Summer Concert Season Off to a Booming Start, Live Nation Says
More than 130 million tickets for Live Nation concerts were sold this year through July, up 6% from the same period last year, the company said while reporting second-quarter results Thursday.
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25 minutes ago
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Trump Reveals Kennedy Center Honors Recipients
Credit - Archive Photos—Stringer/Getty Images, Steve Morley—Getty Images, Scott Harrison—Getty Images This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME's politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. In his first turn as the chief of the Kennedy Center, President Donald Trump decided to honor the Queen of Disco, the King of Country Music, the original Phantom of the Opera, Rocky, and Kiss. The choices of Gloria Gaynor, George Strait, Michael Crawford, Sylvester Stallone, and a glam-metal original signal yet the latest example of Trump putting his thumb on the scale of American culture. Trump on Wednesday headed to the arts complex to announce his picks that typically are seen as above politics but these days cannot escape Trump's reach. The President declared the legacy organization would honor this cohort come December and that he would host the star-studded evening that is the biggest single night for the center. 'I shouldn't make this political. Because they made the Academy Awards political and they went down the tubes. So they'll say, 'Trump made it political.' But I think if we make it our kind of political we'll go up, OK? Let's see if I'm right about that,' said Trump, who once hosted his own reality show and remains obsessed with ratings, polling, and celebrity. It's a brutally honest disclosure about just how much Trump wants to put his stamp on the next stretch of the nation's history, which will coincide with the United States' 250th anniversary and the host role for the Olympics and the World Cup next year. . Read more: Why Trump's Kennedy Center Takeover Will Reverberate in Hollywood and Beyond Earlier this year, Trump fired the Kennedy Center's board and its chairman and forced out its day-to-day leader. In their place, Trump appointed loyalists, who in turn declared him the chair of the nation's temple to the performing arts. And since then, performers and tours have canceled stops there in protest, and some marquee artistic partners have resigned their roles advising the center on programming choices. And other events, including those around World Pride, saw the curtain coming down before opening night. The result has been what typically was seen as a tribute to the slain 35th President worthy of bipartisan support becoming the latest flashpoint in Trump's never-ending stream of culture-war spats, going so far as to suggest the complex on the Potomac might be better called the 'Kennedy/ Trump Center.' After all, the President and Vice President J.D. Vance have giant portraits hanging at the entrance of the building, along with those of their wives. House Republicans, meanwhile, have proposed renaming the giant Opera House for First Lady Melania Trump. The previous recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2024 included director Francis Ford Coppola, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt. The historic Harlem theater The Apollo was also recognized. This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter. Write to Philip Elliott at
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
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Trump announces Kennedy Center honorees - including Gloria Gaynor and KISS - says he will host the Honors himself
The president also announced that he would personally host the awards ceremony in December. President Trump on Wednesday named country music star George Strait, actor Sylvester Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor, the rock band KISS and actor-singer Michael Crawford as the first group of Kennedy Center Honorees under his leadership. He also announced that he would personally be hosting the awards program in December. Trump named himself as the chairman in February after firing the center's previous chairman and members of its board of trustees who, he said, 'do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.' He previewed his plan to announce this year's honorees in a post on Truth Social Tuesday morning, in which he also teased a potential name change for the famed Washington, D.C., cultural institution. 'GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,' he wrote. He also suggested in the post that the center, which he said had 'fallen on hard times, physically,' would be 'back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury' and 'WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!!' Historically, honorees have been picked by a bipartisan committee. In a press conference announcing this year's group, Trump said he was 'about 98% involved' in the selection process and that he 'turned down plenty' of potential candidates for being 'too woke.' The Kennedy Center Honors were first established in 1978. Over the decades, stars representing a broad range of artistic disciplines have been named as honorees. Presidents traditionally attended the annual ceremony, but Trump opted not to go to any of the events during his first term after certain honorees said they would not take part if he was in the audience. Rather than keeping his distance as he did during his first four years in the White House, Trump has taken a much more active role in the center's operations than any of his predecessors. Beyond naming himself chairman, he indicated that he would be involved in deciding which acts would be asked to perform there. Several artists, including comedian Issa Rae, author Louise Penny and the cast of the Broadway musical Hamilton, canceled scheduled events at the center after Trump took over.
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
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3-time Super Bowl champ admits he wasn't focused last season
Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has earned four All-Pro selections and 10 Pro Bowl nods, leading to several media opportunities such as commercials and even a television hosting gig. However, Kelce said those side jobs may have led to him not being as focused as he should have been last season. Speaking to GQ's Sean Manning in a recent interview published Tuesday that touches on various topics from his relationship with Taylor Swift to his storied career that has included three Super Bowl wins, Kelce said he is trying to lock in more than he had in the past two seasons, which he said may have impacted his play. 'I think it might have slipped a little bit because I did have a little bit more focus in trying to set myself up,' Kelce told Manning. 'Opportunities came up where I was excited to venture into a new world of acting and being an entertainer. I don't say this as 'I shouldn't have done it.' I'm just saying that my work ethic is such that I have so much pride in how I do things that I never want the product to tail off, and I feel like these past two years haven't been to my standard. I just have such a motivation to show up this year for my guys.' Last season, Kelce's 823 receiving yards were his lowest since 2015, when he finished with 875 receiving yards. He also had 97 catches and three receiving touchdowns. Kelce and the Chiefs are trying to rebound from their 40-22 Super Bowl LIX loss to the Eagles, where Kelce was held to four catches for 39 yards. Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription. Chris Franklin may be reached at cfranklin@
