On September 8, Lady Antebellum, Maroon 5 and Kid Rock will be performing in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the NFL’s Kickoff 2011 concert. The show, according to a report from the Associated Press, will be performed from a stage near Lambeau Field, where the Green Bay Packers- current Super Bowl Champions- play their home games. The game on Thursday night officially opens the NFL’s 2011 season.

Country star Taylor Swift was the highlight at last year’s concert in New Orleans. Harry Connick Jr. and the Dave Matthews Band joined Swift before the New Orleans Saints, last year’s Super Bowl champion, defeated the Minnesota Vikings by a score of 14 to 9. The concert this year will start at 7:30 pm ET. The game will air on NFL Network and NBC.

The gig is a high profile one and a great opportunity for Lady Antebellum to promote “Own the Night,” their forthcoming album. The set will be released on September 13. The country trio has scored a No. 1 hit already from the album, “Just a Kiss.” “We Owned the Night,” their follow-up single, after only one week is inside the Top 30 already. Lady Antebellum on Monday shared with their fans two brand new singles. One of the songs is currently available on iTunes.

Settle in and grab your microphone. Adam Levine, The Voice coach and frontman of Maroon 5, is going to executive produce a new NBC series. The still unnamed comedy takes place in a karaoke bar. It will blend music and comedy in the fashion of “Glee.” Jake Kasdan, who directs the greatly loved Judd Apatow produced “Freaks and Geeks” series as well as “Walk Hard, a greatly underrated comedy, is also associated with the project. Gene Hong from “The Goode Family,” who is a friend of Levine’s, will write the script.

Levine’s karaoke comedy had been a hot commodity. However NBC was able to secure the project by beating out two competing networks. Levine has ties already with NBC as the winning coach of “The Voice,” NBC’s reality singing competition. The series could be based on Levine’s personal experience. Reportedly he and Hong met in a karaoke bar frequented by Levine. Really that doesn’t seem fair. How can anyone compete with some like Levine who is a professional singer. That totally wrecks the grading curve.

Given the success of “Glee” it isn’t surprising that the project is so popular. Wisecracking cops are being overtaken by singers on television. With all of his musical and television experience, Levine appears to be a good fit for overseeing the project. The show hopefully won’t try to be too realistic. In my personal experiences with karaoke, each episode would need to have off-key versions of “Hotel California” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” sung by slurring, drunk people.

Maroon 5 and Train, two Grammy award winning bands, will be joining forces on a North American tour that will last two months. The 2011 outing will kick off in Chula Vista, CA on July 22 and wrap up in The Woodlands, TX on September 24.

On the trek, the band will be visiting nearly all of the major A-market cities except for Chicago. Out of their 30 shows none will take place in Illinois. That seems kind of strange for a tour of two months, unless they plan on performing at the North Coast Music Festival. So far just ten DJs/artists/bands have been announced. The North Coast Music Festival in Chicago will be held September 2-4. The Train/Maroon 5 tour itinerary doesn’t have any shows scheduled for September 2 and 3.

Artists at the North Coast Musical Festival of 2010 included Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Maps & Atlases and Mayer Hawthorne & The County. Maroon 5 isn’t much of a stretch, in particular Grace Potter & The Nocturnals.

Recently Adam Lavine, Maroon 5 lead vocalist, debuted as judge on “The Voice,” a new television series. However he isn’t planning to quit his Maroon 5 job, thankfully. The band will be touring to support “Hands All Over,” their newest studio album which was released via A&M/Octone on September 21 of last year. It was the third studio album from Maroon 5 and debuted in the No. 2 spot on Billboard’s 200 chart. Three singles have been released so far from the album, including “Never Gonna Leave This Bed,” “Give a Little More” and “Misery.”

Train is touring to support “Save Me San Francisco,” their fifth studio album. It was released by Columbia Records in October 2009. “Hey, Soul Sister,” the album’s lead single, currently is certified 5x platinum for the US. For their live version of the song Train won a Grammy as Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

Train, since releasing “Hey, Soul Sister,” has released another four singles off of their “Save Me San Francisco” album, including “Save Me San Francisco,” “Shake Up Christmas,” “Marry Me” and “If It’s Love.”

Maroon 5 will be introducing their much-awaited third studio album, “Hands all Over”, with a tour across North America in late summer.

The quintet rock group will start the month-long tour in Saratoga Springs, NY on July 30, and will proceed throughout the eastern part of the country through a performance in Pittsburgh on August 29. The full list of dates is shown below, however, more shows will be announced in the weeks ahead, as stated in a press release.

Performers like Owl City, Kris Allen, Guster, Ry Cuming, and VV Brown will alternate as special guests on the tour. Tickets for most shows will be available through Live Nation on Friday, May 14.

The Grammy-winning group collaborated with acclaimed producer, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, on the new set, which was recorded in Switzerland, at Lange’s studio.

“Mutt really helped us play to the best of our ability,” Jesse Carmichael , keyboardist for the band, said in a press release. “And it drove us to be bigger and better than ever.”

“Hands All Over” marks the band’s first studio set since “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long” from 2007. The album will hit retailers in September 21, and the first single is scheduled to hit radio stations across the country on June 28, as stated in a press release.

2010 Maroon 5 Tour Dates
July 2010
30 – Saratoga Springs, NY – Saratoga Performing Arts Center
31 – Gilford, NH – Meadowbrook US Cellular Pavilion

August 2010
1 – Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun Arena
4 – Toronto, Ontario – Molson Canadian Amphitheatre
5 – Clarkston, MI – DTE Energy Music Theatre
6 – Noblesville, IN – Verizon Wireless Music Center
7 – Canandaigua, NY – Constellation Brands Performing Arts Center
10 – Mansfield, MA – Comcast Center
11 – Wantagh, NY – Nikon at Jones Beach Theater
13 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live
14 – Camden, NJ – Susquehanna Bank Center
15 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
19 – Miami, FL – Bayfront Park Amphitheater
21 – Alpharetta, GA – Verizon Wireless Amphitheater at Encore Park
24 – Davidson, NC – Belk Arena
29 – Pittsburgh, PA – Trib Total Media Amphitheater at Station Square

The pop rock band Maroon 5 has lined a US college campus tour up for this fall, following a summer working in the recording studio on the band’s third full length album.

Maroon 5 kicks off the tour on November 7 in Murray Kentucky at Murray State University. The tour will hit 11 schools and ends in Wichita, KS on November 22. The songwriter/rapper K’Naan opens all of the shows. Guster will also join the tour for the show in Lewisburg, PA on November 14.

On the tour Maroon 5 will preview new material from their third studio album, which is still untitled. It is due out next spring. The band worked with producer Robert Lange (Def Leppard, AC/DC) in Switzerland. The new album follows up on the band’s 2007 “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long.”

Adam Levine, front man for the band, said in a statement to the press that they were excited to return home and go out on the road after spending all summer overseas in the recording studio. They are excited to get back to the stage and have the opportunity to debut some of their new music they’ve been recording.

Recently the band contributed a song track for a Frank Sinatra tribute on iTunes. On “His Songs, Our Way,” Maroon 5 covers “The Way You Look Tonight.” There are also offerings from John Rich, The Kills, Meiko, A Fine Frenzy, Joshua Radin and The Kooks among others.

2009 Maroon 5 Tour Dates
November 2009
2 – Murray, KY – Murray State University
3 – Louisville, KY – Bellarmine University
6 – Rochester, NY – Rochester Instititute of Technology
8 – Ithaca, NY – Cornell University
10 – Blacksburg, VA – Virginia Tech University
12 – Fairfield, CT – Sacred Heart University
14 – Lewisburg, PA – Bucknell University
16 – Newark, DE – University of Delaware
18 – Peoria, IL – Bradley University
21 – San Angelo, TX – Angelo State University
22 – Wichita, KS – Wichita State University