Three major tours are on their way downunder: Collective Soul plays the Mercury Lounge in Melbourne, September 7 and the Sydney Metro September 8. Destiny’s Child returns, playing at the Sydney Entertainment Centre October 14 and the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne October 15. Dido and her six-piece band appear at the Sydney Enmore Theatre October 7 and the Melbourne Forum Theatre October 12-13.

Zomba Records Australia is keeping a tight lid on information about Britney Spears‘ visit next month. Pollstar understands she is here September 13-14 to tape a special in front of 250 media people from Asia, giving her first preview of songs from her November-due album and answering questions.

Japan

On October 9, her late husband’s 61st birthday, Yoko Ono will present a special charity concert entitled “John Lennon Music Festival 2001: Dream Power.” In addition to marking Lennon’s birthday, the event will commemorate the one-year anniversary of the opening of the John Lennon Museum in Saitama City, about 30 minutes north of Tokyo. Appropriately, the concert will be held at the brand-new Saitama Super Arena, which is in the same convention and public office complex that houses the museum.

The purpose of the concert is to raise money for Ono’s Spirit Foundation, which donates funds for building schools in Asia and Africa, where it is estimated that more than 113 million children are deprived of a basic education due to civil strife.

Ono will appear at and participate in the concert, though it isn’t clear if she will do so in a musical capacity. The artists are best-selling names in the pop and rock fields, including superstar producer and singer/songwriter Tamio Okuda; Acid Test (a special group made up of, among others, members of Japan’s most popular rock band, Mr. Children); and “Monsieur” Kamayatsu, a veteran rock singer from the “group sounds” era of Japanese pop that coincided with the rise of The Beatles. All of the music played at the concert will be Lennon’s.

In related news, the Beatles tribute concert, “A Walk Down Abbey Road” will tour Japan in early November.Between the cleanup operations for the Fuji Rock Festival and the official start of the Obon summer vacation, promoter Smash announced a number of major concert tours for the fall.

Popular Welsh rockers Super Furry Animals will play Osaka on October 16, Nagoya (17), and Tokyo (19).

The Diskaholics Anonymous Trio, an improvisational group featuring Sonic Youth‘s Thurston Moore on guitar, indie producer Jim O’Rourke on electronics and Mats Gustaffson on reeds, will play the Kansai area (Osaka and Kyoto) October 24-25, and the Kanto area (Tokyo and Yokohama) October 27-28.

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros will play Fukuoka on October 30, Tokyo on November 1-2, Nagoya (4) and Osaka (5). Former Stone Roses vocalist Ian Brown will showcase his new album at clubs in Nagoya November 30, Osaka December 1 and Tokyo December 3-4.

Australia’s Regurgitator will bring its funky hardcore to Tokyo on December 2, Nagoya (5) and Osaka (6).

France

In what appears to be remarkably like an outtake from “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” more than 300 youths took over a staff party at a Paris psychiatric hospital and turned it into a rave August 11.

Gerald Foure, assistant director of the Saint-Anne Hospital, notified police after the youths gatecrashed a get-together for some 30 hospital workers. They started playing thumping dance music in a canteen that was only yards from where patients were sleeping.

The Liberation newspaper said that once a few of the gang had heard about the staff gathering, others were notified by e-mail. They descended on the event, turned up the music and collected around $4 at the door from each new gatecrasher that arrived.

Raves are now such big business in the country that newspapers often send reporters to cover them, although Liberation said that this bash only qualified as a “mini-rave.”

If drugs were sold, they were brought in by the ravers rather than taken from stocks intended for the psychiatric patients as no hospital property was damaged.

Foure said, “We think one of our staff told someone there was a party.”

Germany

MTV has moved the Air & Style Skateboard contest to Berlin. For the last two years, the competition has taken place in Innsbruck, Austria. However, this year’s edition will be on September 14 in the Arena Treptow in Berlin. In the three disciplines (“highest air,” “best trick” and “jam session”), 16 skaters will compete in a “vert” contest for a US$50,000 prize.

As skating and music have always belonged together, Dog Eat Dog, Ferris MC & DJ Stylewarz, Fettes Brot, and Fiva MC & DJ Radrum have been booked to play the competition.

The after-show party will take place in the Glashaus at the Arena Treptow.

Canada

A Robin Black & The Intergalactic Rock Stars gig always has an accompanying rock star story. The most recent “misunderstanding” was over the amount of pyro the glam-pop band was allowed while opening for Buckcherry at Lee’s Palace in Toronto August 4 – in other words, none.

The gig was important for the self-aggrandizing rock stars, as A&R reps from major Canadian labels were coming out to the show. Black canceled the show before sound check even started after he was reportedly told to “take the fuckin’ pyro off the stage” and that he was to “start at fuckin’ 8 p.m.” Industry execs were all told the band was starting at 10 p.m.

Black’s girlfriend, a dominatrix by trade, even dressed up in full Vegas-showgirl attire and was ready to serve drinks to the band from an onstage bar.

Booking agent Niko Quintal of The Agency Group confirmed that “(we) got the green light for pyro when we negotiated the deal.”

Robin Black & The Intergalactic Rock Stars rescheduled its industry showcase for August 14. The band heads out on a cross-Canada tour September 6 in Sudbury, Ont., at Townehouse Tavern until September 22 at Thunder Bay, Ont., at The Apollo. All but one of the dates is with Cheerleader.