***EVEN NEWER UPDATE***: Yup, it's Dropkick Murphys and the Bosstones. But is it really Fenway Park? Read this and judge for yourself.
UPDATE: Our bud Jed Gottlieb over at the Boston Herald has done some digging and unearthed a local possibility -- the Dropkick Murphys and Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Interesting, kinda, but it's unlikely those two alone could sell out one night at Fenway (nevermind multiple shows). Gottlieb's also got some "insiders" who state that it's NOT Pearl Jam, though that three-date hole in their schedule remains glaring. But don't rule out the Big 4, or someone else entirely.
***
Looks like the BACKSTREET BOYS, NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK, and 81 singers of the Star Spangled Banner won’t be the only musicians performing at Fenway Park this season.
Those who read last week’s Boston Courant may have noticed that the city snuck in a legal notice for a June 27 licensing board hearing on an application for a live concert at Fenway Park over three days, September 8 through 10. The hearing takes place in Room 801 of City Hall at 11:15 a.m.
The Red Sox are in Toronto and Tampa on those proposed dates, and the applicants, Elizabeth (Beth) Krudys and manager of records Charles Cellucci, are both Fenway employees. The live concert permits also call for the closure of Yawkey Way on each of the three nights.
So after our city was saddled with pop has-beens for this summer’s concert at Fenway, made all the more painful when the Big 4 -- Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax -- announced a Yankee Stadium gig for September a few weeks ago, who will grace our famed Fenway stage come September?
PEARL JAM, as long suspected by Vedderites of the Ten Club, is the most logical answer, as the Seattle bros will play two 20th anniversary concerts September 3 and 4 at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin, before hitting the Bell Centre in Montreal on September 7. Vedder and Co. then have THREE DAYS OFF, September 8, September 9, and September 10, before two gigs at the Air Canada Center in Toronto starting September 11. Potential border-crossing issues aside, PJ's sked kinda makes it obvious, eh?
The other speculative alternatives don’t make as much sense:
- The aforementioned Big 4 likely wouldn't need three nights to appropriately bring the metal to Boston.
- PAUL MCCARTNEY, who played Fenway in 2009, is revisiting ballparks in NY and the Midwest this summer, but a return engagement is as boring as it is unlikely.
- We could never truly rule out the mass white-hat appeal of DISPATCH, the roots-rock new-millennial Phish dude-band that has three shows at the TD Garden this weekend and wrap up a tour with Dave Matthews Band Caravan in early September.
- And the long-envisioned grand plan of CQ Presents’ Carl Lavin, who’s been plotting an ARCADE FIRE show at Harvard Stadium for as long as he’s run Great Scott, seems a bit of a long shot, even if he secured the PIXIES as an opening act.
Whomever it is, it should be more appealing that NKTOBSB. See you at the hearing on Monday, and in the meantime, dust off that copy of Ten, now 20 years old come August 27. Yikes.
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