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Broadway: New York’s theater district, is an American institution – the home of live theater in the United States. Experiencing a New York Broadway play or musical truly is a magical experience,and a must for every visitor to the Big Apple.

The Best prices for Broadway tickets can be found at Big Ticket Deals.

Mamma Mia!

Phantom of the Opera

Sweeney Todd

Legally Blonde

Blue Man Group

In the Heights

Wicked

Jersey Boys

Lion King

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Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Sandler Center For The Performing Arts Virginia Beach, VA	Thursday 12/11/2008 7:30 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Cerritos Center Cerritos, CA	Wednesday 12/17/2008 8:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Harrah’s Rincon Casino – Pavilion Valley Center, CA	Thursday 12/18/2008 8:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Green Valley Ranch – Grand Events Center Henderson, NV	Friday 12/19/2008 8:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Snoqualmie Casino Snoqualmie, WA	Tuesday 12/30/2008 8:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Northern Quest Casino Airway Heights, WA	Wednesday 12/31/2008 11:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Imac Theatre Huntington, NY	Friday 1/9/2009 TBD	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, NJ	Saturday 1/10/2009 9:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Showcase Live At Patriots Place Foxboro, MA	Sunday 1/11/2009 8:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	B.B. King Blues Club & Grill New York, NY	Monday 1/12/2009 8:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Rose Theatre – Brampton Brampton, Canada	Tuesday 1/27/2009 TBD	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	The Oakville Centre For The Performing Arts Oakville, Canada	Friday 1/30/2009 TBD	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	California Performing Arts Theatre San Bernardino, CA	Sunday 2/22/2009 TBD	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Civic Center Music Hall Oklahoma City, OK	Friday 3/20/2009 TBD	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Civic Center Music Hall Oklahoma City, OK	Saturday 3/21/2009 TBD	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Pantages Theatre – Tacoma Tacoma, WA	Friday 4/3/2009 7:30 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Kirkland Performance Theater Kirkland, WA	Saturday 4/4/2009 2:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Kirkland Performance Theater Kirkland, WA	Saturday 4/4/2009 8:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Atlanta Symphony Hall Atlanta, GA	Friday 4/17/2009 8:00 PM	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Atlanta Symphony Hall Atlanta, GA	Saturday 4/18/2009 TBD	view tickets
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Dougherty Valley Performing Arts Center San Ramon, CA	Saturday 5/30/2009 TBD	view tickets

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Rolling Stone were at the Staples Center for the first show. David Wild writes:

Tina Turner Returns With Hits-Heavy Set of Covers and Classics

The start of Tina Turner’s first road trip in eight years was marked by a petty but still amusing royal soul smackdown as Ike’s ex and Aretha Franklin once again squabbled over that “Queen” title Beyoncé bestowed on her earlier this year at the Grammys. For her part, Turner seemed willing to stop the diva madness and accept the title of “Queen of Rock” to end any cat fight with the territorial “Queen of Soul.” Yet by any name, Turner’s alternately slick and soulful two-and-a-half hour set at Los Angeles’ Staples Center last night was proof positive that the former Ann Marie Bullock still deserves our R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

“I bring you a show of my past,” Turner declared to a sold-out crowd early on, and she clearly wasn’t kidding — not even performing either of the two new tracks from her new Tina! compilation released to coincide with the tour. And a show it was, featuring a seven-piece band, two background singers, four dancers and some acrobatic performers identified as Ninjas — once a member of a Revue, always a member of a Revue.

The first half of Turner’s show featured some excellent performances, especially the still solid Wall of Sound that is “River Deep, Mountain High,” an appropriately trippy “Acid Queen” and an altogether inspired rendition of “Private Dancer,” though the set list included perhaps one too many of Turner’s “nice and easy” post-Private Dancer hits like “Typical Male” and “What You Get Is What You See.” The set ended with a major production of “We Don’t Need Another Hero” that sought to bring Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome alive onstage at the Staples Center. The whole thing could have seemed silly, if Turner hadn’t sung the hell out of the song.

Following a half-hour intermission, Turner’s Act Two was nearly flawless — beginning with an unplugged set that gave her a chance to rest those famous legs and focus on that wonderfully earthy voice. Like Turner’s revelatory performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Edith and the Kingpin” on Herbie Hancock’s River album, this segment was a welcome reminder of the inspired singer behind all her international celebrity. A cover of “Help” and a powerful rendition of the Tony Joe White-penned “Undercover Agent for the Blues” led into Turner’s even more vivid revivals of two back-to-back Hi hits she’s reclaimed, “Let’s Stay Together” and “I Can’t Stand the Rain.”

The rest of the show was an energetic rush including an altogether inspired Stones medley of “Jumpin Jack Flash” and “It’s Only Rock and Roll” with clips of Tina and Mick, a closing “Proud Mary” and a first encore of “Nutbush City Limits” that found Turner on a extended ramp reaching out way over the crowd. The crane was cool enough, but by then the Queen of something had already touched her royal subjects the old fashioned way — nice and rough.

Set List:
“Steamy Windows”
“Typical Male”
“River Deep, Mountain High”
“What You Get Is What You See”
“Better Be Good to Me”
“Acid Queen”
“What’s Love Got to Do With It”
“Private Dancer”
“We Don’t Need Another Hero”

Intermission

“Help”
“Undercover Agent for the Blues”
“Let’s Stay Together”
“I Can’t Stand the Rain”
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash”/”It’s Only Rock and Roll”
“Goldeneye”
“Addicted to Love”
“The Best”
“Proud Mary”

Encore:

“Nutbush City Limits”
“Be Tender With Me, Baby”

Source: Rolling Stone

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~Stop Press~

It seems like we have been waiting forever…..!! (It has only really been a few months since they finished their 2008 North American tour), but the  Jonas Brothers have finally announced thier 2009 tour dates – or some of them at least. Tickets NOW ON SALE!!

Looks like only North American dates have been released…no word on Europe or Asia…stay tuned…

From Billboard

Nearly two weeks after the premiere of Disney’s “Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert” film, the siblings have unveiled dates to their upcoming world tour. The 44-date North American leg begins June 20 at the Dallas Cowboys New Stadium in Texas and wraps Aug. 31 at the Scotiabank Place in Ottawa.

Prior to North American arena dates, the Jonas Brothers World Tour 2009, produced by Live Nation and presented by Burger King, will play a handful of dates in South America in mid-May before heading to the United Kingdom and Europe in early June.

The Jonas Brothers trek will feature support from former “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks and rock act Honor Society.

Tickets in North America go on sale to Jonas Brothers fan club members in select cities beginning March 16, while the general public on sales start March 20 through livenation.com.

The Jonas Brothers World Tour supports the trio’s most recent studio album, “A Little Bit Longer,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 last August. The Hollywood Records set has sold 1.49 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Nick, Kevin and Joe’s most recent tour in the summer of 2008 grossed $30.2 million from 43 shows that drew more than 697,000 concertgoers, according to Billboard Boxscore.

Here are the Jonas Brothers World Tour 2009 tour dates:

June 20: Dallas (New Cowboys Stadium)
June 22: Tulsa, Okla. (BOK Center)
June 24: Denver (Pepsi Center)
June 26: Nampa, Idaho (Idaho Center)
June 27: Portland, Ore. ( Rose Garden Arena)
June 28: Tacoma, Wash.  (Tacoma Dome)
June 30:Vancouver, B.C.  (General Motors Place)
July 2: Edmonton, Alberta (Rexall Place)
July 4: Salt Lake  City, Utah (Stadium Of Fire)
July 5:  Winnipeg, Manitoba (MTS Centre)
July 7: Omaha, Neb. (Qwest Center)
July 8: Minneapolis, Minn. (Target Center)
July 9: Milwaukee, Wis. (Bradley Center)
July 10: Rosemont, Ill. (Allstate Arena)
July 13: Washington, D.C. (Verizon Center
July 14: East Rutherford, N.J. (IZOD Center)
July 17: Boston (TD Banknorth Garden)
July 20: Uniondale, N.Y. (Nassau Coliseum)
July 24: Philadelphia (Wachovia Center)
July 25: Pittsburgh (Mellon Arena)
July 26: Detroit (Palace Of Auburn Hills)
July 28: St. Louis (Scottrade Center)
July 29: Kansas City, Mo.  (Sprint Center)
Aug. 1: Las Vegas (Mandalay Bay Events Center)
Aug. 3: San Jose, Calif. (HP Pavilion at San Jose)
Aug. 4: Sacramento, Calif. (ARCO Arena)
Aug. 5: Fresno, Calif. (Save Mart Center)
Aug. 7: Los Angeles (Staples Center)
Aug. 11: Phoenix, Ariz. (Jobing.com Arena)
Aug. 13: San Antonio, Texas (AT&T Center)
Aug. 14: Houston (Toyota Center)
Aug. 15:  New Orleans (New Orleans Arena)
Aug. 16: Birmingham, Ala. (BJCC)
Aug. 18: Tampa, Fla. (St. Pete Times Forum)
Aug. 19: Ft.Lauderdale, Fla. (Bank Atlantic Center)
Aug. 21: Jacksonville, Fla. (Jacksonville Veterans’ Memorial)
Aug. 22: Atlanta (Philips Arena)
Aug. 23: Lexington, Ky. (Rupp Arena)
Aug. 25: Nashville (Sommet Center)
Aug. 26: Columbus, Ohio (Nationwide Arena)
Aug. 27: Cleveland, Ohio (Quicken Loans Arena)
Aug. 29: Montreal, Quebec (Bell Centre)
Aug. 30: Toronto ( Rogers Centre)
Aug. 31: Ottawa, Ontario (Scotiabank Place)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ticket News reports…By Allison Reitz

Jonas Brothers‘ music will be filling the air — and airwaves — as they gear up for a couple one-off radio events this November. The siblings will first hit the stage for the Channel 93.3-promoted November 15 show at San Diego Sports Arena in San Diego, CA, followed by the KLUC’s concert on November 29 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV.

Presales for the shows began October 1-2, and were limited to Team Jonas Fan Club members. Presales end October 3, prior to the start of the public on-sales on Saturday, October 4, at 10 a.m. (local time).

Jonas Brothers, who signed a multimillion dollar deal with LiveNation in January, finished touring in September after completing more than 100 shows in North America and Europe since the beginning of the year. Their time on the road included a summer headlining trek, dubbed the Burnin’ Up Tour after the first single off the group’s chart-topping album “A Little Bit Longer.”

With the exception of a few special appearances and one-off concerts, Jonas Brothers will be off the road and working on several projects for Disney for the remainder of the year. According to published reports, the cable channel is working on the script for “Camp Rock 2,” the sequel to 2008′s Disney Channel Original Movie “Camp Rock.” Meanwhile, the brothers are set to begin work on the first season of their original series, tentatively titled “J.O.N.A.S.” and slated to air in 2009.

The tween heartthrobs stated in their official MySpace blog that they have plans to tour later in 2009, after they’ve finished filming their various projects. “Our next tour will be next summer,” the musical trio explained in the mid-September post. “Hopefully we can make it to your area but we will not be out on an official tour until June or July.”

Whereas the summer 2008 tour featured two North American legs and a European jaunt, the Jonas Brothers stated that their next outing will be their first world tour. “We want to visit some of the areas where our music has done well, for example Latin and South America, Europe again, Asia, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand,” the brothers wrote in their blog.

Tickets to confirmed shows available here… Jonas Brothers

[phpbay]jonas brothers tickets[/phpbay]

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Take, for instance, when she organized a songwriting retreat last year at the Ryman Auditorium in preparation for her second album. “On the second [album], we just had a lot more time,” says Underwood, calling in from the road. “I was able to slow things down and meet up with some of the people who wrote for the first album.” But she needed only to look around the historic theater and take stock of the caliber of writers to realize that she was a skosh out of her league. Underwood was determined to make this meeting work, though a star of her wattage didn’t need to prove herself by trying to help pen her own hits. Plenty of big-time country-music artists are content to sift through the mountain of Music Row offerings crafted by songwriting pros, select their favorites, and extend their fame.

Whether Underwood was intimidated or not, this retreat was her idea. When she won American Idol in May 2005, she began picking her songs immediately for her debut album, Some Hearts, which came out six months later. She was completely unprepared, having never written any songs; she didn’t know — couldn’t believe, until the moment she was announced the winner of American Idol – that she could possibly make a career as a singer.

The second album would be different, she decided. She’d established herself as the fastest-selling debut country artist in Nielsen SoundScan history, with Some Hearts selling more than seven million copies. And although she’d been a team player with the first album, she’d also gained some experience asserting her will, like when she’d refused to make a poppier version of her hit “Before He Cheats,” which went on to be a huge crossover smash anyway. This time, she could do things exactly how she wanted to.

There was an obvious advantage to this writing retreat: Underwood would be able to write with people whose songs she had already sung on a successful album. They wrote songs that worked for her, in terms of what she liked and what her fans liked. But another benefit was less obvious: The songwriters would have her to guide them.

“They’re incredibly talented, but even they need direction sometimes,” Underwood says. “It’s not fair to say, ‘Hey, Carrie Underwood is working on a new album, so write for her.’ They don’t know me personally; they don’t know what direction I want to take the album. It was important to all of us to get together so I could hang out with them. And we started writing, and soon we had all these great songs. … It was awesome.”

Taking this approach to her new album, Carnival Ride, also helped Underwood prove the naysayers wrong. The critics who contend that she doesn’t have enough to do with crafting her albums (guilty on the first one, she’ll admit). The folks who say if a song doesn’t originate from living a broken-down, alcohol-fueled, honky-tonk life, then it ain’t country (fairly ridiculous).

“I think country music is cool in this way: It has its own little levels of music,” she says. “Whether you like more traditional or more contemporary people, like me and Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban, I think there really is something for everybody. So, instead of being upset at somebody — oh, they’re too old; oh, they’re too new — I think people should embrace that and be happy that country music is different. It’s different from person to person. It doesn’t feel like the same song being played over and over and over again on the radio.”

And while she’s aware that she can’t please everyone — “Haters are going to hate,” she’s said before — that’s not going to stop her from trying. Because Underwood feels she’s had to prove she belongs in the country-music scene ever since 2004, when she first made the eight-hour drive to audition for Idol. And even when she was selected at the audition, even when Simon Cowell later declared she would win in a cakewalk while there were still nearly a dozen contestants competing, she never saw herself as having a chance to live the American dream she’s currently drifting through.

UNDERWOOD IS EXPERIENCING another awkward moment. This time, it’s March, and she’s playing at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. She’s just finished her set, ending with the Randy Travis song “I Told You So,” which she covers on Carnival Ride, and the crowd is giving her a standing ovation. She’s been told to wait onstage after she’s finished, but she doesn’t know how to take the adulation. It embarrasses her to just stand there like a dork. She’s about to walk backstage, when she turns to see Travis himself, one of her idols, standing next to her.

“Oh my gosh!” she yelps. She hugs him, turns to the crowd, and says, “I thought you guys were standin’ up for me.”

They are, of course, a point Travis makes clear when he asks her on behalf of the Grand Ole Opry to be its newest member.

It’s a symbolic occasion, a traditional country icon reaching out to a contemporary star. That it’s Travis isn’t surprising — besides covering his late-’80s hit, Underwood often talks about him being a favorite of hers and her father’s — but it is a watershed moment in her career nonetheless, because too often the controversies that bubble around her (some media-created, some more legitimate) have to do with a disregard for the new crop of country stars, of which she is the most visible. (This was made most plain when Wynonna Judd, within earshot of Underwood, said that country music was becoming “vanilla.” The two have since reconciled.)

That it would take such an act to give her a measure of country-music street cred, as it were, seems even sillier when you consider Underwood’s life to date. She was born in 1983 and grew up in Checotah, Oklahoma, on a nearly 200-acre patch of pasture and farmland. The pasture was on old rodeo grounds, where there was still a corral, a bathroom, and large overhead lights that had been used for nighttime shows but no longer worked. Her father raised cattle, which he sold at market to supplement his income from a paper mill, and her mother taught elementary school.

She is the youngest of three girls, the other two older than her by 13 and 10 years, respectively. Underwood’s sisters proved to be an important part of her musical influence, as they listened to ’80s pop when she was growing up. Her parents favored oldies. But most of her friends in Checotah listened to country music. So it was she who introduced her parents to the fiddle-rich music of folks like Randy Travis and Martina McBride.

Underwood would sing at church and festivals while she was growing up, but she wasn’t being groomed to be a child star. In fact, she liked to sing only at out-of-town events, because the local kids would make fun of her whenever she would sing in Checotah (which her mother sometimes convinced her to do). But that was just typical kid cruelty. Underwood says those days shaped more than just her singing style.

“I really appreciate where I grew up,” she says. “My parents were very poor, and they worked very hard to make sure that my sisters and I were never without. I never went without anything that I needed, ever. And just being able to run around outside — I don’t think my parents ever had to worry about me. Being raised in a small community made me who I am.”

Underwood studied at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. After her sophomore year, she began performing at a summer festival at the university. The theater she sang in was small, with maybe 200 stiff, uncomfortable seats, but the experience gave her just enough confidence to think she should try out for something larger and to dream a little bigger.

One evening before the start of her final semester, she was at her parents’ home in Checotah, watching a newscast about American Idol tryouts in Cleveland. Hopefuls were camping out, and a reporter was interviewing those in line. On a whim, Underwood went to her computer to see how close to Checotah the traveling auditions would be held. The closest scheduled stop was St. Louis — eight hours away.

Shoot, she thought. Not this year.

A little later, her mother approached her. “If you want to go, I’ll take you,” she offered. Underwood refused. “It’s dumb. They’ll cut me. There’s no way,” she said. “We would drive up there for nothing.” That night, she reconsidered. She was about to graduate. Realistically, once she got a job and moved away, she would never be in a position to try this again. It might be her only shot.

The audition was on a Sunday. She performed at her university Saturday night and then loaded into the car with her mother and a friend, driving all night to St. Louis. She arrived an hour before the eight a.m. check-in deadline and then waited all day before being called in. She belted out a Martina McBride song and was shocked when she was asked back the following day.

The crazy train of fame then whisked her away. What followed was her well-chronicled rise on America’s number one television show, where she won over fans as a small-town girl with a big voice and Disney-quality beauty. Even though she had a tough battle with Bo Bice in her quest to be named season four’s American Idol, show producer Cowell never had a doubt about the nation’s next country sensation. “It was like everyone that year had auditioned in black and white,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “She was the only one who came in full color.”

PERHAPS THE WORST (certainly the most frequent) uncomfortable moment for Carrie Underwood, The Girl, is seeing the way Carrie Underwood, The Celebrity, is treated in the media. True, people love a small-town success story. But it bothered her that the Idol folks somehow managed to air “every dumb thing” she said. “If you follow someone around 24 hours a day, seven days a week, chances are they’re going to say something stupid,” she says, laughing. She felt she was portrayed as the country bumpkin, when in reality, she was like any other college student. Her mother has a master’s degree, for crying out loud.

Also, there are the tacky accoutrements of fame all young stars are forced to endure: having your dating life played out in supermarket magazines for every young fan to see, having every reaction scrutinized by the press (so if you don’t wail when someone is kicked off American Idol, you’re branded as cold or unfeeling), and having gossip hounds take quotes out of context, thus eliminating sarcasm from your humor bank.

“It’s just a strange thing to get used to,” Underwood says. “And to read blatant lies is odd too. To have family members and friends calling me and saying, ‘I heard you did this,’ or, ‘[I heard] you’re dating so-and-so.’ It’s just like, no, it’s a lie. I read in a magazine one time — this is how stupid it can get — that my favorite food at a particular restaurant was something that had meat in it, and I’m like, if they had looked up anything, anybody who knows anything about me would have said, ‘No, it’s not. She’d never eat that: She’s a vegetarian.’ I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. I’m just trying to tolerate it and deal with it as best I can.

“It’s hard, though,” she continues. “I want people to like me. I’ve always been that way, so to have something negative, I automatically want to come out and defend myself, and sometimes I have to be reminded that it’s just going to make things worse if I do. So, you just kind of have to sit back and bite your tongue. I know the truth. I know what kind of person I am. I’m trying to be content in that and not really worry so much about what everybody else thinks.”

She’s focusing instead on controlling the parts of her career she can — namely, her music. She began that right away, actually, with her first album. After her Idol victory, there was speculation that perhaps she would make a pop album. “I went to Nashville for the CMA Music Fest, and that was kind of a declaration of ‘this is where I want to be and this is what I’m doing.’ So, for any doubters who think I’m going to make a pop album: It’s not gonna happen.”

Following the festival, she willingly submitted to the folks who held her hand through the record-making process. She toured with big names, learning what she could from Brad Paisley and Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban. (One thing she learned: When you’re on tour, do not watch Borat in a room full of men. You will be embarrassed.) She found a songwriter soul mate, Hillary Lindsey, a young woman who could write and talk about t he same sort of emotions and problems Underwood encounters, which helped Underwood to make her second album more personal.

Now, with dozens of awards, millions of albums sold, and a growing acceptance from a diversified country-music fan base (not to mention the crossover appeal she has earned through her TV profile and the pop success of “Before He Cheats”), Underwood has managed to pull off the nearly impossible: overcoming the pressures of being an overnight sensation, growing a career steadily, and maturing as an artist.

“I still love to go home, still like to do normal things,” she says. “I live in Nashville, so I don’t have paparazzi following me around. I go to the grocery store. I go to the mall. I try to live my life like a normal person would, as best I still can.”

But when you’re Carrie Underwood, normal, of course, is a relative term. A few days after we spoke, she was inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Undoubtedly, she was squirming onstage, embarrassed from all the attention. But at the rate she’s skyrocketing, she’ll have to get used to it.

ERIC CELESTE is the managing editor of D Magazine, the city magazine of Dallas.

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Heath McCoy ,  Canwest News Service

ALBUM: DEATH MAGNETIC

Artist: Metallica

Label: Warner/Reprise/Maverick

Best track: Broken, Beat & Scarred

Rating: 4 (out of five)

- – -

Metallica has never had more to prove than they do at this very moment. With their new album, Death Magnetic released on Friday — thought it was leaked online in its entirety more than a week ago — the thrash pioneers must demonstrate they’re still a legitimate superpower of the metal genre.

They need to notch up a crushing, brutally decisive victory with this album. If they don’t, they’re in serious danger of being written off completely by their once loyal fans, many of whom consider the last decade or so to be an ever-escalating betrayal, with 2003′s awkward group-therapy project St. Anger the ultimate treachery.

Truthfully, the Load/Reload albums, and even the reviled St. Anger, weren’t the utter abominations they were made out to be, and the wrath Metallica incurred for daring to try other styles reflects a certain rigidity in the metal community, which is frustrating.

Even so, Metallica is doing exactly what they need to be doing on Death Magnetic. With longtime producer Bob Rock out and Rick Rubin at the helm, Metallica is desperate to reconnect with their thrash metal roots. They’re out to reignite the fire that burned in their young bellies and establish that they still possess the feral chops that once made them kings.

Death Magnetic sees that mission accomplished handily enough, though not flawlessly. The disc definitely hearkens back to the early Metallica records, bursting as it is with thrash fury, melodic, shredding solos and those stabbing blasts of raw power that characterized the band’s mightiest work.

There’s also a return to longer songs with complex multiple arrangements. Throughout the disc, James Hetfield’s growl is potent, Kirk Hammett’s guitar work is lethal, and drummer Lars Ulrich beats track after track bloody. The elusive missing ingredient — which keeps Death Magnetic from reaching the heights of, say, a Master of Puppets — is the savage, undeniable hooks that made fans foam at the mouth back in the day.

Still, Metallica admirably guns for that level of intensity. Among the finest cuts are Broken, Beat & Scarred, featuring a sinister riff and aggressive, battle-hardened lyrics; Cyanide, with its mean, rumbling groove; and All Nightmare Long, which is a nasty son of Enter Sandman that strives to capture the explosive fury of Battery.

In many instances, it’s a little too obvious exactly what part of their past Metallica is referencing on Death Magnetic. The End of the Line is going for a Master of Puppets vibe and The Day That Never Comes strives to be the next One. Both the new tunes are solid too, even though they pale before those original bursts of inspiration. As for The Unforgiven III, it starts off promising with a surprisingly elegant intro featuring piano, brass and a string section, but once the tune kicks in, it’s rather plodding and tedious compared to the first Unforgiven, heard on The Black Album.

Does the Metallica of 2008 lay waste to the rock landscape with the same awesome ferocity of Metallica circa 1986? No, not quite. But with Death Magnetic, for the first time in a long time, they can at least ride alongside that barbarous band.

- Metallica will perform in Vancouver, Dec. 2; Calgary, Dec. 4-5 and Edmonton, Dec. 7. For more information, go to www.metallica.com.

© Canwest News Service 2008

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Click here for tickets to the Las Vegas shows on 8th November and 9 November 2008.

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The show features many of the dance-inspired pop tunes from her extensive catalogue, and is broken up with some video imagery that includes pictures of Hitler, Mugabe, global warming, mass destruction and ….you guessed it…John McCain.

One other montage shows images including Ghandi, John Lennon, Al Gore, and of course….barack Obama.

I wonder if she is still registered to vote?

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