Awesome Concerts

There are lots of big, well-known festivals around the country, but if you’re looking for something a bit more off the beaten path, check out Rides and Drives‘ feature, which catalogs eight wonderful music and arts gatherings which are well worth a road trip.

“This song is called ‘You Never Loved Me’ — it’s another extremely cheerful, optimistic number,” Aimee Mann offers up four tracks from her album Mental Illness on NPR’s consistently excellent concert series, accompanied by Jonathan Coulton, Paul Bryan & Jamie Edwards.

5 years after their first appearance on NPR music’s excellent concert series, alt-J returns to their offices to perform with a string trio. The set list includes 3WW and In Cold Blood, from their upcoming album RELAXER, as well as Warm Foothills, and Taro.

La Blogothèque generously shares Alicia Keys’ intimate set in Le Comptoir Général. She sang She Don’t Really Care, Hallelujah, In Common and The Gospel, all from her new album Here, as well as You Don’t Know My Name.

If you never saw Prince play live in his early days, tune in for the next hour or so, and check out this amazing performance from 1982 at the Capitol Theater. The video quality stinks, but it’s the music that counts, and boy is it some music.

(NSFW: Lyrics) Sit back, crank up your speakers to 11 and thrash your head to this masterful 22-song performance from Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails – the highlight of this past weekend’s Lollapalooza in Chicago. (Thanks Dave!)

(PG-13: Lyrics) Rapper Mac Lethal likes his food, and knows concertgoers can work up a big hunger. So at a recent concert, he decided to order in free pizza for his entire 500-person audience.

Who’d have guessed that Coldplay fans were such ravers. The band’s been equipping audiences with these radio-controlled LEDs for a while now but this is one of the first good vids of the impressive sight.

(NSFW) Missed the live stream of Coachella’s first weekend? Well you snoozed on an incredible headline performance by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg that featured a holographic Tupac Shakur.

Available 6/8, Not the Messiah is the one-night-only live stage show based on Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Special features include sing-along songs, bonus featurettes, trivia and real-time cast info.