Eric Church and Metallica will headline "ATLive," a weekend concert series coming to Atlanta in November.
Amy Harris/Invision/AP; KGC-138/STAR MAX/IPx/APThe Atlanta weekend concert series “ATLive” returns in November with a night dedicated to country and a night dedicated to hard rock. George Strait, Eric Church and singer-songwriter Caitlyn Smith will perform at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Friday, November 5th, while Metallica, Cage the Elephant, and Greta Van Fleet take the stage on Saturday, November 6th.
Strait and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich announced the concerts in a promotional video. “Hello, Atlanta. It’s been a while,” Strait says, before Ulrich suggests the domed stadium will have to open its retractable roof to accommodate the din. Tickets for each night of ATLive go on sale Friday, July 16th, at 10 a.m. ET via Ticketmaster.
This marks the second installment of the concert weekend, produced by AMB Sports and Entertainment and presented by Mercedes-EQ. In 2019, artists like Church, Keith Urban, and Luke Combs topped an all-country bill. Strait played the stadium that same year too, with Chris Stapleton in support.
The 2021 ATLive also features a charitable component: Metallica’s All Within My Hands organization and the Military Warriors Support Foundation, a favorite charity of Strait’s that provides housing for wounded U.S. veterans, will receive a portion of the proceeds.
Strait retired from regular touring in 2014, but continues to play regular concerts in Las Vegas. His first Strait to Vegas shows since the onset of the pandemic are set for August 13th and 14th at the city’s T-Mobile Arena. Church, meanwhile, will kick off his Gather Again arena tour in September in Kentucky.
Metallica is gearing up for the 30th anniversary of their blockbuster Black Album, which arrives in September with The Blacklist, a re-creation of the LP by artists like Miley Cyrus, Jason Isbell, Ghost, and Royal Blood.
Supergrass are teasing an upcoming announcement with fans, according to a new post.
The British band, fronted by Gaz Coombes, shared a cryptic new post across their social media channels this morning (September 13), suggesting to fans that a new announcement is on the way.
Posted at 9am BST, the post simply shared artwork of the band’s logo in red, alongside next Monday’s date, September 16. In the caption, the band simply wrote: “Sign up now”, alongside a link to their website’s homepage.
Upon clicking the link, the page prompts fans to sign up for future updates, and asks them to input both their email address and the country they live in. Check out the post below.
While details on the announcement remain sparse, the post has already caught fans’ attention, with some speculating that the news could be around the upcoming 30th anniversary of their debut album, ‘I Should Coco’.
Released in May 1995, the release marked the record that first put the band on the map, and contained singles ‘Mansize Rooster’, ‘Caught By The Fuzz, ‘Lose It’ and ‘Lenny’. It also saw Coombes and Co. nominated at the 1995 Mercury Prize, and contained what would soon become their biggest track to date, the Ivor-Novello winning ‘Alright’.
At time of writing, the band haven’t shared any further indication as to whether the announcement is related to the huge upcoming milestone – whether it be an anniversary tour or reissue – nor whether it has anything to do with new music that could be on the way.
The band’s last studio album was ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, which arrived in 2008. Since then, they have shared remastered versions of both their 1999 self-titled album and their 2003 record ‘Life On Other Planets’.
In other news around the band, last year it was reported that the band’s frontman joined Johnny Marr onstage last month to perform The Smiths‘ classic ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ at Lakefest 2023.
Before then, Coombes opened up about how “nervous” he was about reuniting Supergrass following the success of his solo albums.
Supergrass split up in 2010 but reunited for a series of live shows in 2019. They released a live album in 2020, Live On Other Planets, to celebrate their 25th anniversary and raise money for grassroots venues affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having got into a flow and the last two albums having done so well, it seemed a bit odd, like a backward step,” he said. “But then I was confident that I could operate both things together and it seems that I did, because I was obviously writing this record mainly during the reunion so I feel like I made best use of both things.”
Coombes’ fourth solo album, ‘Turn The Car Around’, came out in January of last year.