Among the very many summer festivals that are held every year, the Austin City Limits festival has become known as one of the most consistently reliable and most anticipated events every year. Therefore it is fitting that organizers would want to do something special to announce the lineup for the event.

For the second straight year, presenters are issuing the initial lineup for the festival through a “lineup lottery.” Here’s how it works: everyday, beginning last Friday, organizers announce a list of five local Austin restaurants where unique “lottery” scratch cards will be placed, and visitors can go scratch the cards to find out what band’s will be playing this year’s festival (and can also win other prizes).

And even with one more day of scratch off remaining to be found, a very impressive lineup including Jack White, Bon Iver and the Black Keys already has been revealed. This year’s festival will take place October 12-14 at the city’s Zilker Park.

If those headliners weren’t enough to attract your attention, there are also a slew of other notable artists that will be appearing at the festival, including Childish Gambino, Steve Earle, Alabama Shakes, Andrew Bird and Esperanza Spalding. Unfortunately, a previous rumor that the Red Hot Chili Peppers had been found on a scratch card turned out to be fake.

The festival is named after the legendary PBS concert series of the same name, and has been held every year since 2002. Typically, more than 70,000 concertgoers attend each day of the show every year. Multiple stages are set up throughout the 46-acre park, and there are usually more than 130 artists that play the festival each year. More bands will be announced to the lineup in the coming weeks and months.

In addition to the music, the festival will feature multiple art showcases and vendor tents, as well.

The lineup for this year’s Carnival of Madness tour has been announced, and Evanescence and Chevelle will headline the traveling festival. Rounding out the lineup will be Halestorm, Cavo and New Medicine.

This year’s version of the tour will kick off July 31 at the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Springfield, Ill., and is scheduled to run through September 5 with a show in Evansville, Ind. In between, the groups will visit cities including Columbus, Ohio; Atlantic City, N.J.; Charlotte, N.C.; El Paso, Texas; Sioux City, Iowa and Uncasville, Conn.

With Evanescence and Halestorm both having strong female lead singers, the shows are guaranteed to provide a significant amount of girl power. Evanescence singer Amy Lee commented on this as well as her excitement about the upcoming tour.

“We’re really looking forward to the Carnival of Madness tour this summer,” Lee said in a statement. “We love Chevelle and haven’t hit the road together in years, and I’m really stoked to finally be playing some shows with Halestorm. Naturally, I’m a fan of strong women in music and Lzzy’s voice is spectacular.”

Most of the bands on the tour have released new music in the past few months, so fans can get ready to hear brand new tunes mixed in with old favorites. At the end of 2011, Evanescence released a self-titled third album. Since that release, the band has spent much of the intervening time on the road.

Halestorm’s album is even more recent: The Strange Case of… was released just last month. The album is the group’s second, following their self-titled debut which was released in 2009. The band recently wrapped up the Mass Chaos tour, which had them on the road with Godsmack and Staind.

Chevelle’s most recent album, Hats Off to the Bull, also came out at the end of last year. The album is the band’s sixth studio album.

The lineup for this year’s iTunes Festival in London has been announced, and Usher, Norah Jones, Jack White and One Direction will be among the featured artists at the star studded festival.

Unique among many of the festivals taking place this summer, the iTunes Festival is a series of free concerts that will run throughout the month of September at the iconic Roundhouse venue in London.

Usher will perform the first concert on September 1. The R&B singer will be supporting his upcoming album, Looking 4 Myself, which is scheduled to be released on June 12. That album has already produced the lead single “Climax,” which peaked at number 17 on the Billboard 100 singles chart.

Next up on the schedule will be a performance by English R&B singer Emeli Sande on September 5. She released her first album, Our Version of Events, in February of this year. U.S. fans may have become familiar with the singer when she provided support for Coldplay’s North American tour to support its album, Mylo Xyloto.

Jack White will play September 8, and will be supporting his recently released album Blunderbuss. The album is the first White has released under his own name, and it debuted in the number one spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Norah Jones will follow White on September 10, and she also has a new album to support. Little Broken Hearts debuted at number two on the Billboard albums chart after it was released May 1. The album was only kept out of the top position by Carrie Underwood’s Blown Away album, which was released the same day.

And the final act currently scheduled to play the festival is British teen boy band One Direction, which will be playing September 20.

Supporting acts for each show will be announced soon. There has been no word yet as to whether other headlining acts will be added to the lineup.

Though at one point this year it seemed like Van Halen was never going to stop adding shows to their current tour, now they have started taking dates away. Though the tour was scheduled to run through September 25, all dates after a New Orleans’ gig on July 26 have now been canceled – and the most perplexing part of this news is that there have been no reasons given for the cancellation.

If all of these dates are in fact cancelled, it would mean that 31 scheduled shows will not be played (or will possibly be postponed). Among cities that have had their Van Halen shows cancelled include Philadelphia, Cleveland, Memphis, Portland, Salt Lake City and Milwaukee.

With Van Halen’s well publicized and often volatile history, it seems only natural that as soon as these dates disappeared, many began to speculate that the band members were fighting once again. Rolling Stone quotes a source close to the band as saying that the group members “hate each other” and that, “the band is arguing like mad. They are fighting.”

The band has been on the road since February supporting their most recent album, A Different Kind of Truth, which came out that month, as well. The album is the first to feature lead singer David Lee Roth since 1984’s appropriately titled 1984.

The new tour now features all original members of the band except bassist Mike Anthony, who is currently playing in the supergroup Chickenfoot with guitarist Joe Satriani, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar. Hagar first began singing with the band after Roth’s departure, and sang with the band until 1996. He also returned briefly to the position in 2003, before Roth came back.

Anthony has been replaced in the current Van Halen Lineup with guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen.

New Orleans’ Voodoo Experience Festival will return once again this year, and Green Day and Neil Young & Crazy Horse will perform as headliners at the event.

As per usual, the festival will be held during Halloween weekend, from October 26-28. This year will be the 14^th annual incarnation of the festival.

Along with the two headliners mentioned above, a select list of other artists that will perform at the festival also was released. Among those include Skrillex, Gary Clark, Jr., Justice, Tomahawk, Bootsy Collins, Say Anything and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The final lineup is expected to include around 150 artists and will be announced in the coming months.

Green Day’s appearance at the festival is set to be the group’s only U.S. concert date this year, and festival founder and organizer Stephen Rehage said that their set along with Neil Young’s will be one of the reasons this year’s festival will help him realize the dreams he had when he started the festival.

“I believe this year’s lineup is developing into something really special, Rehage said. “Green Day’s set in 2004 is one of the greatest performances in the festival’s 13-year history. Having them choose to do their only U.S. show of 2012 at Voodoo is pretty extraordinary. And the confirmation of Neil Young & Crazy Horse is epic. They are one of a handful of artists that you hope to have the privilege to work with at some point in your career. It’s what you dream of when you create something like Voodoo.”

A first this year will be that the festival will offer on-site camping. Festivalgoers can camp under 200-year-old oak trees in City Park, though camping passes have an additional price to the regular festival admission. A special VIP camping pass provides guests with a tent, complimentary breakfast and backstage passes.

Billed as “the only touring hip-hop festival,” Rock the Bells has announced an extensive lineup including Wiz Khalifa, Nas and Kid Cudi.

This year’s festival will hit three cities, and be a two-day event at each location. The first stop will be San Bernardino, Calif. on August 18–19, and performances at the other two cities will take place on the following two subsequent weekends. August 25-26 will find the tour in Mountain View, Calif., and then the tour will switch to the opposite coast and be held in Holmdel, N.J. September 1-2.

Another very notable lineup on this year’s roster is Missy Elliot, who will use her appearance as part of a comeback she is making to the scene after a hiatus that was due, at least in part, to health concerns. She hasn’t released an album since 2005’s The Cookbook, and recently revealed that she has been battling Graves disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid. She is expected to be joined onstage by her longtime collaborator Timbaland.

Additional members of this year’s lineup include Method Man, Redman, A$AP Rocky, Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. The latter will perform “E. 1999 Eternal” in its entirety as a tribute to Easy E.

The festival is in its ninth year and was first held in 2004. It has long been known as a showcase for both up-and-coming talent along with the veterans of the hip hop world. The festival has been forced to downsize in recent years – and is down again this year, playing in three cities instead of four.

Guerilla Union, the presenter of the concert, is also expected to produce an extensive club tour called “Rock the Bell Presents.”The lengthened tour also was held last year and features artists from the Rock the Bell lineup. This year’s lineup has yet to be announced, but is expected in the near future.

Although rumors of a Rolling Stones 50^th anniversary celebration were all but killed earlier this year by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard’s insinuation that the band would wait until 2013 for any new shows, Ron Wood has now indicated that the group could play some shows this year after all.

“I am keeping October/November free, that’s what I’ve been told,” the Stones’ guitarist told the Sun newspaper while he attended the Sony Radio Awards in London recently. “I’m just awaiting more information.”

And although there have been more recent rumors that Richards had sent Jagger some new demos to work on and that studio time may be booked, Wood told fans not to get there hopes up for hearing new songs at shows that happen this year.

“New ones? Are you joking?” he said. “We our familiarizing ourselves with our back catalog and have only scratched the surface.

The news of a tour this year comes as a shock after the band earlier said that they weren’t quite ready for a tour this year, and that 2013 would be the 50^th anniversary of the band’s first gig and current lineup (drummer Charlie Watts joined that year). Keith Richards told Rolling Stone that the band wasn’t up to playing this year even if they wanted to.

“Basically, we’re just not ready,” he said, speculating that the band would go on the road in 2013. “I have a feeling that’s more realistic.”

Further speculation arose when it was announced that Jagger would appear as host and musical guest on the season finale of “Saturday Night Live” later this month. But Richards told Rolling Stone that he wouldn’t be along to debut any new Stones songs.

“I spoke to Mick and he said it’s something that he said yes to many months ago, so he’s just doing it,” Richards told the magazine. “He’s on his own.”

Earlier this year, Lady Antebellum announced that they would be hosting a contest called “Lady A at Your Prom,” and the lucky winning school would receive a special performance by Lady A at their prom. And that event will take place tonight at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville, Ky. In the form of a “mini-prom bash” for Henryville High School.

Henryville High  is in the Indiana town of the same name that was ravished by tornadoes earlier this year. Many students spent their Spring Break leading clean-up and recovery efforts, and the popular country act wants the kids to put aside all their tragedy for one night.

The band was not able to play the school’s actual prom in April due to scheduling conflicts, so instead they are throwing this bash for the 188 juniors and seniors from the school along with their dates. Additionally, each junior and senior got five floor tickets for the event.

When the band began the contest in March, they received entries on behalf of Henryville High from schools as far away as northern Wisconsin. Lady Antebellum singer Hillary Scott said the band was moved by those other entries.

“That was just such, honesty, an encouraging thing to think that those high schoolers, that generation, they’re that helpless, they want to help each other that much,” she said, adding that, “It was definitely an easy decision.”

Charles Kelly of Lady A said he hopes the bash will help the spirits of the community.

“We want to just go there and hopefully bring a little joy, meet them, shake their hands, encourage them to try to get through it as best as they can,” he said.

The concert also was a benefit for the town, and as of earlier this week, more than $119,000 had been raised for the relief effort.

Lamb of God and Dethklok, the latter from Adult Swim’s “Metalocalypse,” have announced that they will team up for an extensive North American tour later this year. The two metal bands will be taking Gojira along with them for support.

The 34-date tour will kick off August 1 in Seattle, and will run through September 15 when the groups play in San Francisco, Calif. Cities the bands will hit in between these dates include Chicago, Pittsburg, New York, Houston and Phoenix.

Lamb of God , the three-time Grammy Award nominated band from Richmond, Va., will be supporting their most recent album, Resolution, which was released earlier this year. The album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Dethklok’s performances will be unique in that they will bring the animated band to life with real players while also incorporating animations and videos on a projection screen. The band is fronted by Brendon Small who co-created “Metalocalypse” and also composes all the music on the show. Small will be joined by an all-star band including Gene Holgan, Bryan Beller and Mike Keneally. The tour will be the first time the band has toured since they were supporting their second album, Dethklok: The Dethalbum II, with Mastodon in 2009. The group is reportedly working on its third album, which is expected to be released later this year.

Gojira, a French metal band, also has a new album to support with the tour. The band will release their fifth album, L’Enfant Sauvage, before the tour on June 26 on Roadrunner Records.

Lamb of God’s fifth album, Sacrament, is one of the group’s most well-known records, and its song “Redneck” received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Metal Performance in 2007. The band originally formed in 1994 and released its debut album, Burn the Priest, in 1999.

Just prior to the end of the second U.S. leg of their current world tour, the Black Keys have announced another slew of West Coast tour dates for this fall to continue to support their latest album, El Camino.

Of the seven new dates that were announced, five are in California, and the tour will kick off October 1 at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, Calif. The tour will continue through October 10 when the band performs at the Pan American Center in Las Cruces, N.M., and the trek also will visit Santa Barbara, Calif.; San Diego; Los Angeles; Anaheim, Calif. and Phoenix.

On all dates of the tour, the Black Keys will be joined by indie rock duo (and identical twins) Tegan and Sara. About the upcoming dates, Sara said she has big plans for the performances.

“We are big fans of the band, and are honored to join them!” she said in a statement. “We’ll be doing our best to rock the hell out of the pre face melt crowd. No pyro, but maybe clothes with flames drawn on them.”

The Black Keys current U.S. tour will wrap up on May 19, and the band will take a brief break before performing at various festivals throughout North America and Europe for the remainder of the summer. And even after the newly announced West Coast dates, the band won’t be done touring yet. After the ne concerts, they will travel to Australia for a string of dates before returning once again to Europe.

El Camino is the Grammy winning group’s seventh studio album, and was released in December of last year. The album was produced by Danger Mouse, who also produced the Akron, Ohio duo’s previous record, Brothers. That album won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album and has gone on to sell over two million copies.