The wind hit Indio around 5 p.m. Saturday and the festival came apart inside an hour. Stagecoach pulled 75,000 fans off the Empire Polo Club grounds after the National Weather Service called 50 to 65 mph gusts, and Journey's farewell-tour set never happened.
Lainey Wilson got back onstage at 10:30 and played 19 songs anyway. Two wind evacuations at this same Polo Club in three weeks is not bad luck. It's a forecast.
THIS WEEK IN SHOWS 🎸
Stagecoach went cross-genre.
Hootie and the Blowfish brought out Chuck D and Flavor Flav for "Fight the Power" on the country-festival main stage Saturday. The night before, Boyz II Men joined Cody Johnson for the 1994 Motown ballad "On Bended Knee." The surprise guest is the festival product now, not a bonus.
Harry Styles MSG, at face value, this morning. Ticketmaster cancelled thousands of scalped tickets across Styles' 30-date August-October residency and is releasing them at face value through a fan-request window opening today at noon ET. 19% of seats are priced at $50; 100% are under $130. Window closes Friday at 5 p.m. ET, max 4 tickets across 5 shows.
Foo Fighters announce stadium tour. Twelve U.S. and Canadian dates with Queens of the Stone Age direct support, kicking off August 4 at Toronto's Rogers Stadium and closing September 26 at Allegiant in Vegas. The prairie-Canada routing through Mosaic, Commonwealth, and BC Place is the unusual part.
CBGB Fest's 2026 lineup is set.
Patti Smith, Morrissey, Interpol, the Sex Pistols with Frank Carter on vocals, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, and Violet Grohl on her first major festival billing. September 26 at Under the K Bridge Park in Brooklyn. The Bowery originals share a stage with the bands they birthed, and the bands those acts birthed.
THE VENUE REPORT 🏟️
NYC SummerStage just announced its 40th-anniversary season, and the booking that matters is Max B.
The Wavy Gandy himself plays "Young World" with the original lineup at the Central Park Bandshell. It's his first NYC stage in over a decade, after his 2023 release from prison on a 2009 robbery-manslaughter conviction.
The full season runs 60-plus free and benefit shows across 13 parks, with De La Soul, Mavis Staples, Andrew Bird, and Black Country New Road on the bill. Forty years of free outdoor music in New York while everyone else writes obituaries for grassroots venues.
THE NUMBER 🔢
$130.36. Average price of a U.S. concert ticket in 2024, up 32% over five years and 80.5% since 2021.
FAN DEBATE 💬
Variety, Yahoo, and Consequence all converged on the same post-festival take this week: Coachella's Weekend 2 crushed Weekend 1 this year. Bieber's W2 set is being described as the largest week-to-week improvement in festival history. r/coachella ran the same thread.
"Wait for Weekend 2" is now the rational fan posture, which inverts a decade of Coachella tradition. Which weekend would you fly out for now?
THE PRACTICAL BIT 🔧
Live Nation's Summer of Live $30 sale launched yesterday and runs through May 5. $30 all-in tickets to 4,000-plus concerts, including dates by Luke Bryan, Kid Cudi, Goo Goo Dolls, Tim McGraw, and Pussycat Dolls. The "all-in" framing is FTC-compliant pricing, post-verdict.
B-SIDES 🎶
UK grassroots crisis hits 53%. Music Venue Trust's State of Live confirmed 53% of UK grassroots venues broke even or lost money in 2025, with 30 permanent closures last year and the average UK tour now running 11 shows. The math is finally public.
NOLA Jazz Fest is underway. The Eagles' final-year headline, Stevie Nicks, Lorde, David Byrne, Tyler Childers, and Alabama Shakes through May 3, plus a "One Love Jamaica" pavilion for Hurricane Melissa recovery.
Fans are traveling further than ever. A joint Expedia, Hopper, and Bandsintown read says concert-driven travel hit a record in early 2026, with Gen Z's "groupie getaway" (multi-city friend trips around tours) now the dominant pattern. The trips are the trip, which is exactly what Concerts Remembered was built to capture.
Kanye's Europe tour goes defensive. Portugal organizers pushed back this week against rumors that the August 7 Algarve show was cancelled, while Italy's Reggio Emilia booking remains contested. The pattern has flipped from cancellations to defenses.
Beyoncé's Formation Tour 10-year arc closes today. April 27 was 10 years since the launch at Marlins Park; today is exactly 10 years since the Tampa Raymond James sellout, the tour's first sold-out southern stadium.
The power cut twenty minutes before curfew, the band finished acoustic on the stage edge, and someone behind me kept asking if this was part of the show.
Sometimes the real festival is the part that happens after they let you back in.
What'd you think of this week's Still Ringing? Hit reply.
See you at the show.
