The Hardest Part of Letting Go is Knowing When to Walk Away: A Farewell

“… The hardest part of letting go is knowing when to walk away…” That’s one of my favorite lines from one of the many amazing songs that Paco Estrada has written, and in this circumstance, taking it out of context, I feel it sums things up quite well for me.

It’s been a year and nine months since I posted anything of substance (original) on here. Free time is sparse these days, and has been for some time. Hell, I wanted and intended to do reviews of what wound up being the final concerts I went to in the summer of 2019, yet that never even happened.

So now comes the difficult part of fully admitting to myself that The Music Enthusiast is done. It has been for a while now, and I hate that, because I dislike it when bands just fizzle out. No proper farewell, nor even a mention of goodbye, they just vanish. It makes me wish I had ended this a few years ago when the blog was in its prime, but alas.

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Bon Jovi Plans New Album, Tour for 2020; Dallas Date Set for June 25th at American Airlines Center
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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band BON JOVI has broken every touring record imaginable, topped every chart, and received every accolade, and now has their sights set on kicking off 2020 with new music and touring. The Grammy Award winning band announced the Bon Jovi 2020 Tour today, presented by Live Nation, will start in the U.S. this June and play arenas across America.  The Bon Jovi 2020 Tour will feature Bryan Adams.

Recently named by Pollstar as one of the top touring bands of all time with nearly 10 million tickets sold in just the last decade alone, the magazine said:  “One can count on one hand the number of rock bands that broke out in the 1980s that are still successfully touring today, but doing so with fresh, new music that retains the authenticity that is at the heart of the best in rock ‘n’ roll.”

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Steely Dan with Steve Winwood Announce 2020 Earth After Hours Summer Tour; Coming to Dickies Arena in Fort Worth on June 13th
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Today legendary band Steely Dan announced their Earth After Hours summer tour with Steve Winwood, playing amphitheaters across North America. Fans can expect to hear all the hits from both iconic acts. The outing will visit outdoor venues including Seattle, Toronto, Los Angeles, and more.

Citi is the official pre-sale credit card of the tour. As such, Citi cardmembers will have access to purchase pre-sale tickets beginning Tuesday, January 21st at 10:00 am local time until Friday, January 24th, at 10:00 pm local time* through Citi EntertainmentSM. Tickets go on sale to the general public Saturday, January 25th at 10am local time at LiveNation.com.

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Volbeat Announces U.S. Dates of Rewind, Replay, Rebound World Tour for Spring 2020; Coming to The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory on April 10th
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Today, multi-platinum Danish rock band Volbeat confirm 15 U.S. headlining dates on their  “Rewind, Replay, Rebound World Tour” this April and May, bringing the tour to cities including Las Vegas, Nashville, Atlanta, Baltimore, and New York City. Special guests Clutch will be direct support on all dates, with the exception of the May 2nd Hershey, PA show which will feature direct support from Gojira. The Picturebooks will open each night on this tour. Ticket pre-sales begin Tuesday, January 14th and general on-sales begin Friday, January 17 at 10am local time here. A limited number of VIP packages will also be available for purchase and include meet & greet and photo opps, exclusive merch items and priority check in with early entry to the show and early access to merch.

“We can’t wait to get back to the States and bring a full, headline-length Volbeat show to our U.S. fans,” said the band, “and we’re beyond ecstatic to have our great friends in Clutch and our new friends in The Picturebooks joining us for the ride. We will see you very, very soon!”

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2019: A Year in Review - The Top 10′s
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I’ve seen a few artists posting year end wrap-ups on social media describing 2019 as an off-year for them. To apply that same term to myself feels like a vast overstatement. This site was largely silent in 2019, with the exception of some press releases here and there and some concert reviews back during the first quarter. On that note, I saw just a little more than a dozen concerts, and didn’t even do reviews of all of them. Hell, I haven’t even written anything in more than half a year at this point, and truth be told, I’m not sure if 2020 will be much different. Time will tell, I suppose.

Personally speaking, 2019 was a trying year right from day one. I will say that losing a parent is excruciatingly difficult and such a loss fundamentally changes you, and I’ll leave it at that.

Despite the lack of posts I did at least want to continue my annual top ten list, so here’s the ten LP’s and EP’s that I added to my collection over the past year that stood out to me the most, complete with a Spotify playlist of my favorite tracks from them.

Check it out if you have some time to spare; and I hope everyone has a wonderful 2020.

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Silversun Pickups Announce Round of 2020 U.S. Tour Dates; Visiting Dallas’ House of Blues on February 20th
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Silversun Pickups confirm a thirty-date tour of the United States, throughout February and March of next year and in support of their latest studio album, Widow’s Weeds. The band will perform in cities including Los Angeles, Austin, Washington D.C., as well as two shows at New York City’s Brooklyn Steel. Eliza & The Delusionals are confirmed as the support act on the February dates of this tour, and the Australian band has been #1 at Sirius Alt Nation with their single “Just Exist” for the last three months, intermittently. Support for the March dates will be confirmed soon. Tickets for these shows will go on sale on Friday, December 13 at 10am local time (with the exception of Washington D.C.’s March 8th show which will go on sale on Thursday, December 12th at 10am local).

The band today also shares their Alan Del Rio Ortiz directed music video for “Don’t Know Yet” via Billboard, along with an interview. Brian Aubert of the band reveals: “We thought that his [Ortiz] idea seems to feel really right with the song. We couldn’t figure out how the song necessarily worked in some more clever, narrative thing. We just realized, I think, it’s time we have something very, very fundamental, like a really well-shot performance video. We felt like maybe people want to see us in this one.”

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Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard Plot The Stadium Tour for Summer 2020; Hitting Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX on July 14th
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The world’s most iconic and celebrated rock legends will hit the road together next summer for a co-headlining tour SO MASSIVE that it could only be held in America’s biggest stadiums.  THE STADIUM TOUR featuring MÖTLEY CRÜE, DEF LEPPARD, with POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS will hit select cities in the U.S. where each band will bring their electrifying stage shows while promising to perform their stadium sized anthems.  Produced by Live Nation, the summer tour is set to steamroll through America, visiting the country’s most iconic stadiums.

Tickets will go on-sale to the general public beginning Friday, December 13 at 9AM, check local listings for details.  Citi is the official presale credit card for the tour. As such, Citi cardmembers will have access to purchase pre-sale tickets beginning Tuesday, December 10 at 10am local time until Thursday, December 12 at 10pm local time through Citi EntertainmentSM.

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Jimmy Buffett & The Coral Reefer Band to Return to Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas on May 23rd, 2020
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Dallas, the wait is over. Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band will perform at Dos Equis Pavilion for one night only, SATURDAY May 23 at 8pm, as part of Jimmy Buffett’s Slack Tide Tour 2020. Once on sale, tickets can be purchased HERE.

Local Parrotheads won’t want to miss their chance to soak in the full Margaritaville experience.

“We are thrilled to welcome Jimmy Buffett & the Coral Reefer Band back to Dallas to kick off the 2020 amphitheater season,” said Anthony Nicolaidis, president of Live Nation Dallas.  “It does not get any better than this.  Don’t miss the party!”

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Maroon 5 to Perform at Dallas’ Dos Equis Pavilion on June 10th, 2020 Along with Special Guest Meghan Trainor
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Three-time GRAMMY® Award winning multi-platinum band Maroon 5 have announced dates for their upcoming 2020 U.S. tour produced by Live Nation. These upcoming tour dates mark the biggest U.S. shows of the band’s career, with the group playing iconic venues such as at Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Citi Field and Banc of California Stadium. The band’s multi-country tour will kick off on May 30that North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, CA. Meghan Trainor will appear on all show dates. Trainor will release her anticipated third studio album entitled Treat Myself, coming January 31st on Epic Records.

Tickets for the tour are set to go on sale starting on Monday, December 9thand will be available to the public on Friday, December 13th. A limited number of LaneOne Premium Packages will also be available, including amazing seats, transportation, preferred entrance and more.

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TOOL Announces a Round of Winter 2020 Tour Dates; Includes Dallas Show at American Airlines Center on January 22nd
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TOOL, who are in the midst of their first North American tour in support of their #1 charting, record-breaking album Fear Inoculum (RCA Records), today announces an additional round of tour dates, kicking off on Jan. 10 in San Diego.

Tickets are on-sale this Friday, Nov.15 at 10 am local time, with a limited number of VIP packages available exclusively to Tool Army this Wednesday, Nov.13 at 10 am local time. Once on sale to the public, tickets for the Dallas show can be purchased HERE.

The tour, which sees the band performing in some cities for the first time in over a decade, has received widespread accolades with the Los Angeles Times calling it “impeccable,” the Chicago Tribune describing the outing as a  “twisting multimedia rollercoaster of a concert” and The Arizona Republic saying it’s “a visually breathtaking night of dystopian art-rock spectacle.”

Winter 2020 North American Tour Dates:

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Harry Styles Plots 2020 World Tour; Love On Tour Visiting Dallas’ American Airlines Center On August 13
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Harry Styles has announced a 2020 world tour, ‘Love On Tour,’ in support of his upcoming album Fine Line. The extensive run of shows will begin in April in the UK and will travel across Europe and North America before concluding in Mexico in October.

Joining Harry across the world is rising pop star King Princess in Europe (April 15 – May 31), singer/songwriter Jenny Lewis in US & Canada (June 26 – September 5), and Jamaican reggae singer Koffee in Mexico (September 29 – October 3).

For the US & Canada dates and select European dates, American Express® Card Members can purchase tickets in select markets before the general public beginning Monday, November 18 at 10am local time through Thursday, November 21 at 10pm local time and beginning at 11am local time for the New York City market.

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The Glorious Sons Announce Massive 2020 North American Tour in Support of New Album, ‘A War On Everything’; Rocking Dallas on February 6th at Canton Hall
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Just two days after their massive sold-out hometown stadium show at Kingston’s Richardson Memorial Stadium, JUNO Award winning rockers The Glorious Sons have announced their 2020 “A War On Everything” North American headlining tour produced by Concerts West/AEG Presents. Kicking off in Pennsylvania on January 16, the sweeping 40+ date tour will hit iconic venues across major cities throughout the U.S. and Canada including stops in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver before wrapping in Montreal on April 11. Joining the tour as special guests are Des Rocs (U.S. dates) and Black Pistol Fire (Canadian dates). The tour announcement follows the celebrated release of the band’s brazen and brutally honest new album A War On Everything (9/13 via Black Box/BMG), and marks the group’s highly-anticipated return to Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, where they wrapped the critically acclaimed larger than life “S.O.S.” tour last November.

Ticket pre-sales for the 2020 “A War On Everything” tour begin today at 1:00 p.m. local time. Tickets go on sale to the public beginning September 27 at 10:00 a.m. local time.

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Kacey Musgraves’’Oh, What A World: Tour II’ Will Make a 2-night stand at D-FW’s The Pavilion At Toyota Music Factory on October 10th & 11th
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Due to overwhelming demand, six-time GRAMMY Award-winning artist Kacey Musgraves has announced five additional tour dates on her Oh, What a World: Tour II. Produced by Live Nation, these U.S. tour dates will see Kacey headlining some of the biggest venues of her career, including Dallas’ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory on October 10 and October 11. Kacey announced these tour dates this morning on NBC’s TODAY, where she performed her hits “Slow Burn,” “Lonely Weekend,” “Happy and Sad,” and “Oh, What a World” as part of the show’s summer concert series.

Tickets go on sale to the general public starting Friday, July 26th at 10am at Ticketmaster.com. Citi is the official pre-sale credit card of the tour. As such, Citi cardmembers will have access to purchase presale tickets beginning Monday, July 22nd at 10am local time until Thursday, July 25th  at 10pm local time through Citi EntertainmentSM.

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The Raconteurs Add Dates in Texas in Support of New Album ‘Help Us Stranger’; Dallas Show Set for October 7th at South Side Ballroom

The Raconteurs – Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler – have added three new dates in Texas to the extensive headline world tour behind their chart-topping new album HELP US STRANGER (Third Man Records). These new dates will feature support from The Hunt Sales Memorial (former drummer for Iggy Pop and Tin Machine).

Pre-sale tickets will be available to Third Man Vault subscribers beginning Tuesday, July 16, at 10am local time until Thursday, July 18 at 10pm local time. Tickets will then go on sale to the public beginning Friday, July 19 at 10am local time.

Tour Dates:

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Twenty Øne Piløts Pløt Fall 2019 Dates of “Banditø Tour”; Cøming to Dickies Arena in Ført Wørth on Nøvember 8th
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Twenty One Pilots have announced a new U.S. leg of their global headline “Banditø Tour” due to overwhelming demand.  The new Live Nation-produced tour dates, which follow this summer’s sold-out arena run, are set to kickoff October 9th at Tampa, FL’s Amalie Arena and will continue through a performance at Tulsa, OK’s BOK Center on November 9th.  To ensure tickets get in to the hands of fans and not scalpers or bots, the tour has partnered with Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform. Fans can register now through July 14th at 10:00PM PT. Registered fans who receive a code will have access to purchase tickets before the general public starting on July 16th at 10:00AM local time through July 18th at 10:00PM local time. All remaining tickets for the new U.S. dates will be released to the public at 10:00AM local time on Friday, July 19th.

Furthermore, Twenty One Pilots have shared “Cut My Lip (40.6782°N, 73.9442° W),” the second stripped back performance from the band’s new “Løcatiøn Sessiøns.”  Recorded by Tyler Joseph, “Cut My Lip (40.6782°N, 73.9442° W)” follows the series’ debut session “Chlorine (19.4326° N, 99.1332° W),” and is accompanied by an official visualizer streaming now on the band’s official YouTube channel.

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