concert

The first hour of “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” convinces you that the King is the greatest entertainer who ever lived. By the end of it, he’s a god. Director Baz Luhrmann claims he made this Imax documentary so that any poor souls who never got to see the King live can worship him in action. Really, I think Luhrmann is praying that in a thousand years, some alien civilization will discover this footage and build a whole religion around the thrall Elvis’ hip thrusts had over a crowd.

If that future comes to pass, then Luhrmann himself will be elevated as a key disciple. He’s so devoted to Elvis that this is his second tribute in four years, the other being, of course, his 2022 biopic “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler, who was good in the role if not quite iconic. That more traditional film hewed to the genre’s standard rise-and-fall narrative and was dinged mostly because the King’s life represents so many things to so many people — race, class, controlling relationships — that it’s impossible to please everyone or for any actor to fill his blue suede shoes.

“EPiC” sticks to the surer footing of documentary footage: the man himself performing over two dozen tunes — including “That’s All Right,” “Burning Love” and “In the Ghetto” — plus twice that number on the background soundtrack. (I’m not into his gospel hits, but they suit the mood.) A dream concert that’s longer and larger than what fans could have seen in reality, the movie is stitched together primarily from Elvis’ Las Vegas appearances in 1970 and 1972. You can tell which year it is by the amount of rhinestones on his costumes, which become increasingly maximalist.

When Elvis retook the stage in 1969, he hadn’t performed before a live audience in nine years and he’d gotten a little uncool. Beatlemania had dinged his appeal so perilously that editor Jonathan Redmond splices its arrival with images of car crashes and missile attacks. Reporters at that comeback show noted that most of his fans were now — horrors! — over 30, with the exception of a 25-year-old who said he attended out of nostalgia.

Luhrmann quickly sets up the essential framework, then Luhrmann picks up a year after Elvis proved he was still a smash. No longer constrained by moral panic, the Army draft or the decade he spent trapped within the Hollywood industrial complex, this is the King at arguably the high point of his career, right in that sweet spot before his 1973 divorce from Priscilla Presley, after which his mood and health started to flag.

This Elvis comes across confident, breezy, comfortable and funny. In one scene, he jokes about the difficulty of lunging to the ground in a tight jumpsuit (an outfit he adopted because he was nervous of ripping his pants). Later, he switches up the lyrics to “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” to croon, “Do you gaze at your forehead and wish you had hair?”

The camera often seems to be right under his chin, gazing as the sweat on his cheeks and lashes shimmers under the Vegas lights like diamonds. His spell over the crowd feels at once intimate and volcanic. You get the best look at his charisma when Elvis targets his energy at an unsuspecting back-up singer in the middle of “Suspicious Minds.” Slowly striding toward the girl, he hypnotizes her as skillfully as a snake charmer and then, as a punchline, lunges in her direction. She jumps and giggles.

While we become familiar with the faces of his band members, the film doesn’t bother to mention any of their names, not even in the credits. They deserve better, but the film is about how the concert felt, not how it came to fruition. Still, once you get over the contact high of Elvis’ psychedelic neon pink paisley shirt in the rehearsal studio, it’s delightful to see that he gives as much of himself when performing in a small setting as he does in a massive one. He loses himself in thrall to the beat, gyrating his pelvis so fast it resembles a machine gun.

Naturally, there’s a montage of the women in the audience overwhelmed by joy, from a sobbing little girl who won’t let go of his arm to a glamazon in a dangerously low-cut minidress who scoots under the curtain before it closes. The ladies tug on his scarves and toss bras at him, one of which he wears on his head. Surprisingly to modern eyes, when his female fans grab and kiss him, Elvis smooches them back, even after he wades into a sea of his admirers and emerges with the chains on his jumpsuit torn off. If you happen to spot your mother or grandmother in the crowd, well, good for her.

In lieu of mentioning Elvis’ off-stage reality, Luhrmann deepens a song’s effect by cutting to personal photographs that are a little out of context. As Elvis wails the line, “And I miss her,” from his cover ballad about a bad husband, we see a shot of Elvis’ dead mother, Gladys. “Always on My Mind” becomes a brisk yet moving acknowledgment of Priscilla and his infant daughter Lisa Marie. Otherwise, Lurhmann only wants to celebrate the good stuff. There’s no tragedy here. It’s ecstasy minus the agony.

If Elvis was ever cranky, that’s been stripped out. Though we hear him get hound-dogged by nosy questions from the press, the closest Elvis comes to snark is when he sits on a stool to play “Little Sister.” He sings the chorus, then cranks up the tempo a notch and suddenly starts belting the Beatles’ “Get Back,” before smoothly transitioning once more into his own song. Point made: Don’t give those Brits too much credit for revolutionizing rock ‘n’ roll.

Lurhmann’s got his own score to settle. In the Butler version of “Elvis,” he made the case that, as big an artist as Elvis was, he should have been bigger. Colonel Parker, Elvis’s manager, kept his cash cow on a leash, tethering him first to middling B-pictures, then to casinos. The Beatles invaded his country; he never played a single gig in theirs. We never got to find out who Elvis, with his magpie love for all music, might have become if he’d traveled the world and gotten to pick up an ashram sitar.

And while that argument got a little drowned out in the biopic by Tom Hanks’ double-phony put-on accent as Parker, this rapturous salute to the King’s majesty wants to make sure we don’t miss it now. Lurhmann even scores his footage of the Colonel to “The Devil in Disguise.” Hey, every religion needs a heel.

POP superstar Lady Gaga is set to release a concert film about her record breaking Mayhem Ball.

The Sun can reveal the Abracadabra hitmaker, 39, has secretly enlisted British director Sam Wrench to help bring her vision to life.

The special is set to be filmed over Lady Gaga’s four nights at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles this week.

While no release date is set, the film is expected to be released later this year after being snapped up by streaming bosses following a fierce bidding war.

Sam is no stranger to concert documentaries, having previously worked with Taylor Swift on her 2023 Eras Tour film.

Not only was the film released on Disney+ but it also was rolled out across cinemas – breaking box office records in the process.

Most recently Sam teamed up with Christina Aguilera for her festive special;  Christmas in Paris.

It’s not the first time Gaga and Sam have worked together.

They previously teamed up on Gaga’s 2024 Chromaica Ball HBO special which documented her 2022 stadium tour of the same name.

A source said: “Gaga has poured her heart and soul into The Mayhem Ball.

“She is so proud of everyone who has helped make the tour what it is and is keen to give it the full concert film treatment.

“Not only is it arguably her most elaborate show of all time, it’s also reminded the world that almost two decades into her career she is still at the top of her game.”

The insider added: “Gaga and Sam have a close working relationship so bringing him on board was a no brainer.

“The show will be filmed across her four dates in Los Angeles and is pencilled in for release late 2026.”

The Sun understands Sam is joining the creative team headed up by the superstar.

He will sit alongside Gaga’s fiance Michael Polansky, 42, and her choreographer Parris Goebel, 34, who are also helping creatively manage the project.

Michael is now an integral part of the Poker Face singer’s inner circle.

He was listed as an Executive Producer alongside Gaga on Mayhem – as well as landing a number of writing credits including on the record’s lead single Disease.

Gaga previously said: “Michael was in the studio every day with me.
“He oversaw the whole process of making the record, completing it, helping me shape the sound of the record creatively.

“It was an amazing thing to do with your partner, because when I start to doubt myself, there is nobody that’s going to call me on it better than he is”.

Kicking off in July last year, The Mayhem Ball is one of Gaga’s biggest ever tours, seeing her play 87 dates across four continents.

Last September and October Gaga played four sold out shows at London’s O2 before a further two dates at Manchester’s Co-op Live.

By the time she takes her final bow at Madison Square Garden in April, she will have played to over 1.3million fans.

The concert film comes off the back of an already packed 2026 for Gaga.

Despite only being weeks into the year the singer has already filmed a concert special for Apple Music, performed at the Grammys and the Super Bowl and wrapped up the Asian leg of The Mayhem Ball.

Next week she will go head to head with some of the biggest artists in the world at the 2026 Brit Awards.

While she is unable to attend the ceremony due to playing a show in Texas on the same date, she is up for two of the biggest gongs of the night.

Gaga is nominated for International Artist of the Year and International Song of the Year thanks to her Bruno Mars collaboration Die With A Smile

It marks the first time in over a decade she has been nominated.

Bed rest can go pound sand: Ray J gave his all on stage on Friday night, it seems, with fan videos showing his eyes appearing to bleed as he worked the crowd.

The singer also doffed the top of his orange jumpsuit to reveal some sort of medical port or device inserted on the upper left side of his chest.

The “Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood” star, who is singer-actor Brandy’s brother, was performing in Shreveport, La.

In the first clip, red liquid — which many assumed was blood — ran down one of the R&B singer’s cheeks like tears as he handed out long-stemmed red roses to people in the audience. Another clip showed him singing into a mic while climbing down from the stage after shedding the top part of his jumpsuit.

“Hey, y’all, we perfectly fine. Ain’t nobody sick. Look at me, I’m fine,” he says in a later clip, which takes place off stage. The 45-year-old appears to be annoyed, saying that people have been laughing at him because he’s sick.

“He loves the camera. He loves the attention,” Tommy Nard II of Nard Multimedia Group, who was behind the scenes that night, told Shreveport news station KTAL separately. “It’s all theatrical … I seen him literally put on the fake blood and go out there.”

A concertgoer told KTAL that it was “very concerning to see blood, what appeared to be blood, coming from his eyes.”

Ray J told TMZ in late January that he was under doctor’s orders to stay on bed rest and avoid drugs and alcohol. He said he was on eight medications related to his heart, which he said had been damaged because of his excessive drug and alcohol use.

“I thought I could handle all the alcohol, I could handle all the Adderall,” he said in a video livestream in late January.

Doctors told Ray J — real name William Ray Norwood Jr. — that he should prepare for the chance that he might need a pacemaker or defibrillator soon, the singer told the celebrity site. He expected to get an update when he went back in two weeks for a checkup.

Two weeks was up over the weekend.

Ray J told followers in a video posted Jan. 25 that he wanted to “thank everyone for praying for me.”

“I was in the hospital,” he said. “My heart is only beating like 25%, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, then everything will be all right.” In a video, he said the right side of his heart was “like, black. It’s like done.”

Ray J said elsewhere that his heart was beating at 60%. The number likely refers to his heart’s ejection fraction, which measures the volume of blood coming out of the heart’s left ventricle or being drawn into the right ventricle when the heart beats. Right-sided heart failure is far less common, according to WebMD.

A representative for Ray J did not respond immediately Tuesday to The Times’ request for comment.

However, in an Instagram story posted Monday, Ray J put up this quote: “‘If you want to know who your real friends & family are, lose your job, get sick, or go through hard times. You’ll see clearly.”

Thundering drums and shredding guitar solos cut through the crowd as pyrotechnics and streamer cannons blast. The energy and production feel like a show at the Hollywood Palladium or the Forum, but we’re at Knott’s Berry Farm, on the rooftop of a big red doghouse — that is if we can suspend our disbelief for an evening. The educational rock band Jelly of the Month Club along with guest musicians Charlie Brown, Lucy, Schroeder and Linus set up the show’s finale with a question: “Where’s that crazy dog?” Hundreds of fans scream as “All aboard!” resonates through the park, watching in anticipation as a spotlight searches for its fuzzy rock ‘n’ roll star to emerge.

Chances are you’ve seen Snoopy dressed as Doggy Pawsbourne on your Instagram or TikTok feed, complete with Ozzy’s signature round sunglasses, long hair and trench coat, punctuating the Prince of Barkness’ “Crazy Train” entrance. Snoopy’s Legendary Rooftop Concert became an instant hit with park patrons and with fans internationally thanks to a viral video posted on opening night. Sharon Osbourne shared the “Peanuts” tribute to her late husband with the all caps message “I LOVE IT” to her social media from the floor of the 68th Grammy Awards. But it’s more than witty puns and costumes that make Snoopy’s Legendary Rooftop Concert special.

The show at Knott’s tells the story of Snoopy learning to be a rock star at Jelly of the Month Club’s Music Academy and touring the world with the band. Snoopy takes on fursonas like Dog Lennon, Paw Prince, Fido Mercury, Flying Ace Freely and even a lost member of Devo wearing the signature Energy Dome hat. Jelly of the Month Club hits every beat and chord with precision, with arrangements of songs and medleys that bring together the power of rock’s past with the whimsy of “Peanuts.” Woodstock gets a solo moment too, whistling on Dog Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” set to a perfect one drop beat as Charlie Brown spirals out in a chicken suit while rubber chickens sway.

“We got rows of kids bringing their own rubber chickens,” show director Rob Perez tells me. “Its almost like watching ‘Rocky Horror’; kind of bizarre, really funny, and charming.” When Charles Schulz’s daughter Jill came to see the show, she told Perez that her dad used to say “there’s nothing funnier than a rubber chicken.”

Snoopy as Doggy Pawsbourne at Knott’s Berry Farm

(Dick Slaughter)

It makes sense that rock ‘n’ roll appeals to Snoopy; he’s a bit of an outsider with an internal life seen by almost none of his friends. It makes more sense that the feeling of family promised by rock touring life would appeal to Charlie Brown; it often calls to creative dreamers and outcasts with a subconscious need to belong. Schulz explored why all humans have the feeling people don’t like us in his cartoons and admitted that Charlie Brown was loosely based on himself. “People who win are the minority,” he told BBC in 1977, “most of us lose a lot.” The solution he provided to overcoming life’s most difficult conditions was simply to never give up.

Nobody cheers on Charlie Brown in Snoopy’s Legendary Rooftop Concert more than Jelly of the Month Club guitarist and vocalist Michael De La Torre, a.k.a. Mic Dangerously, who has become accustomed to encouragement working with youth. Active since 2013, Jelly of the Month Club is a family-friendly band who use music to inspire, educate and entertain kids and adults. It has played countless elementary schools, children’s hospitals, civic events and theme parks with interactive songs that teach musical concepts and life lessons. The band also offers free online lessons called the Jelly of the Month Club Music Academy, which turned live gigs into cartoon-based educational games. The band members have partnered with nonprofits including UNICEF’s Kid Power initiative to provide concerts to schools across Southern California, often donating their time.

“Studies say music helps with math, English and science, but it also helps you as a person,” Dangerously says. “It helps you understand feelings better. Look at how adults use music therapeutically. Kids are doing just the same.”

Dangerously first recognized the power of music education as a young boy at St. Pius elementary school in Buena Park, when a man with a bushy mustache and a Hawaiian shirt quieted the boisterous students in seconds with only an acoustic guitar. But hearing Louis Prima’s voice in “The Jungle Book” solidified his desire to become a singer.

Playing at Knott’s has forged meaningful connections to the community in ways Dangerously never foresaw in his early rock ‘n’ roll days. He’s become close to a father and his usually nonverbal son who can’t keep quiet at shows, asking questions and singing along. Last year an older woman who he’s built a friendship with for years suddenly disappeared. Dangerously learned from her daughter and granddaughter that she suffered a stroke. She credits singing and dancing to his music at Knott’s as instrumental in recovering her speech and movement. “She told me that she loved me like a son,” Dangerously says. “I’ve never had anything like that happen with my rock band. It makes you really want to show up.”

On the night The Times experienced Snoopy’s Legendary Rooftop Concert, Dangerously’s biggest fan, Abbey, stood in the front row playing a light up tambourine above her head to “The Blooz Beagles,” wearing a head-to-toe matching outfit to him. In her sequin blazer, red pants, black boots, bow tie and wide-brim hat, the 11-year-old mirrored his musical gestures, never missing a beat. Abbey loves “everything” about the music and dancing she tells me, excited to share that Mic personally gave her the tambourine and a few other instruments too.

Crowd at Jelly of the Month Club show at Knott’s

“They’ve known her since she was 3,” says April Guerrero, Abbey’s supportive mom who has helped her daughter make replicas of Jelly of the Month Club’s looks since 2017. Abbey learned to play music because of the band’s online resources.

“Many of us have a background in education,” Dangerously said. Matt Kalin is a teacher and pro saxophonist who has shared the stage with legends like Social Distortion and Louis Bellson. Dr. Todd Forman is a practicing physician who went to Harvard, taught at USC, and played sax with Sublime. Bassist James Kee is an educator who has taught kindergarten through fourth grade for the last 15 years. Dangerously’s own mom was an art teacher who encouraged him to teach after he finished his audio engineering degree at Musicians Institute, something he’s used in a junior producer’s course he created for an after-school program in Long Beach.

Like the members of Jelly of the Month Club, director Rob Perez is a multi-instrumentalist and producer with a deep reverence for classic rock and Charles Schulz cartoons. Perez is the man responsible for turning Snoopy’s Legendary Rooftop Concert from a dream into a reality. The concert grew out of a 2017 show called Woodstock’s Music Festival. When Snoopy walked out as Jimmy Hendrix, the crowd went wild, and Perez’s boss and Knott’s fans wanted more.

“The Rooftop Concert is a little bit of a nod to the Beatles, but it’s much more about Snoopy’s rooftop,” Perez tells me. “When you see Snoopy as the great writer, or the World War I Flying Ace, it’s always on the roof of his doghouse. So why wouldn’t he be a rock star on his rooftop?”

Knott’s rebrand of the show let Perez incorporate more storytelling, a task he shared with Jelly of the Month Club. The show opens with Snoopy traveling from his fictional cartoon town to a rehearsal where Dangerously gifts him a tambourine to join their jam. He sends Snoopy home with a pile of records which he listens to obsessively in his doghouse, a relatable experience for fans who have found solace and inspiration in old LPs, hiding out like Snoopy with pizza, root beer, and the complicated dream of leaving the only place you’ve ever called home to follow music’s call. Snoopy dons a leather vest, proclaims he’s a “Golden Dog,” and runs away from home to take lessons at Jelly of the Month Club‘s Music Academy and tour the world. After receiving criticism in the recording studio about his howl, Snoopy finds himself missing his best friend Charlie Brown. He asks the Peanuts Gang to team up with Jelly of the Month Club for one final performance on top of his doghouse, legendary enough to land them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Perez’s writing and producing shares the attention to detail present in Jelly of the Month Club’s approach to the music. Perez had the honor of voice acting for Snoopy. He digitally re-created a technique he learned from researching Bill Melendez’s 1960s approach in which he recorded barks and grumbles directly to reel-to-reel tape, sped it up, then cut and pasted it randomly to create Snoopy’s signature pentameter-less cadence. Perez worked closely with costume designer Tim Barham, creating every wig, accessory, and costume with exacting detail. The storyline and graphics pay close attention to “Peanuts” lore and rock ‘n’ roll film history, with Easter eggs from “La Bamba,” “Rocketman,” “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Almost Famous” and many others hidden throughout the 30-minute show.

“We don’t try to change the Peanuts from who they are,” Perez says. “We have to bring Charlie Brown along as he constantly fails at being a rock star. We have to give him a shot and prop him up, because he’s usually on the ledge. We bring him back. That’s been the premise of many Peanuts TV specials and movies.”

Mic Dangerously with Snoopy at Knott’s

(Dick Slaughter)

Jelly of the Month Club’s original song “The Magic Is in the Music” meets Charlie Brown where he’s at, encouraging him to take on the challenge of becoming a guitarist. As he fumbles with his out-of-tune Flying V, looking ready to shred in a thrash band, the crowd cheers for his success despite his self-doubt. When Charlie withdraws during the Elton John number, Dangerously responds by saying that that music can be a safe place when you’re feeling lost, saying “Charlie Brown, you are home.”

“We’re out there singing we ‘want to bark and howl all night’ but we’re teaching Charlie Brown and Snoopy is that it’s not just about your clothes, it’s about what’s in here,” Dangerously says, touching his heart. “It’s important not to take yourself too seriously. We’re showing that it’s OK to have fun. And that silliness is a big, important component of rock and roll.”

This spirit is the core of Snoopy’s Legendary Rooftop Concert on stage and on the floor. At the show I see a sea of grandmas shaking babies’ fists in the air, a little boy in a Woodstock hoodie headbanging, rockers in studded vests with huge smiles on their faces, and teenagers momentarily dropping their defenses against cringe in exchange for a moment of sheer joy.

Hanna and Ellie, teens from South Gate and Silver Lake, respectively, can’t contain themselves, pogoing, screaming and singing along. “I’m at a loss for words,” Hanna says, giggling. The girls agree that the show was better than they expected.

On Snoopy’s rooftop everyone is a rock star: Abbey, a rubber chicken and even Charlie Brown.

One question has bothered Martin Ludlow in his decades as a concert and event promoter in Los Angeles. In a city packed with excellent jazz musicians, and a century of history with the genre, why is there no local equivalent of the massive festivals that cities like Montreal, New Orleans or Montreux, Switzerland, have built? One where the music transforms clubs, restaurants and parks across the city for nights on end?

This summer’s inaugural LA Jazz Festival in August will be the biggest push in a generation to build that here. Ludlow’s event — which melds his passion for jazz with the logistics muscle of his former life as a city councilman and labor leader — hopes to draw 250,000 fans across the city for a month of concerts culminating in a stadium-sized show on Dockweiler Beach. It will be one of the largest such events in the world, and the biggest Black-owned fest of its kind.

“This festival is intended to lift up our ancestors that came to this country in bondage, terrorized, brutalized,” Ludlow said outside City Hall on Wednesday. “It’s also about celebrating the end to those last bastions of Jim Crow racism, the days we were denied access to public drinking fountains, public swimming pools and public beaches. From the beginning of this journey, we’ve been very intentional about telling the narrative of that human rights struggle called Jazz.”

Flanked by Mayor Karen Bass, City Council members Heather Hutt, Traci Park and Tim McOsker, and jazz figures including Ray Charles Jr. and Pete Escovedo, Ludlow promised a galvanizing occasion for L.A.’s local jazz scene and the city’s wobbly tourism economy. That jazz scene has welcomed new investments like Blue Note L.A., and lamented beloved clubs like ETA closing.

This festival, however, hopes to be more on a scale with forthcoming mega-events such as the World Cup and the Olympics. The 25-day event in August will sprawl all over the region, with free park concerts in all 15 council districts, and 150 late-night shows at clubs and restaurants across the city. A Caribbean street fair highlighting the African and Latin roots of jazz will hit El Segundo, along with guided tours of historic Black coastal sites like Bruce’s Beach and Inkwell beach.

The fest culminates in a two-day concert on Dockweiler Beach that hopes to draw 40,000 fans a night. While a lineup is still in progress, the scope of Ludlow’s ambition is formidable — the fest will ban fossil fuels from its footprint, and earned a strong vouch from the California Coastal Commission. For decades, the Playboy Jazz Festival (now the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival) was the defining event for the music in Los Angeles; this could eclipse it several times over.

“Martin, I’ve been on this 15-year journey with you. Through all of the ups and downs, I’m so excited this is the year,” Mayor Bass said at Wednesday’s event at City Hall debuting the festival. “This is the Los Angeles that will welcome the world. One of the best things we have to offer is all of our culture.”

Ludlow is a colorful figure in Los Angeles politics, a former council member and L.A. County Federation of Labor executive who pleaded guilty to misappropriating funds in 2006. He’s since delved deep into community activism and embarked on a successful third act as a concert and event promoter, throwing socially-conscious events with his firm Bridge Street, which has produced shows for Stevie Wonder, The Revolution, Sheila E and Snoop Dogg along with civic events like the ceremony renaming Obama Boulevard in Los Angeles.

“During this journey, you can only imagine there’s a lot of highs and a lot of lows,” Ludlow said. “When you have those lows, you want a friend that really can lift you up.” He had plenty of them onstage with him Wednesday announcing what could be a new flagship event for jazz in Los Angeles.