Festival 2013 opens door to Baroque ... - The Birmingham News - al.com
Valley Conservatory's Early Music Festival 2013 opens door to Baroque ... The Birmingham News - al.com Pianist and violinist Dr. Renee Collins-Williams, founder-director of Huntsville's Valley Conservatory, has lined up the area's first Early Music Festival, featuring nationally recognized Baroque musicians and professors for the festival Sept. 8-10 ... |
Kalamazoo This Week: Audiotree Music Festival; Grooving Grounds Music Festival - Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com
Kalamazoo This Week: Audiotree Music Festival; Grooving Grounds Music Festival Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com Audiotree Music Festival: Blues Travelers, Dr. Dog and Kalamazoo's Greensky Bluegrass will headline the inaugural Audiotree Music Festival at Wings Stadium. The festival will feature 15 bands on two stages outside of Wings Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 31. |
Sunday, 25 August 2013
More than 100 arrested at Country Music
Friday, 23 August 2013
Rim Fire Forces Cancellation of Strawberry Music Festival
Thursday, 22 August 2013
STRAWBERRY MUSIC FESTIVAL Strawberry Music Festival
Seattle 'under
List: The 10 best things about Maha Music Festival 2013
Tumbleweed Music Festival events planned Aug. 30
Tuesday, 20 August 2013
Charles Murdoch - Dekire Feat. Oscar Key Sung (Bodhi Remix) by future classic
Future Classic will be releasing Bodhi's forthcoming EP 'Imperfection / No More' in October. Bodhi Tour Dates: 17 August- Manchester, Gorilla Bar 7 Sept - Bestival 21 Sep - Concorde, Brighton w/ BONDAX 24 Sep - Leeds, Faversham w/ BONDAX 26 Sep - Rescue Rooms w/ BONDAX 4 Oct - ICAN Studios w/ BONDAX 5 Oct - Under The Bridge, London 11 Oct - Haus, Liverpool 10 Nov - La Machine, 11 Dec - Soup Kitchen, Manchester @Bodhi-Music @CharlesMurdoch
Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Livestreaming makes music festivals free and hassle
You could pay hundreds of dollars to see Paul McCartney and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or you could see them for free. More music festivals are livestreaming their concerts without charge as the ultimate marketing tool. For music fans, it's a chance to rock out from the best seats in the house.
The summer music festival season is in full swing. In San Francisco, that means the three-day Outside Lands music festival, which this year featured the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Vampire Weekend, and Paul McCartney.
The festival packed in 65,000 people a day. But those who didn't want to shell out the $250 for a 3-day pass, wait in line at the Porta Potties, or spend hours staking out a spot of grass by the main stage could still see the big names acts -- and for free.
How live streams could change the music festival experience
Festival organizers partnered with live streaming platform Ustream to provide a free, live webcast that could be viewed worldwide on desktops, laptops and mobile devices.
"We have a multi-stage webcast. People will be able to watch, just like they're here at the festival, be able to watch from home," explained festival organizer Rick Farman, co-founder of Superfly Presents. "It's a sold out event this year, so we're happy that a lot of people who just can't come out or buy tickets can be able to get some experience of the festival."
The live Webcast from Ustream and Springboard Production involved feeds from cameras placed on the three largest stages, three video production trucks, hundreds of feet of cable, and a production team of more than 150 people.
"Typically festivals would broadcast the same footage they would show to the left and right of the stage. In this situation, we're taking multiple camera feeds, multiple audio signals, mixing it all specifically for the web broadcast," Ustream senior sales engineer Gilad Gershoni said.
(Credit: Jared Kohler/CNET)
Festival-goers could also tap into the live stream on their mobile devices if they could get a strong enough cell signal. In an effort to stem customer complaints about spotty cell coverage at big events, AT&T and Verizon put up mobile cell towers called COWs or Cell on Wheels, more than doubling what they provided last year. AT&T's setup included something called a mega-COW, which was the largest COW they ever deployed in Northern California and accounted for about 50 percent of the overall equipment AT&T deployed.
Several times at the festival it took awhile to load the Ustream Outside Lands page and access the streams on my Verizon iPhone 5. However, I was able to easily pull up the livestream of the Phoenix performance on my phone while I was watching Nine Inch Nails on the main stage -- so it did pass that test.
Expect to see more music festivals streamed live for free. With about 11 million people tuning into Ustream's broadcast of the Bonnaroo music festival, concert promoters see the live Webcasts as a way to give viewers at home a taste of that they're missing and hopefully inspires them to pay for tickets in the future.
Lady Gaga to open iTunes Fest with hour of new music
Lady Gaga returned to the airwaves Monday with single 'Applause,' from upcoming album 'ARTPOP.' (Photo: JB Lacroix FilmMagic)
Lady Gaga will launch the iTunes Festival next month with a batch of fresh tunes.
The singer, whose fourth studio album ARTPOP arrives Nov. 11, promised an hour of new music when she takes the stage Sept. 1 at London's Roundhouse. She'll be the first act on the free festival, which runs nightly from Sept.1 to 30.
She tweeted today, "I'M HEADLINING ITUNES FESTIVAL ON SEPT 1 AT ROUNDHOUSE IN LONDON. ONE HOUR OF ALL NEW MUSIC. #UKMonstersGetReady."
First single Applause premiered Monday after leaking over the weekend.
Among others performing at the iTunes Festival are Elton John, Justin Timberlake, The Lumineers, Kings of Leon, Paramore, Queens of the Stone Age, Vampire Weekend, Jack Johnson, John Legend, Avicii, Jake Bugg, Arctic Monkeys, Phoenix and Tinie Tempah.
Check itunesfestival.com for details.
Hunter Hayes Celebrates Platinum Album With 'CMA' Performance
Hunter's new album 'Hunter Hayes' has been certified platinum and it's clear why this 21-year-old is so successful! He took the stage on Aug. 12 during the 'CMA Music Festival: Country's Night To Rock' and he brought down the house!
Hunter Hayes is proving he is here to stay! The country hottie is topping the charts and the stage at every turn. Not only did his self-titled debut album go platinum, his song "I Want Crazy" did too! Plus, he joined the biggest names in music during a three-hour ABC country music festival on Aug. 12, which had fans going crazy.
Hunter Hayes Is A Mega-Star Performer & Goes Platinum
The singer is having a massive week! Hunter's album and song went platinum in the same week! The RIAA has given him the platinum crown for both and this is huge news. He has a lot going on and he's not stopping. The singer is headed to Thailand and Japan on Aug. 24 to perform with Jason Mraz, and then his tour launches on Oct. 10 in Knoxville, Tenn, which everyone is so excited for.
Hunter performed at Nashville's annual CMA Music Festival in June which finally aired on ABC on Aug. 12 and he was right up there with performers like Taylor Swift, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw, Darius Rucker, Carrie Underwood, Lenny Kravitz, and Kelly Clarkson.
HollywoodLifers, sound off below and tell us what you think of Hunter Hayes and if you think he's the best new country artist ever!
- Chloe MelasMore Hunter Hayes News: Hunter Hayes Performs 'I Want Crazy' On Season Finale Of 'The Voice' Hunter Hayes: Fans Go 'Crazy' Over Performance At CMT Music Awards Hunter Hayes' Cute ACM Performance With Stevie Wonder - Video Take Our Poll'Disney Live! Mickey's Music Festival' plans Grand Rapids appearance
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse and friends return to Grand Rapids when "Disney Live! Mickey's Music Festival" comes to town with music from such blockbuster movies as "Aladdin," "The Little Mermaid," and Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story."
Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy perform Disney's greatest hits in the musical mash-up of mega proportions, remixed to rock, pop, reggae, hip-hop, jazz and country styles, coming to DeVos Performance Hall on Feb. 23, 2014.
Tickets, $18-$55, go on sale Aug. 20 for two shows at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
"Disney Live! Mickey's Music Festival" features an all-star line-up of more than 25 Disney characters, beginning with a state-of-the-art video projection that spills onto the stage as Mickey welcomes Aladdin, Jasmine and the Genie with acrobatics and flying carpets, Ariel, Sebastian and pals for an underwater reggae show, and Woody, Buzz and Jessie for a boogie, rodeo-style.
Produced by Feld Entertainment, the father-daughter production team of Kenneth Feld and Alana Feld, has gathered award-winning talent to produce "Disney Live! Mickey's Music Festival" whose creative credits range from working with Madonna to winning a Latin Grammy Award to designing hundreds of costumes for Disney theme park shows.
"Disney Live! Mickey's Music Festival" also will be in Kalamazoo at Western Michigan University's Miller Auditorium on Feb. 22, 2014.
Tickets may be purchased at the DeVos Place and Van Andel Arena box offices and Ticketmaster outlets including D&W stores and select Family Fare and Walmart locations. Go online to Ticketmaster or charge by phone at 800-745-3000.
Group discounts are available. Call the DeVos Hall group sales department at 616-742-6185 or email groupsales@smggr.com for more information.
E-mail Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk: jkaczmarczyk@mlive.com Subscribe to hisFacebook page or follow him on Twitter @ArtsWriter
Monday, 12 August 2013
Bard Music Festival Celebrates 'Stravinsky and His World'
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. - Sometimes the Bard Music Festival has an agenda.
The 2011 festival, "Sibelius and His World," took a composer often perceived as a provincial reactionary and sought to present him as cosmopolitan and cutting-edge. Last year's subject, Saint-Saëns, has drifted to the margins of music history; the festival tried to recapture the centrality he once enjoyed.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) needs no such assistance. As the omnipresent commemorations of the centenary of "The Rite of Spring" have shown, his innovations are inescapable, his significance undeniable. This year's Bard festival, "Stravinsky and His World," which began this past weekend and continues on Friday, could relax, as it were, and simply celebrate him.
But what should it celebrate? The essential "Rite," sure, but what else? Despite his enduring celebrity, Stravinsky's protean output and ceaseless, shrewd self-reinventions can be difficult to capture.
The opening concert on Friday gave a sense of his dizzying range, from the quiet lullaby "Pastorale" (1907) to the rich, reverberant choruses of "Les Noces" (1914-23) to the spiky serial cantata "Abraham and Isaac" (1962-63). At a panel discussion on Saturday, Christopher H. Gibbs, a professor of music at Bard, suggested that given such a capacious artist, a more accurate title for the festival might be "Stravinsky and His Worlds."
Those worlds can be broadly defined as Russia (where he was from), France (where he became a star) and the United States (where he became an eminence). While the festival is organized not quite chronologically - there were some late works in the opening days and some important early pieces are still to come - the first weekend essentially brought him from St. Petersburg to Paris, ending amid the Surrealists of the 1920s.
In his later years, Stravinsky strategically underplayed Russia's influence on him and his work; he wanted to be thought of, his biographer Stephen Walsh writes, as "a phenomenon without a history." For a long time many believed him. Richard Taruskin's magisterial 1996 study, "Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions," changed all that, painstakingly demonstrating the composer's debts to his homeland and its music.
The weekend's concerts were suffused with Mr. Taruskin's research, showing the influence of impassioned 19th-century songs and arias by Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky on early Stravinsky works like the solo vocal scene "The Faun and the Shepherdess" (1906-7). The scoring of an 1832 Glinka trio for clarinet, bassoon and piano emphasized the country lilt of its melodies, an elegant folk idiom that Stravinsky would echo in his one-act comic opera "Mavra" (1921-22), charmingly performed on Sunday.
The perpetual motion and glinting colors of Rachmaninoff's Opus 23 piano preludes (1901-3) would return in Stravinsky's Concerto for Two Pianos (1935), given an unusually lyrical performance on Friday by Anna Polonsky and Orion Weiss. "Petrushka," performed by Piers Lane in the virtuosic arrangement that Stravinsky made for the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, shows the mark of both Mussorgsky's "Fair at Sorochintsy" (1874-80) and "Balagan" ("The Showbooth"), a 1909 tenor monologue by Stravinsky's little-known contemporary Mikhail Gnesin.
The careful programming made clear both how much Stravinsky owed these Russian models - how much he was a product of his time - and how he pushed past them. Saturday evening's concert was crammed with shining, Technicolor orchestral excerpts from rarities like Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh" (1907), Anatoly Lyadov's Wagnerian, hysterical "Fragment From the Apocalypse" (1910-12) and Maximilian Steinberg's ballet "Les Métamorphoses" (1913). (Sergei Taneyev's majestic opera from the 1880s and '90s, "Oresteia," performed at Bard a few weeks ago, is of this ilk.)
If these works are lush, lurid wedding cakes, heavy on the frosting, then "The Rite of Spring," which closed the concert, is simultaneously the cake and the knife that cuts it. It revels in folk melodies and Rimsky-Korsakov-style grandeur while deconstructing both with a savage energy that was captured well by the conductor Leon Botstein and his American Symphony Orchestra, the festival's house ensemble, which was in excellent form all weekend.
With Stravinsky's increasing presence in Western Europe in the 1910s came new circles of experimentation and influence. A chamber-music concert Sunday afternoon illustrated the impact of Schoenberg's 1912 song cycle "Pierrot Lunaire" by following it with works by Ravel, Maurice Delage and Stravinsky, whose "Trois Poésies de la Lyrique Japonaise" (1913) and "Pribaoutki" (1914) show him ingesting and developing Schoenberg's striking text settings and kaleidoscopic instrumental accompaniment. The same program featured a selection of brief, somber works by Stravinsky, de Falla, Ravel, Bartok and Satie originally collected to honor the death of Debussy, who had borrowed from Stravinsky ("The Firebird" and "Petrushka," especially) in piano works like "En Blanc et Noir."
Late Sunday afternoon, the weekend's closing performance, semi-staged with evocative projections was a reminder of the embrace of popular sounds and the close relationships among the arts in Paris at the time, exemplified in works like "Le Travail du Peintre," Poulenc's setting of Paul Éluard's poems about contemporary painters, and "Parade," Satie's collaboration with Picasso, Cocteau, Massine, Apollinaire and Diaghilev. In this context and after a weekend showing the constant interplay of tradition and innovation in Stravinsky's work, "Mavra" was the ideal conclusion, savvily poised between nostalgia and modernity.
One of the best parts of the Bard festival is the opportunity to hear artists again and again. The tenor Nicholas Phan had committed presence and rich tone in both "Mavra" and "Balagan," and the soprano Kiera Duffy was as incisive in "Pierrot Lunaire" on Sunday as she was on Friday in Stravinsky's 1966 setting of "The Owl and the Pussycat."
The baritone John Hancock made thorny works like "Abraham and Isaac" and "Pribaoutki" alluring; the soprano Lei Xu sang with clear tone and diction in songs by Delage and Stravinsky. A series of fine pianists included Lucille Chung and Alessio Bax, and on Saturday the young Dover Quartet played Glazunov's "Five Novelettes" with calm command.
Next weekend brings Stravinsky from pre- World War II Paris to Los Angeles, his home after 1940. Chamber music will be well represented, with programs focusing on the music of the Machine Age, the circle of Eastern European expatriates in Paris and Stravinsky's influence. One full-orchestra concert focuses on his American period and features a late masterpiece, the "Requiem Canticles"; the closing performance juxtaposes two stage works from the 1920s and '30s on classical themes: "Perséphone" and "Oedipus Rex."
An unlikely event this past weekend most richly suggested this daunting scope: a screening of R. O. Blechman's 1984 animated film version of "The Soldier's Tale," with a live accompaniment conducted by Geoffrey McDonald. Mr. Blechman's visual references stretch from peasant Russia to the space age, from Kandinsky to LPs - in other words, over the many decades of Stravinsky's eventful life. Uproarious and affecting, the film is as mutable and insatiably imaginative as he was.
The Bard Music Festival concludes on Sunday at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.; (845) 758-7900,
fishercenter.bard.edu.
Little Big Town hosts CMA Music Festival on Monday
The Country Music Association is so television-connected these days, if it's given you an award, chances are good it will call on you again.
Little Big Town now knows that for a fact. The reigning vocal group of the year after last fall's CMA Awards, the foursome that recently scored its second platinum-selling album ("Tornado") presides over the annual ABC special "CMA Music Festival: Country's Night to Rock" (Monday night at 8). Taped in June during a four-day Nashville event, the 10th-anniversary edition sends its hosts around the city to interview artists and introduce performances.
"We had such a good time," Little Big Town member Karen Fairchild -- who's married to bandmate Jimi Westbrook -- says of doing the program. "A year ago, we wouldn't have dreamed of getting the chance to host this, and what a great experience it was. There's no energy in the world like the energy when you step out to sing or host there. Or do anything there."
Among the many other talents featured in the ABC telecast: Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, spouses Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Kelly Clarkson, Lady Antebellum, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley, Hunter Hayes, Zac Brown Band, the Band Perry, Jake Owen, Darius Rucker, Kellie Pickler and Kacey Musgraves. Also included are several stars not necessarily considered "country": Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz and Jason Mraz.
Notable on the bill, too, is a friend of Little Big Town: nine-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow, who releases her first country album, "Feels Like Home," on Sept. 10. It already has yielded the single "Easy," and on the special, she teams with the members of Little Big Town on a mash-up of her "Soak Up the Sun" and their "Pontoon."
"I'm a huge fan of theirs," Crow says, confirming she first got to know band member Kimberly Schlapman because their children go to the same play place. "We sit in a circle and sing with our kids, and that is what Nashville is like. It's a great place to raise kids and to be an artist . . . and to be surrounded by people who are keeping it real," she says.
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Listen: The Trillectro Music Festival Mixtape
With the second annual Trillectro festival going down this weekend, the DC to BC team has cranked up promotion for the home stretch: Late last week, Trillectro's promoters (in partnership with Livemixtapes, Karmaloop, and ThrillHD) released an official mixtape for the festival.
Among the highlights on the tape hosted by OG Chase B and DC to BC's own DJ Spicoli: A$AP Ferg and A$AP Rocky's hilariously boisterous "Shabba," Wale's French Montana-assisted "Back to Ballin'," and the formally local Tittsworth's "tranny remix" of Ciara 's "Body Party."
Download the mix here or listen to it after the jump-and start pregaming now.
Madonna at Menton music festival with boyfriend Brahim Zaibat complete with ...
By Jason Chester
PUBLISHED: 14:23 EST, 10 August 2013 | UPDATED: 01:50 EST, 12 August 2013
Madonna showed off her distinctive looking grills when she arrived in the south of France accompanied by boyfriend Brahim Zaibat.
The 54-year-old singer was paying a visit to Menton, a picturesque coastal town close to the French-Italian border and site of the annual Festival de Musique de Menton - a celebration of classical music with performances from a range of global artists and symphony orchestras.
But while then occasion was all about classical music, Madonna also took the opportunity to show off the distinctly urban grills she previously showcased for followers on picture messaging service Instagtram.
The bizarre fashion accessory includes 24 diamonds and an open-tooth design that shows her real teeth underneath.
Evidently delighted with her new mouthpiece, Madonna has since showing them off in a range of shots over the last few weeks, including one in which he appears to be biting down on a sword.
Dressed a little less provocatively than usual in a polka dotted black dress and white cardigan, Madonna was spotted taking in performances from concert pianist sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque and Basque band Kalakan, with whom the singer is close friends.
But while Zaibat looked bright and cheerful in a Comme des Garcons T-shirt, his famous girlfriend looked distinctly weary as they entered the venue for a night of world music.
Indeed, Madonna appeared to be ready for a good nights sleep as she ran a hand through her hair, her eyes downcast as she followed festival art director Paul Thomas Emmanuel into the event, with a grinning Zaibat bringing up the rear.
The Borderline singer added a touch of mainstream glamour to an event not generally known for attracting mainstream celebrities.
But while she was warmly greeted at the event, she's said to be less welcome in Russia after reportedly violating the terms of her visa by claiming money for a performance in St. Petersburg last year.
According to ABC performers are not allowed to earn money in the country while visiting on a tourist visa.
Lady Gaga has been accused of breaching the same rule while performing in Moscow and St. Petersburg with her Born This Way tour in 2012, but insiders claim real the source of the controversy is their apparent promotion of gay rights while visitors.
'The Russian government is sending a shot across the bow to Lady Gaga, Madonna, and other performers who are taking up gay rights in Russia,' Centre for the National Interest executive director Paul Saunders told ABC.
During her concert in Russia, Madonna reportedly told the audience: 'Gay people here and all around the world have the same rights.'
The comment is understood to have incensed advocates of St. Petersburg's anti-gay law, which prohibits people to openly talk about homosexuality around minors.
Anyone breaking the law face potential fines, deportation and - in extreme cases - imprisonment.
Monday TV picks: 'CMA Music Festival' on ABC
Originally published Monday, August 12, 2013 at 5:30 AM
ABC
'CMA Music Festival: Country's Night to Rock'
Filmed earlier this summer in Nashville, Tenn., Little Big Town hosts this concert special featuring performances from Taylor Swift (pictured), Luke Bryan, Kelly Clarkson, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Lee Greenwood, Carrie Underwood, Zac Brown Band and many more. 8 p.m. Monday on ABC ( seattletimes.com/tvlistings).
Doug Knoop, Seattle Times staff dknoop@seattletimes.com or on Twitter @dougknoop Also on Monday
"American Ninja Warrior," 8 p.m. (NBC): The top 30 competitors from the Miami qualifier tackle the finals course and 2 new obstacles, the Ledge Jump and the Rolling Steel.
"Switched at Birth," 8 p.m. (ABC Family): Bay and Daphne throw a bachelorette party for Nikki; Toby's bachelor party is impacted by a call from Simone; Jennice makes extravagant wedding requests; Angelo and Regina re-evaluate their relationship.
"Breaking Pointe," 9 p.m. (CW): Adam makes a decision about Rex's role; Allison receives unexpected news; Chris and Christiana try to make their marriage work.
"Under the Dome," 10 p.m. (CBS): Junior is shattered when he learns the truth about his mother's death; Julia becomes acquainted with the powers of the mini dome.
"Hotel Impossible," 10 p.m. (Travel): The Abacrombie Inn has been run down by its new owners.
"King & Maxwell," 10 p.m. (TNT): Sean's investigation into the Ritter assassination threatens to end his partnership with Michelle; Michelle considers returning to the Secret Service.
The New York Times
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