News & Views

News …

Helicopter with Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee riding shotgun forced to land by L.A.P.D. – E! Online

Some Arizona Super Bowl fans get more than pigskin with their telecast as porn invades final seconds of the game – Arizona Daily Star

Steve Martin’s banjo love – The New York Times

30 years after his death, Keith Moon to be honored by plaque hung at location of some of The Who’s early gigs – BBC News

Views …

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at the Super Bowl – “He promised a 12-minute party, and more than delivered by charming the estimated 100 million television viewers with his opening line: ‘I want you to put the chicken fingers down and turn your television all the way up.'” – Associated Press

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at the Super Bowl – “This was Springsteen as song-and-dance man, an accomplished artist reduced to pandering.” – The Chicago Tribune / Turn It Up

Katy Perry in Los Angeles – “In a surprisingly strong performance, only the fourth date of her just-launched, cutely named Hello Katy Tour, Perry set herself apart from the teeming hordes of pop-tart princesses who have taken over mainstream radio this decade with a show that deftly displayed all of her winning traits.” – The Orange County Register

Punch Brothers feat. Chris Thile in Birmingham, Alabama – “Experimental bluegrass for the brainy set, expertly performed.” – The Birmingham News

Sam Roberts Band in Ottawa – “Roberts’ fluid voice, sometimes a little rough in the live setting, sounded better than ever, a sterling instrument that is his one of his strongest assets and elevates his material beyond the crowded pool of retro-rock bands.” – Ottawa Citizen

America in Ontario – “Bunnell and Beckley still have good voices. If anything, their vocals are a tad lower, less saccharine. Their mature sound is still mellow, but not so cottony soft – in a word, more ballsy.” – The Waterloo Record

Brad Paisley in Omaha – “Paisley proved that he is much more than just a singer. He is an amazing guitar player, too.” – Omaha World-Herald

“Tim and Eric Awesome Tour” in Boston – “In person, it’s all the stranger to see, say, Tim rolling around in a leopard-print Speedo or the bizarrely earnest David Liebe Hart doing his wacked-out ventriloquist act than it is on TV.” – Boston Herald / The Edge

They Say It’s Their Birthday … (Or so says Associated Press)

Tom Smothers is 72
Graham Nash is 67
Howard Bellamy (The Bellamy Brothers) is 63
Ross Valory (Journey) is 60
Robert DeLeo (Army of Anyone; Stone Temple Pilots) is 43
Ben Mize (Counting Crows) is 38
T-Mo is 37
Shakira is 32

Blaine Larsen is 23.