Live Nation is partnering with the NFL to bring live music to Australia’s first regular-season NFL game week.
The NFL Melbourne Game Kickoff Festival presented by American Express will take over Melbourne Park from Thursday, Sept. 10, through Saturday, Sept. 12, surrounding the Los Angeles Rams’ matchup against the San Francisco 49ers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday, Sept. 11.
The three-day event will include daily entertainment and music performances from Australian artists and local DJs, with a headline act each evening included as part of the festival ticket. The full artist lineup will be announced in the coming weeks.
The festival marks a major entertainment push around the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia, turning Melbourne Park into a game-week hub with live music, watch parties, fan activations, retail pop-ups, Flag Football clinics, American-style food and NFL exhibits.
“The NFL’s first regular season game in Australia is a landmark moment, and Live Nation is proud to help build the excitement around it with a game-week experience that matches the scale of the occasion,” Luke Hede, senior vice president of touring and commercial at Live Nation Australia, said in a statement.
“The Kickoff Festival will bring together live music, entertainment and the unmistakable energy of the NFL, giving fans a new way to be part of the action. From Melbourne Park to the MCG, this will be a truly memorable celebration for fans across the city.”
Charlotte Offord, NFL general manager for Australia and New Zealand, said the festival is designed for fans attending the game and those who want to be part of the wider celebration.
“The Kickoff Festival promises to be an action-packed experience for sports fans of all ages,” Offord said. “Whether fans are attending the game or not, this event is the perfect way to get a taste of the NFL, be part of the celebrations and enjoy what we know is going to be an incredible few days in Melbourne.
The Kickoff Festival will also host the official watch party for the 2026 NFL season opener, when the defending Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, host the New England Patriots at Lumen Field on Thursday, Sept. 10, in a Super Bowl LX rematch. A separate official watch party will be held for fans not attending the Rams-49ers game at the MCG.
Beyond music, the event will feature appearances from NFL figures, including a live Q&A with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, activations from the Rams and 49ers, and appearances from NFL Australia and New Zealand Global Markets Program clubs, including the Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks and Las Vegas Raiders.
Fans will also be able to take photos with all 60 Super Bowl rings and the Vince Lombardi Trophy, test their skills at the NFL Academy Combine Zone and watch Flag Football programming at Kia Arena, including clinics, school visits, a celebrity game and Australia vs. New Zealand men’s and women’s national Flag Football games.
American Express Card Members will have access to presale tickets from Monday, July 27, at 10 a.m. AEST through Wednesday, July 29, at 10 a.m. AEST, while supplies last. General tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster on Wednesday, July 29, at 11 a.m. AEST.
Adult tickets are priced at $49 for Thursday and Saturday sessions and $59 for Friday. Kids 13 and under can attend free with an accompanying adult ticket.
The Los Angeles Rams will face the San Francisco 49ers at the MCG on Friday, Sept. 11, at 10:35 a.m. AEST.
Budjerah is taking Gentleman from the studio to the stage. The Australian singer-songwriter has announced The Gentleman Tour, a run of October and November dates arriving just months after the release of his debut album Gentleman, due Friday (July 24).
The tour begins Saturday, Oct. 31, at The Espy in Melbourne, before heading to Anglesea, Sydney and the Gold Coast. It wraps Saturday, Nov. 21, at The Triffid Beer Garden in Brisbane.
For Budjerah, the tour marks a new chapter after years spent growing in public — from teenage breakthrough talent to Platinum-certified, two-time ARIA Award winner, and now to an artist preparing to release his first full-length statement.
“I’m so excited to be going on tour again!” Budjerah said in a statement. “Being on stage is my favourite part of my job and I can’t wait to see my fans again. When I was making the album, it was with the live performance in mind and I just want to give everyone the best night of their life.”
That live-first approach sits at the heart of Gentleman. Produced by Grammy Award winner Om’Mas Keith, whose credits include Frank Ocean and Jay-Z, the 11-track album draws from the pop and R&B Budjerah grew up loving while tracing the personal growth he experienced between ages 20 and 24.
The album is led by “Even At Worst,” “Could I Be,” “Gentleman” and “Want You Back,” songs that place Budjerah’s voice — warm, elastic and built for big emotional turns — at the center of the record.
The project also brings him into orbit with a heavyweight group of collaborators, including Poo Bear, Diane Warren, Philip Lawrence, Rob Lewis, Autumn Rowe and Alex Burnett. Rather than framing Gentleman as a simple debut, the rollout positions it as the arrival of an artist who has spent years collecting the right songs, lessons and confidence to step fully into his own sound.
Before the tour begins, Budjerah will mark the album release with a run of free stripped-back performances and signings at independent record stores. He will appear at Hum On King in Newtown, NSW, on Sunday, July 26, Badlands Vinyl in Tweed Heads, NSW, on Tuesday, July 28, and Sound Merch in Collingwood, VIC, on Wednesday, July 29.
Presale tickets for The Gentleman Tour are on sale now, with general tickets available Thursday, July 23, at 10 a.m. AEST.
The full tour dates are below:
Saturday, Oct. 31 — The Espy, Melbourne, VIC
Sunday, Nov. 1 — The Sound Doctor, Anglesea, VIC
Saturday, Nov. 7 — Metro Social, Sydney, NSW
Friday, Nov. 20 — Miami Marketta, Gold Coast, QLD
Saturday, Nov. 21 — The Triffid Beer Garden, Brisbane, QLD
FISHER will bring his chart-topping dance sound back to Flemington Racecourse this year, with the Australian DJ-producer set to headline the closing party for the 2026 Melbourne Cup Carnival.
The Victoria Racing Club announced Monday (July 20) that FISHER will perform at The Elms Live Stage presented by Maccas on TAB Champions Stakes Day, Saturday, Nov. 7. The set will take place after the final race of the Carnival, with entry included in the price of a General Admission ticket.
The booking brings one of Australia’s biggest dance exports back to Flemington after his 2025 appearance helped establish The Elms Live Stage as a major post-race music destination. This year, the Off the Rails closing party will again see the rails of the famous Flemington racecourse opened after racing concludes, allowing crowds to gather for FISHER’s festival-style set.
“FISHER delivered the most electrifying and memorable performance for thousands of event goers at Flemington last year, and we can’t wait for him to return to headline the Off the Rails party celebrating the final day of the 2026 Melbourne Cup Carnival, complementing world-class racing on TAB Champions Stakes Day,” VRC chief executive officer Kylie Rogers said in a statement.
FISHER broke through internationally with “Losing It,” the 2018 tech-house track that spent 17 weeks on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart and hit No. 1 in December 2018. The song also earned a Grammy nomination for best dance recording.
Since then, the Gold Coast-born artist has become a major festival and club draw, known for high-volume house sets and an irreverent stage presence that has made him a fixture across global dance circuits.
“Last year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival closing party was epic; the crowd was electric,” FISHER said. “I can’t wait to do it all again at Flemington Racecourse on November 7. Giddy up.”
The 2026 Melbourne Cup Carnival begins with Howden Victoria Derby Day on Saturday, Oct. 31, followed by Lexus Melbourne Cup Day on Tuesday, Nov. 3, Crown Oaks Day on Thursday, Nov. 5, and TAB Champions Stakes Day on Saturday, Nov. 7.
VRC said more Melbourne Cup Carnival entertainment announcements will be revealed soon.
Australia’s Spilt Milk festival has officially confirmed its return for 2026, kicking off its next festival campaign with a teaser video after months of silence following last year’s sold-out edition.
Shared across the festival’s social media channels on Friday (July 17), the clip features members of the public being asked to name their favorite Australian music festivals before cutting to footage of a packed festival crowd and a large-scale stage production. The video ends with the confirmation that Spilt Milk will return in 2026, though organisers have yet to announce dates, locations or a lineup.
The announcement launches the festival’s 2026 campaign following a successful 2025 edition, which sold out across all four host cities: Ballarat, Perth, Canberra and the Gold Coast.
Last year’s lineup was headlined by Kendrick Lamar and featured Doechii, Dominic Fike, Sara Landry, ScHoolboy Q, sombr, Nessa Barrett, Don West and more. Organizers later expanded the bill with Genesis Owusu, Larissa Lambert and Lotte Gallagher ahead of the December run.
Demand for the festival remained high throughout the campaign. Before tickets went on sale, organisers warned that presale registrations had exceeded the number of tickets available, with all four events ultimately selling out.
Launched in Canberra in 2016, Spilt Milk has grown into one of Australia’s largest touring festivals, expanding to Ballarat and the Gold Coast in 2019 before adding Perth in 2023. The 2019 Ballarat event also marked Juice WRLD’s final live performance, taking place one week before the rapper’s death.
Like much of Australia’s live music sector, the festival paused during the COVID-19 pandemic before returning in 2022. Organisers skipped the 2024 edition amid a challenging period for the festival market, which also saw several prominent Australian events either cancelled or placed on hiatus.
Previous editions have featured artists including Post Malone, Lorde, Flume, Khalid, Steve Lacy, Latto, Dom Dolla, FISHER and Peach PRC.
Bryan Adams will punch on when his Roll With The Punches world tour sweeps into Australia next February and March, for what will be his second full-scale trek of these parts within two years.
The veteran Canadian rocker will play arenas in seven cities on both sides of the Tasman, with Australian pop artist Natalie Imbruglia locked in as “special guest.”
As it stands, the ANZ leg of Adams’ Roll With The Punches trek gets underway Feb. 23, 2027 at Perth’s RAC Arena, then heads to Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, Auckland and wraps up March 12 at Christchurch’s Wolfbrook Arena.
Frontier Touring is producing the shows, which follow Adams’ early 2025 visit for what turned out to be one of his biggest tours to-date of these parts.
The forthcoming tour is in support of Adams’ 16th and latest studio album, Roll With The Punches, which dropped last August on the singer and songwriter’s own Bad Records label, and peaked at No. 3 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart.
Adams powered through 140 shows worldwide last year, and will play dates in the United States, Canada and Europe in the months ahead before heading down Under in the southern summer.
Tickets go on sale Monday, 20 July at 12pm local via frontiertouring.com/bryanadams.
Bryan Adams’ 2027 ‘Roll With The Punches’ Tour of Australia and New Zealand:
Feb. 23 — RAC Arena, Perth
Feb. 26 – Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney
March 1 — Brisbane Entertainment Centre
March 4 — Adelaide Entertainment Centre
March 5 – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
March 10 — Spark Arena, Auckland
March 12 — Wolfbrook Arena, Christchurch
On the second night of his three-day residency at Yankee Stadium, Jay-Z performed the album that solidified his spot as not only the King of New York, but the King of Rap. The Blueprint, turns 25 this year, and tonight fans were reminded that it is a relentless onslaught of triumphant and braggadocios records like “Hola Hovito” and “All I Need” with some of his best street records like “U Don’t Know” and “Never Change” mixed in.
The Brooklyn rapper performed them all, and like the first night, he did it with the help of a couple special guests sprinkled in who themselves added a song or two to the set list.
Slick Rick was the first guest to make an appearance when he came out to do “La Di Dadi” and “Children’s Story” after Jay opened the show with “The Ruler’s Back.” He then brought out Eminem to assist on their collab “Renegade” with the Detroit rapper surprising the crowd with a performance of his smash single “Loose Yourself.”
And finally, towards the end of the show, he had Pharrell as the night’s last guest and the duo did a bunch of the songs that they’ve done together. They did tracks like like “Frontin,” Excuse Me Miss,” “Give It to Me” and “Allure,” which of course, sent the audience into a tizzy. As a matter of fact, the crowd was engaged all night and sang along to damn near every one of the nearly 30 songs that were performed. With two nights down, there’s no telling what the Jigga Man has in store for fans on the last night of this once in a lifetime weekend.
Check out the full setlist from Night Two of Jay-Z’s three-night Yankee Stadium run below.
Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt turns 30 years old this year, and during the first show of his three-day Yankee Stadium residency Friday night (July 10), he wrote a love letter to the debut album that foreshadowed the Brooklyn rapper’s rise to power.
Originally made to impress his hustler friends, the project laid the foundation for a label that would eventually become the blueprint as far as rapper-owned record companies go. It was a slow burn, though. Although it sold only 43,000 copies in its first week, Reasonable Doubt was an instant underground classic for some. When he rapped “I gave you prophecy on my first joint, and ya all lamed out/ Didn’t really appreciate it ’til the second one came out” on “Hard Knock Life” a couple albums later, he made sure to remind the people that slept how they were late to the party.
That’s what’s so special about Jay-Z’s project at Yankee Stadium. It’s for the day ones. It’s for the people that immediately understood what he was trying to do and were savvy enough to pick up the jewels he was dropping. Tracks like “Dead Presidents II,” “D’Evils,” “Can I Live” and “Regrets” are some of the best records in his catalog, not only because they display lyrical wizardry and are just great sounding in general, but because they were able to capture the essence of what it was like to really be living the life of a drug dealer who was knee-deep in the game. That’s why Reasonable Doubt remains at the top of Jay’s catalog.
At his Friday’s Yankee Stadium concert, fans were treated to an incredible night filled with surprise guests (including Beyoncé and Blue Ivy) and the special privilege to see a true master of ceremonies at work.
Check out the best moments from night one of Jay-Z’s Yankee Stadium residency below.
My Chemical Romance performed the first of three sold-out nights at London’s Wembley Stadium on Wednesday (July 8), playing to an ecstatic, standing crowd of nearly 75,000 people who welcomed the New Jersey band led by Gerard Way for their first-ever Wembley headlining date.
The group played the entirety of their seminal 2006 The Black Parade album top to bottom, with the set’s storyline amplified by visuals playing on two gigantic screens flanking the stage as well as plenty of drama on set.
Following The Black Parade repertoire, the group moved to an intimate stage set in the middle of the stadium floor for a second set of songs from their other albums, including “Na Na Na” and “Helena.”
For concertgoers enamored of perhaps the most successful emo rock band in the world, the shows are a rare and hugely craved moment. My Chemical Romance has only played Wembley once before, back in 2007, when they opened for British band Muse during that group’s Black Holes and Revelations tour.
The return was sweet. MCR are playing a total of three nights, with over 230,000 tickets sold, a rare feat for a rock band, particularly one that hasn’t released an album in over 15 years and whose tour is built on an album released 20 years.
Following the three Wembley dates, The Black Parade 2026 tour — which kicked off in January in Bogotá, Colombia — will continue for 25 more dates across Europe, Asia and the U.S., including a five-night special run at The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in October. All told, the group will play 39 stadium dates worldwide this year, continuing its Long Live The Black Parade tour of 2025, which played 10 stadiums in the U.S. in 2025.
Here is the full set list played in London’s Wembley Stadium.
- The End
- Dead!
- This Is How I Disappear
- The Sharpest Lives
- Welcome to The Black Parade
- I Don’t Love You
- House Of Wolves
- Cancer
- Mama
- Sleep
- Teenagers
- Disenchanted
- Famous Last Words
- Blood
- Honey
- Venom
- Cemetery
- Planetary Go!
- Jack The Ripper
- Destroya
- Not Ok
- Na Na Na
- Helena
Three is the magic number for Jonas Brothers’ New York fans.
The sibling trio add a third show at Madison Square Garden — home of the NBA champion Knicks — following “overwhelming demand” during the initial presale, reps say.
Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas will now play a weekend date at the Garden on Saturday, Aug. 22, in addition to the previously announced shows Aug. 20 and 21.
The MSG dates are all part of the JoBros’ The Burning Up Tour All Over Again, produced by Live Nation.
“The response from our fans this week has been unreal, and we didn’t want anyone to miss out,” the Jonas Brothers remark in a statement. “Adding a third night at The Garden means more of you can relive this with us.”
The timing is sweet. Almost two decades ago, the original Camp Rock premiered just ahead of the brothers’ Burning Up Tour. Now here we are in 2026, with Camp Rock 3 premiering Aug. 13 on Disney Channel before streaming on Disney+ from Aug. 14, just two days before the Jonas Brothers’ induction on Aug. 16 as Disney Legends, one of The Walt Disney Company’s highest honors.
“The original Burning Up Tour was an exhilarating time in our lives,” the bros’ statement continues, “and getting to do it all over again, while celebrating everything that’s happened since, means the world to us. We can’t wait to run it back.”
The first Camp Rock aired on Disney Channel in 2008, propelling the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato to global superstardom. A sequel arrived in 2010.
“The movie’s super fun, I’m so excited,” Nick said during a recent stint on The Tonight Show. “Demi’s producing, and me and the brothers have a little cameo in it, which was so bizarre. What a cool thing.”
Tickets for all three nights at the Garden will go on sale from Friday, July 10 at 10am ET at ticketmaster.com. Additional presales run today, July 9.
Angus & Julia Stone will return to the United States this September for a stretch of intimate tour dates in support of Karaoke Bar, the Australian sibling act’s seventh studio album.
The Stones will perform fan favorites and songs from Karaoke Bar on their jaunt, which includes a three-night stand at Los Angeles’ Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever (Sept. 14, 15 and 16), plus intimate headline performances at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Racket in New York City, and previously-announced festival spots in Canada.
Written and recorded across Greece, France and Australia, Karaoke Bar is due out Sept. 4 via Virgin Music. The new collection is said to be an exploration of music shaped by places and experiences, honed by geography and emotions, and houses the title track and recently-released “Monroe,” a warm and funky observation on love, fragility, and emotional reciprocity.
Angus & Julia Stone have amassed multi-platinum sales, No. 1s and numerous awards in their homeland and enjoyed an international breakthrough with the 2009 song “Big Jet Plane,” from their domestic chart-topping sophomore album Down The Way. The track went on to snag five ARIA Awards, including single of the year; won triple J’s annual Hottest 100 poll, and claimed the APRA Music Award for song of the year.
Rick Rubin produced the group’s third, self-titled studio album, from 2014, which went to No. 1 in Australia and cracked the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 54. At the time, the uber-producer described the artists as “truly unique musicians. They are authentic and pure people who do things from the heart. I’ve never worked with anyone like them before.”
Tickets for the U.S. tour go on sale Friday, July 10 at 10:00am local time at angusandjuliastone.com. Check out the dates below.
Angus & Julia Stone North American Tour Dates:
Sept. 11 — FONO Festival, Quebec City, QC
Sept. 14 — Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever, Los Angeles, CA
Sept. 15 — Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever, Los Angeles, CA
Sept. 16 — Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever, Los Angeles, CA
Sept. 19 — CityFolk Festival, Ottawa, ON
Sept. 22 — Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
Sept. 23 — Racket, New York, NY