Pop Evil has announced rescheduled dates for concerts the band postponed after frontman Leigh Kakaty tested positive for COVID-19.
The affected shows ran from August 17 to August 25. The new dates are scattered through late August, September and October.
Previously purchased tickets will be valid at the rescheduled shows. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit PopEvil.com.
Pop Evil announced news of Kakaty’s positive test earlier this week. In a statement, they noted that all band and crew members were vaccinated ahead of the tour.
Kakaty and company plan to return to the road August 27 in Virginia Beach. They’ve been touring in support of the new Pop Evil album, Versatile, which dropped in May.
(GEORGIA) — A Georgia teen honored his late mother through a graduation photoshoot.
KJ Morgan’s mother Teresa Colbert died from cancer on May 19, 2019, near the end of his freshman year at Northside High School. In preparation for his graduation this May, Morgan, 17, did a photoshoot with his mom’s portrait and wore a custom stole with photos of her on it.
“When she was here, we’d always talk about how I was going to graduate and I was going to be the one crying and she was going to be the one laughing and screaming,” Morgan told “Good Morning America.”
Morgan was supposed to graduate in May 2022, he said, but his mom’s death pushed him to work harder and graduate a year early.
“She was already not here,” he said. “So I was like, ‘Why don’t you just graduate early and make it 10 times more better?'”
In order to accomplish that, Morgan said he took college classes at Central Georgia Technical College in addition to his regular high school course load.
“From January to May, I took eight classes and for the summer semester I had five classes,” he said.
Morgan’s early graduation was even more special to him he said, because he had to miss class to take care of his mom.
“I missed so many school days taking care of my mom,” he said. “So my ninth grade year, I was failing classes back to back yet I still managed to graduate a whole year early. It just put the cherry on top for me. It did it for me to know that my mom wouldn’t be disappointed in me. … I just wanted to make her proud and this was my way of making her proud.”
WILLOW has announced a headlining U.S. tour in support of her new, pop-punk-influenced album, Lately I Feel Everything.
The trek is set to launch September 14 in Santa Ana, California, and will conclude October 19 in Atlanta. The full list of dates is listed on WILLOW’s Instagram.
WILLOW released Lately I Feel Everything in July. It features Blink-182‘s Travis Barker, who plays on the single “Transparent Soul,” and a collaboration with Avril Lavigne.
As previously reported, WILLOW will be opening for the first leg of Billie Eilish‘s U.S. tour, kicking off in February 2022.
Neil Young has announced that he’s decided not to perform at the Farm Aid 2021 festival scheduled for September 25 at Xfinity Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, citing his concerns over the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In a message posted on NeilYoungArchives.com, the 75-year-old rock legend writes, “Lots is going on in our world right now. I find myself wondering whether [Farm Aid] will be safe for everyone with the Covid pandemic surging…I don’t want to let anybody down, but still can’t shake the feeling that it might not be safe for everyone. I worry about audiences coming together in these times.”
He continues, “All you people who can’t go to a concert because you still don’t feel safe, I stand with you. I don’t want you to see me playing and think it’s safe now. I don’t want to play until you feel safe, and it is indeed…safe.”
Young adds, “My soul tells me it would be wrong to risk having anyone die because they wanted to hear music and be with friends… Since we know vaccinated people can catch and spread Covid, I worry about the children who could become infected after [Farm Aid], just by being with someone, maybe a parent, who caught the virus at [Farm Aid] and didn’t know it.”
Neil, who traditionally co-headlines the annual event with fellow Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews, notes, “While I respect Willie, John and Dave’s decisions to stick with it and play, I am not of the same mind. It is a tough call.”
Other artists on the 2021 Farm Aid bill include Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson, Bettye LaVette and Jamey Johnson. The concert is sold out.
The critically-panned movie CATS will always have a special place in star Jennifer Hudson‘s heart.
Speaking to Total Film, the singer defended the 2019 movie musical, which flopped at the box office and became a certified punchline at various award shows — with fellow CATS alums James Corden and Rebel Wilson ripping the movie at the 2020 Academy Awards.
Unlike some of her peers, however, Hudson demonstrated how much she cares for the movie when praising the interviewer for even mentioning it during her interview.
“I loved that you asked about CATS!,” she exclaimed. “You know what? I think it was a bit overwhelming. It’s unfortunate that it was misunderstood.”
“I think later down the line, people will see it differently. But it is something I am still very proud of and grateful to have been a part of,” the Respect star continued, adding that she is honored to have played Grizabella — who belts out the musical’s most famous song, “Memories.”
In addition, Hudson revealed that CATS also inspired her to open her heart and home to two actual cats. She added that she even named her new felines after the characters Grizabella and Macavity, the latter played by Idris Elba in the film.
Said the Grammy winner, “They are the best thing I’ve ever had. I love them so much.”
CATS debuted December 29, 2019 and earned a lukewarm $27.2 million during its North American box office run. The movie was also panned on Rotten Tomatoes, where it currently sits with a 19% rating.
(MISSISSIPPI) — More than 20,000 students across Mississippi are in quarantine after the first week of in-person classes.
Mississippi, which has the lowest vaccination rate among all states — about 34%, according to state data — is reeling from rising COVID-19 cases and the highly transmissible delta variant. Last week, a 13-year-old eighth grader died after testing positive — the fifth Mississippi child to die during the pandemic.
Some schools reopened last week, and so far 4,521 students have tested positive for COVID-19 and 20,334 have been quarantined due to exposure — about 5% of the state’s public school students, according to data compiled by the state Aug. 9 to Aug. 13 from over 800 schools.
Additionally, 948 teachers or staffers tested positive last week and 1,463 were quarantined due to exposure, according to state data.
Dr. Paul Byers, the state epidemiologist, painted a somber picture of the crisis unfolding in real time during a call with state pediatricians on Wednesday.
“These are dramatic numbers,” he added. “We are clearly at the worst part of the pandemic that we’ve seen throughout, and it’s continuing to worsen.”
Gov. Tate Reeves has not mandated masks in schools, instead letting districts decide for themselves.
About 600 schools have implemented universal masking for indoor settings following the recent spike in cases and isolations, Mississippi newspaper The Clarion-Ledger reported. The Biloxi school board, and the Gulfport and Hancock districts are among those requiring students to wear masks.
Governors and school districts throughout the U.S. have sparred over mandating masks in classrooms even as children younger than 12 still can’t be vaccinated.
New COVID-19 infections among 5-to-17-year-olds in Mississippi have risen steadily since March, accounting for about 20% of new cases through July, according to state data.
On Saturday, 13-year-old Mkayla Robinson died in Smith County, according to ABC Jackson affiliate WAPT.
“She was loved by all of her teachers,” Smith County Schools Superintendent Nick Hillman told WAPT. “She was an honor student, a band student. Everybody says if they had 30 kids in the classroom like her, they have the perfect classroom.”
The R&B star — known for hits including “Blinding Lights” and “I Can’t Feel My Face” — has revealed that his early work was influenced by Deftones.
“Deftones huge inspo during Trilogy era,” The Weeknd writes in a tweet. Trilogy refers to his 2012 compilation, which collects his first three mixtapes: House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence. You can definitely hear the Deftones influence on some of the heavier tracks, such as House of Balloons opener “High for This.”
Deftones, by the way, has seemingly made a habit of attracting fans from different genres. Along with The Weeknd, singer — and fellow Canadian — Michael Bublé is a longtime Deftones devotee.
DEFTONES HUGE INSPO DURING TRILGOY ERA #MementoMori
After Lizzo opened up in a tearful video earlier this week about the racist and sexist abuse she received following the release of her new song, “Rumors,” two social media platforms have taken a stand against the bullying.
In a statement to Billboard, a representative from Facebook confirmed that the social media site, as well as Instagram, which Facebook owns, are in the process of removing hateful comments directed at Lizzo. Facebook said the comments and direct messages flooding Lizzo’s socials violate the two platforms’ terms of service, which prohibit hate speech. The spokesman also said Instagram and Facebook will ban accounts that repeatedly post comments that violate their terms of service.
The news comes shortly after the “Juice” singer spoke to fans via a 13-minute Instagram Live over the weekend about the racist and sexist attacks that made her “hurt so hard.” Lizzo said she is “overwhelmed” and has “been in shock since the song came out” because of the abuse hurled at her.
“Sometimes, I feel like the world just don’t love me back,” the Grammy winner said at the time when explaining that she strives to make positive music that uplifts people, regardless of their race. “People saying s*** about me that doesn’t even make sense. It’s fat-phobic, it’s racist and it’s hurtful.”
Lizzo’s impassioned video inspired fans to demand social media websites do more to protect their users from bullying.
(NEW YORK) — Nearly 90% of parents in the United States plan to send their children to school in person this fall, an increase since May, even with the delta variant spreading across the country and more children falling sick from COVID-19.
At the same time, almost one-third of parents say they don’t know their child’s school’s COVID-19 safety plan, and 60% say they’d like to know about the measures their school is taking to keep kids safe.
The numbers are from a survey of more than 3,000 parents, conducted this summer by the RAND Corporation and commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, aimed at finding out how hesitant adults are to send their children to school in person this year. The report, Will Students Come Back? was released Wednesday.
Andrew Sweet, managing director of COVID-19 response and recovery at the Rockefeller Foundation, said he was surprised to see more parents commit to in-person learning this summer than in the spring.
“I think we’re at a breaking point and a lot of parents just can’t afford to keep their kids at home. They don’t have time. A lot of parents have to go to work. You can’t work in a grocery store remotely,” he said.
Parents with children under 12 years old — and not yet authorized to receive a COVID-19 vaccine — are just as likely to send their children to school in person as parents whose children were 12 or over, the survey found.
Fifty-seven percent of parents said they would get their child vaccinated when the shot is authorized for their age. Meanwhile, 52% of parents with children 12 and over — who made up roughly two-thirds of all those surveyed — said their child had received the vaccine.
Parents differed along racial lines: 94% of white parents surveyed said they would send their children to school in-person, compared to 83% of Hispanic and 82% of Black parents.
Additionally, parents of color were substantially more likely to require certain school safety measures — like classroom ventilation, mandatory masking and vaccinated teachers — to allow their kids to return to school buildings this fall.
Parents of color were twice as likely as white parents to support mask requirements, an issue that has flared recently in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona, where governors have attempted to ban schools from mandating face coverings for kids.
The survey found that only 27% of parents know in detail which safety measures their child’s school is adopting, suggesting a glaring lack of communication that has most of the surveyed parents wanting more information about how their child will be protected from COVID-19 in the classroom.
“I think there is confusion because there are so many messengers,” said Sweet.
Most parents in the survey said they’d prefer to get information about school safety from a school staff member, with 44% of them preferring to hear from a principal.
Yet educators might not be the most effective messengers of health guidance to parents and students, suggested Sweet.
“It’s hard to be an educator but also a public health communicator. We’ve asked so much of our teachers over the course of the pandemic, and to add another piece to it to speak about ventilation systems or antigen testing … that’s not part of their vocation. That’s not really what they signed up to do. And so it’s asking them to do yet another thing,” he said.
The public school district in New Orleans began weekly press conferences with the superintendent this summer to help communicate safety decisions to families. The district is also using social media to spread information, and is encouraging parents to speak to one another and contact their child’s school directly.
“It is always our challenge to make sure the nitty-gritty details get to our parents, which is unfortunate and hard at times,” Dina Hasiotis, senior adviser to the Superintendent of NOLA Public Schools, said in a roundtable streamed by the Rockefeller Foundation on Wednesday.
Foghat is commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 by offering free tickets to all police officers, firefighters and emergency medical service workers who’d like to attend the band’s concert this September 11 at the Paramount theater in Huntington, New York.
The offer is good for both active and retired workers, and tickets can be reserved by visiting Foghat.biz. The free passes can be picked up at the “Will Call” window at the venue. ID will be required.
Foghat’s 2021 tour schedule runs through a November 27 show in Hiawassee, Georgia, and the band also has a few 2022 dates on the books. Visit Foghat.com for more information.
Meanwhile, the “Slow Ride” rockers released a new live album and concert video last month called 8 Days on the Road in celebration of the group’s 50th anniversary. The collection, which is available as a two-CD/DVD package and digitally, documents a November 2019 performance at the Daryl Hall-owned Daryl’s House club in Pawling, New York.
