There is nothing more exciting than when the Coachella lineup drops. Even if you aren’t traveling to Indio to see it for yourself, Coachella often paves the way for how music festival lineups will look like in the summer to come. Coachella always goes big, continuing to live up to its reputation of America’s premiere music festival, and this year is no exception.
Coming to Coachella this year will be some big headliners (new and old) including LCD Soundsystem, Guns N’ Roses, Calvin Harris, Ellie Goulding Jack U, Disclosure, Ice Cube, Sia, and Major Lazer. Also performing this year will be Sufjan Stevens, G-Eazy, Rae Sremmurd, James Bay, Halsey, A$AP Rocky, Vince Staples, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Death Grips to name a few.
If you don’t have your tickets yet, learn more about how to purchase tickets to Coachella here!
Following an arguably weak year for albums, 2015 has seen a lot of great projects and many unexpected ones as well. While this year we saw the highly anticipated return of Adele, patient fans are still awaiting Frank Ocean’s sophomore album and Kanye West’s Swish. But where Frank and Kanye have left music fans hanging, new comers like Bryson Tiller, Alessia Cara, GoldLink, BOOTS, Halsey and more have put out some great albums to help kick off their relatively young careers. 2015 though was also a great year for some heavyweights, of course we’re referring to artists like Drake, Future, Kendrick Lamar and even pop superstars like One Direction and Justin Bieber. In just one day, November 13th, the music world saw more great releases than it did in a span of months in 2014. Cheers to hoping 2016 delivers as well as 2015 did!
On the edge of becoming today’s biggest breakout artist, Halsey brought her Badlands tour to her familiar crowd of Chicago, at The Vic Theatre last night. Originally a one night stop, an additional day was added due to a sold out venue. In just a span of one year, Halsey has exploded into the mainstream limelight and has taken the world by storm, become a voice of this generation.
We first saw Halsey this past summer in support of the Imagine Dragons’ Smoke + Mirrors tour and Halsey then was set for stardom. Since then the young New Jersey artist has had quite the year. Dropping her debut album Badlands, the world has heard how Halsey sounds and they love it. Debuting at number 2 on the charts, right behind The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness, Badlands was well received by critics and fans alike.
Halsey’s growing popularity is well-deserved, it’s also setting her up for many milestones. Just this week alone, Halsey made a major announcement, that she will be ending her tour at the legendary Madison Square Garden. She also announced her collaboration with Justin Bieber on his new song ‘The Feeling’, which is produced by Skrillex and set to debut on his forthcoming album.
With a packed Vic Theatre, filled with insanely loved Halsey fans, Halsey put on a shot so mesmerizing that you had to be there to believe it.
Opening the night was indie pop band, Flor, from Los Angeles. Flor members Zach grace, McKinley Kitts, Kyle Hill and Dylan William warmed up the sold out crowd with their indie pop melodies. Originally from Hood River, Oregon, this young band took a leap of faith and moved to L.A. for a chance at music stardom. With much success in a short time, Flor has released many songs through their Soundcloud and now they are leaving Chicago with new fans. Their setlist included: ‘Get Behind This’, ‘Warm Blood’, ‘Ocean, Gotta Give’, ‘Back Again’, ‘Unsaid’ and ‘Heart’.
Halsey’s set was northing short of mesmerizing. Her fierce delivery was met with sheer passion her live performance. She captivated the audience s they sang word-for-word for every one of Halsey’s songs throughout the night. The Vic Theatre’s dim lighting created a personal feeling that complemented well with Halsey’s special demeanor. Performing a number of records from her debut album, Halsey also featured songs from her Room 93 EP.
Halsey’s set list for the night included: ‘Gasoline’, ‘Hold Me Down’, ‘Castle’, ‘Strange Love’, ‘Haunting’, ‘Roman Holiday’, ‘Control’, ‘Drive’, ‘Ghost’, ‘Is There Somewhere’, ‘Colors’, ‘Hurricane’, ‘New Americana’, ‘Young God’, and ‘Young Die’ for her encore.
Only time can tell how big Halsey will get with her unique sound and personality. One driving factor in Halsey’s success is her incredibly passionate fan base. Many fans relate to Halsey for her real and troubling material in her songs. A true voice to this generation, Halsey speaks for many that are captivated by her music.
Check out more photos (by Jesus Montero/The Early Registration) below and see if Halsey is coming to a city near you here.
Halsey is on to something. She has oriented herself with fans via the internet as so many musicians do in our day and age. She is similar and different. Her approach is poppy and catchy while her style is sensual and dark, especially when considering she is 20 years young. Her debut album hits both on the highs of self-empowerment and the lows of relations with people and darkness in the world — especially the latter of those two.
Following the release of his forthcoming and highly anticipated album, titled Beauty Behind the Madness, The Weeknd will be hitting the road (with Travis Scott, Haley & Banks) for a big North American tour. Kicking off “The Madness” back home in Toronto, The Weeknd will be hitting a number of stops in November and December, including a date at the United Center in Chicago on Friday, November 6th. Tickets go on sale Friday, August 28th (the day you can buy his new LP) at Live Nation. Catching his amazing headlining performances at Coachella and Lollapalooza this year, this is definitely not a tour to miss!
Check out the tour dates for The Madness Fall Tour below!
Original to herself and her craft, Halsey is a 20-year-old on the rise. Hailing from Brooklyn, Halsey’s list of accomplishments are already piling high, and continuing her success, Halsey was invited to join Imagine Dragons for their North American “Smoke + Mirrors” tour. This tour is a big jump for the singer, who is about to release her debut studio album Badlands later this summer, as Halsey has gone from nightclub and small venue performances to now performing for packed arenas.
For her Chicago set last night, Halsey performed many songs from her recent release EP, Room 93, while she also featured songs from her upcoming album. Halsey’s performance was greeted with a large crowd in attendance just for her. Her gripping voice was accompanied with her suggestive powerful lyrics. We spoke to Halsey after her performance, to see if she enjoyed the Chicago crowd as much as the Windy City enjoyed her set.
“Chicago is my favorite city to perform in,” Halsey told us. “The crowd is highly respectful, I don’t know if it comes from being in a place that’s so heavy populated and full of divert. The kids here are less entitled, they want to come and hear the music, there not here to grab a fucking selfie. They just really embrace what I’m here to do that’s why I love returning hear. I think it’s an incredible mentality for music lovers to have.”
Halsey also had nothing but great things to say about her fans. “The fans are pretty intense and authentic and I love each and every single one of them to death. Something we struggle with me being a musician rather than a personality because a lot of kids relate to me and that’s a beautiful thing but at the end of the day I’m an artist and I’m here to perform.” And if you didn’t get to catch her performance last night, don’t worry because you will definitely have another chance real soon (find a tour date near you at Halsey’s website). “My fans are incredible, they sold out my headline tour for me. I’m so excited to get back on the road and go see them across the in U.S. in a couple of months in a tour for the album. It’s going to be amazing, nothing is better than playing a headline show because every single person is there for the exact same reason, which is you.” And while it isn’t a headlining set, we can only imagine that Halsey is excited to return in just a couple months for Lollapalooza.
Metric
Canadian indie rock band Metric opened up for Imagine Dragons. Enthusiastic lead vocals from Emily Hanies provided the energy to the crowd for their performance. Hanies’ free spirited and relaxed demeanor provided for a spirited feel, as the band brought the crowd to a new wave celebration. On tour to help support their upcoming sixth studio album release Pagans in Vegas (which is set to debut in late September), Metric provided Chicago fans a look inside what’s to come.
Imagine Dragons
From the start Imagine Dragons created a nonstop thrill ride that had everyone out of their seats. The live performance could have been measured by the sheer intense atmosphere created. Not often does a live performance live up to the studio quality that were used to, but Imagine Dragons surpasses that expectation by giving a chill defining live performance. The band performed all their top songs, with a set list that included: Deamons, Forever Young, Bet my Life, of course Radioactive, and many more. With Radioactive closing the show, the thousands of fans that filled in the Allstate Arena during a massive thunderstorm together, for a rock anthem sing-along.
To close the night, lead singer Dan Reynolds finished the show by thanking everyone for attending when they instead could have been watching the Chicago Blackhawks play the Tampa Bay Lightning for the Stanley Cup. He also announced when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup as he put on a Blackhawks cap.
Go Imagine Dragons, Go Halsey and Metric, and Go Hawks!
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