Rush played two sets at Charter One Pavilion on Monday night; the first peppered old favorites with new offering with the standouts being a joyous "The Spirit Of Radio" and a menacing reading on "Subdivisions," and the second focusing primarily on a song-for-song reconstruction of 1980's Moving Pictures. Album recreation shows can be a tricky thing but we're willing to argue that the Canadian power-trio probably delivered a more forceful vision of that breakthrough record last night then they did when initially touring behind it nearly thirty years ago. There were no big surprises for the crowd, primarily since the band published the setlist for the entire tour on their website, but we ran into a few folks who had already seen the band a number of times on this tour and they said things are fresh every night. more ›

Northerly Island - home to 12th Street Beach, a temporary Charter One Pavilion, the Adler Planetarium and the vacant remains of Meigs Field - needs a makeover, according to the Chicago Park District. The man-made island would have temporarily housed a 20,000 seat Olympic beach volleyball stadium along with a canoe and kayak slalom course, but we all know how that panned out. Tonight, Chicagoans will get a chance to hear ideas and provide feedback to the Chicago Park District on the fate of the island. more ›

They didn't coerce anyone out of this one -- Chicago mob kingpins guilty in decades of crime. And a relative of a mob murder victim wasted no time applauding the guilty verdicts in the Family Secrets case. Signed, sealed, can't be delivered --Heavy rain forced Stevie Wonder to cancel his concert Monday at the Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island. It was rescheduled for tonight. David Letterman and Oprah are BFF now. Screw The... more ›

There is nothing more that we want to get done than this installment of Empty Out Your Wallet, so we can get outside and enjoy this day. Leave it to the Ticketmaster gods to curse us once again with numerous great shows making our job harder. The show that our readers were looking forward to last week, The Flaming Lips at the Aragon, goes on sale at 11 a.m. on Saturday. This should be a... more ›

It seems sort of cruel to make everyone get up so early tomorrow after a night rockin’ out to Spiderland, but we’re gonna give some reasons why it may be advisable to set that alarm and crawl out of bed for a few minutes to spend money. The Cure has been one of our favorites since we picked up that Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me album at the mall with our allowance money. We... more ›

Chicagoist is spent after last night's gossip-tastic evening at Schubas. Probably our favorite teensy venue in Chicago, the 175-capacity music room hosted the Spin/Diesel “after party” for Fall Out Boy’s three shows at the Charter One Pavilion this weekend. more ›

We have a huge case of the giggles today. It all started when we tried to type “jagoff” and it came out “jagoof” and we could not stop laughing at ourselves for five minutes. Then we decided to be productive and write up this edition of EOYW, which only proved that the Ticketmaster gods were laughing along with us with their offerings for this week’s ticket sales. more ›

We’ve divided this week into the old, the in-between, and the young because we felt that the myriad of choices out there this weekend needed some sort of random pronouncement that really means nothing at all. Sorry ‘bout that, we may have just watched too much CSPAN yesterday and lapsed into nothing speak. The Old Psychedelic Furs June 29, House of Blues, $24.50-$26.50, 18+, on sale Friday at 10:00 a.m. Def Leppard, Styx, Foreigner –... more ›

We've already shared our thoughts with you about Fall Out Boy's new album. And, wise, prescient sages we are, we were correct in predicting the group's latest effort would be a monster sales-wise. So it's no surprise that the group has had to upgrade to a larger venue when they visit Chicago on June 10 and 11 at the Charter One Pavilion for The Honda Civic Tour. more ›

It’s been a harsh week, hasn’t it? First, we had to walk through a blizzard, prove our love on Valentine’s Day and then it got cold again. The rest of the week they piled work on us here at the office, and now we have to decide what tickets to buy for upcoming shows. Life is just hard sometimes. Too bad the John Legend and Corinne Bailey Rae show didn’t go on sale earlier; it... more ›

Tickets are still available for one the year's best opportunities at some serious people-watching: The Green Tie Ball. more ›

Thirty-six years ago Vashti Bunyan released an album that was haunting and different than all the other folk musicians out there. She has been touted as creating "psych-folk" and then, like many musicians, the singer kind of forgot about her voice amidst lukewarm sales and everything that life throws at us. Now she's back with Lookaftering and is playing a pair of shows with Archer Prewitt. Monday/Tuesday, Lakeshore Theater, 7 p.m., $15 advanced/$20 door, All... more ›

Sunday evening instead of donning the required hawaiian shirts and leis for Jimmy Buffett, Chicagoist decided to feed our inner rock beast by seeing Def Leppard at Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island. 18 years after our first experience with the British group, we were not disappointed. The bands vocals were more processed than we remembered, but we have become a little more savvy since then about live music. more ›

Clear Channel Communications in a move to have more Chicago street cred has renamed their music operations here to Elevated Concerts. Apparently sick and tired of defending their strong arm tactics and monopolistic-like buyouts during the '90s, Clear Channel is trying to get in our good graces by changing their name, not by changing their practices. Chicagoist finds this akin to a murderer changing his name in order to continue killing while on the lam, but that's just us. more ›

Chicagoist made the trek from CTA's Roosevelt Station to Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island to check out the free seats on the beach in order to experience the outside of Chi-town's newest venue and to hear Modest Mouse, of course. Arriving early, we staked out a prime location where we could clearly see the big screen TVs. Outside the venue on the beach there is fantastic people watching, our gorgeous skyline, and the sound... more ›