Initial Kanye West Tour Dates Unveiled

Well, we knew it was coming and today Ticketmaster announced the initial tour dates and venues for Kanye West’s upcoming Glow In The Dark tour with Rihanna, N.E.R.D. and Lupe Fiasco. (link) Woodlands Pavilion here comes The Blot! Sorry for two tour updates in a row, but I just couldn’t pass up sharing the info on both of these huge tours. It looks like its going to be a busy April and May for concert goers across the U.S. and Canada.


April 16th - Seattle, WA - Key Arena
April 18th - Sacramento, CA - ARCO Arena
April 19th - San Jose, CA - HP Pavilion
April 20th - San Diego, CA - San Diego Sports Arena
April 21st - Los Angeles, CA - Nokia Theatre
April 24th - Tucson, AZ - McKale Memorial Center
April 25th - Las Vegas, NV - Red Rock
April 26th - Albuquerque, NM - Journal Pavilion
April 27th - Denver, CO - Pepsi Center
April 29th - Oklahoma City, OK - Ford Center
April 30th - Austin, TX - Frank Irwin Center
May 1st - Dallas, TX - Superpages.com Center
May 2nd - Woodlands, TX - Woodlands Pavilion
May 4th - Atlanta, GA - The Arena at Gwinnett Center
May 5th - Tampa, FL - Ford Amphitheater
May 6th - West Palm Beach, FL - Sound Advice Amphitheater
May 8th - Charlotte, NC - Verizon Amphitheater
May 9th - Raleigh, NC - Walnut Creek Amphitheatre
May 10th - Washington, DC - Nisson Pavilion
May 11th - Virginia Beach, VA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
May 13th - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
May 15th - Boston, MA - Tweeter Center
May 16th - Hartford, CT - Meadows Music Theatre
May 17th - Philadelphia, PA - Susquehanna Bank Center
May 18th - Scranton, PA - Toyota Pavilion
May 20th - Montreal, QC - Centre Bell Centre
May 21st - Toronto, Ontario - Molson Center
May 22nd - Auburn Hills, MI - Palace of Auburn Hills
May 23rd - Chicago, IL - United Center
May 24th - Minneapolis, MN - Target Center
May 27th - Saskatoon, SK - Credit Union Centre
May 29th - Edmonton, AB - Rexall Place
May 30th - Calgary, AB - Pengrowth Saddledome

Radiohead Prepares To Hit The Road

Today Radiohead announced the dates and venues for the first leg of their In Rainbows 2008 North America Tour taking place this May. Tickets for these shows go on sale Valentine’s Day, February 14th.

NORTH AMERICA

Mon., May 5th - West Palm Beach, FL - Cruzan Amphitheatre

Tue., May 6th - Tampa, FL - Ford Amphitheatre

Thur., May 8th - Atlanta, GA - Lakewood Amphitheatre

Fri., May 9th - Charlotte, NC - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

Sun., May 11th - Bristow, VA - Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge

Wed., May 14th - St. Louis, MO - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

Sat., May 17th - Houston, TX - Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

Sun., May 18th - Dallas, TX - Superpages.com Center

If you don’t see your city listed have no fear, more dates and venues are promised for these cities: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver. I can’t tell from today’s announcement whether some of these cities’ shows will take place on the open dates in May or if these shows will take place after Radiohead’s European Tour in June and July.

Rockstar Curling – Where Does The Blot Sign Up?

The Toronto Star is reporting that NBC “has an exclusive option to air a 10-episode sports reality show that will give the winners a shot at competing in the U.S. championship and even going to the 2010 Olympics.” (link) Curling, The Blot’s favorite Winter Olympics event, is a “team sport played on a rectangular sheet of carefully prepared ice by two teams of four players each. Teams alternate turns at sliding heavy, polished granite stones down the ice towards the target area called the house. Two sweepers with brooms accompany each rock and use timing equipment and their best judgment along with direction from their other teammates to help direct the stones to their resting place. The complex nature of stone placement and shot selection has led some to refer to curling as "chess on ice." (link)

The show is being prepared as a lead in to the 2010 Olympics, which will air on NBC, and is truly hoping for a “rock star” field by courting “closet curlers Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi as part of the show,” possibly as the host. (link) I think the show is a great idea because the sport of curling can definitely use a shot of exposure, especially in the U.S. where the sport is a relative unknown to many Americans. One funny fact about curling mentioned in the Toronto Start article is that while “curling seldom gets more than 800,000 viewers on NBC, it once drew higher ratings than an NHL playoff game that aired at the same time the next day.” (link) I guess the NHL has really hit an all time low when it can no longer even claim to me America’s favorite Canadian sport.


The show will hold nationwide open casting calls, similar to American Idol, and a panel of judges will select the final contestants to “to train for six months, all expenses paid, at Lake Placid, N.Y.” (link) The television reality show will cover the tryouts, training and competition, with the winning team advancing to the U.S. Olympic team trials and a possible shot at the 2010 Olympics. So for anyone interested in trying out, head down to your local ice skating rink and start practicing your brushing now!

The Official United States Curling website

The Curling Club of Houston website

Knight Rider Hits A Bump In The Road

Did no one besides The Blot know the Knight Rider television movie was coming out this Sunday, February 17th on NBC at 9/8 central? If only the people over at General Motors (GM) had read The Blot’s initial report on the upcoming movie that NBC is hoping does well enough in the ratings to parlay into a new fall series next year. If they had they would have known Arrested Development’s Will Arnett had been picked to voice the 2008 version of the Knight Rider talking car KITT.


You would think since the movie is premiering this weekend that everything was finalized and the show was ready to go, but of course you’d be mistaken. You see the television movie’s been completed for a while and while Arnett has already recorded all of his speaking parts, NBC is being forced to recast the role and rerecord all of KITT's audio because Arnett had to pull out due to “contractual reasons.” Why you might ask? Well, as it turns out “Arnett has been under contract as the voice of GMC Trucks” for many years. (link)

The problem is the new KITT is a Ford Mustang and evidently this potential conflict of interest just came to GM’s attention last week. They have since asked the actor to step down from the role. (link) Arnett is quoted as saying ''I was very excited at the prospect of playing the part of KITT in the new Knight Rider movie. However, because of a long relationship with General Motors as the voice of GMC Trucks, I had to respectfully withdraw from the project.'' (link) Talk about last minute hysterics.

Now, forgotten action star Val Kilmer (Top Gun, Willow, The Doors) has been pegged as the new voice of KITT and, in what can only be assumed was quite the rush job, has already completed recording all dialogue for the show’s debut this weekend. It’s a good thing for NBC that no actual scenes had to be shot or the movie might have had to be delayed. What bums The Blot out about all this is that even though NBC was given the golden opportunity to clean up a past mistake and cast William Daniels, the original voice of KITT, in the role that he originated, they still chose to go with a more established “star.” I could at least see Arnett as the voice of KITT, but Kilmer!?!

Come on…this show seems like even more of a train wreck now than it did before. Why oh why can’t the television networks and movie studios leave popular shows from our past alone instead of continually “re-imagining” them as completely worthless new movies and TV shows? Hopefully this new Knight Rider will be a one and done “television event” and we won’t be subjected to more NBC rehashing of old shows next season any more than we already have been with the Bionic Woman and now this!