Results tagged “freeconcert”

After a whole lot of hullabaloo about whether or not 50 Cent would get to perform on a Jamaica playground, the rapper returned to his Queens roots yesterday without any fuss. 50 even gave a shout out to the "MFin' cops" of the 103rd precinct, having the crowd point to the police squad as he told them, "You might as well come down and party with us, because we're not going to be doing anything else." Fitty said he hopes the peacefulness of yesterday's festival will be enough to do it next year and avoid the fuss that included Mayor Bloomberg saying "Gee, you not" performing to the megastar rapper.

The controversial free Family Day concert scheduled for tomorrow inside a Jamaica public schoolyard, organized by 50 Cent, has been postponed. 50 was originally supposed to put on a secret performance, but was downgraded to just making an appearance after fears arose of chaos or violence at the site close to where the rapper was shot multiple times in 2000. His manager told the Post, "We are postponing it and working it out with police." After Mayor Bloomberg got involved and made a point that 50 would not be performing, the rapper Q-Tip recently spoke out against the mayor and has been tweeting to his followers, telling them not to re-elect the mayor and saying that the idea that the concert would invite violence was "just an old way of thinking about folk, especially black folk. Tip told MTV, "[Bloomberg is] not right for the spirit of the city. 50 Cent is a success story we all should applaud. However you feel about him, you can't deny him." Maybe the show's sponsor, Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project, can just convince 50 to adopt-a-highway, putting the G-Unit back into the Gowanus Expressway.

Mayor Bloomberg and NFL Commissioner Roger Gooddell announced today that NYC will host the "NFL Opening Kickoff 2008," to celebrate the Giants' Super Bowl win and commence the 89th season of the NFL. There will be a free concert at Columbus Circle on September 4--with Usher and Keith Urban. Previously, NYC hosted a kickoff event in 2002 in Times Square, with Bon Jovi, Enrique Iglesis, Alicia Keys, Eve and the cast of Rent. More details will be released later (like the exact time), but at this point, the city says, "Fans will be able to enter the concert on 58th Street and 7th Avenue and will line up along Central Park South." And early reports are in that Bruce Springsteen will rock the next Super Bowl.

If you were wondering why the crowd at the free Bon Jovi concert in Central Park was numbered at a measly 48,538 people when previous concerts by entertainers like Garth Brooks reportedly drew 750,000, former city parks administrator Doug Blonsky is here to tell you that those old numbers were totally bogus. “You would get in a room with the producer, with a police official, and a person from parks, and someone would say, ‘What does it look like to you?’ The producer would say, ‘I need it to be higher than the last one.’ That’s the kind of science that went into it.” The Times has more on how they come up with the numbers these days.

The eagerly anticipated free Bon Jovi concert attracted an estimated 48,500 people to Central Park yesterday. And were the audience members pumped: People were waiting since Friday for prime seats on the Great Lawn while others settled for arriving many hours before the concert, after having cased the stage set-up ahead of time. The NY Times spoke to one woman who had Jon Bon Jovi's signature tattooed on her back (immortalizing the time he signed her back in 2005) and her friend who gave her daughter the middle name "Jovie."

Mark your calendars: Bon Jovi will be giving a free concert in Central Park next month. The concert will be on Saturday, July 12, and is apparently a "prelude to the July 15 All-Star baseball game." Bon Jovi is touring this summer and has two concerts at MSG on July 14 and 15, with The All-American Rejects opening.