The third edition of the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival will feature Godsmack, Staind and Shinedown, organizers announced recently.

Though called a festival, fans can expect a traveling road show that will play more than 30 show around North America later this year. Each concert will include a main stage along with an Ernie Ball Stage and a Jagermeister Stage. The latter two will feature up-and-coming artists.

Other notable artists joining the tour include Papa Roach, Adelitas Way, Deuce, Fozzy, Redlight King, In This Moment, Thousand Foot Krutch, Candlelight Red and Mindset Evolution. The latter band won the 2011 Best Buy Music Gear Battle of the Bands, which earned them a spot on the tour.

Of the 30-dates, most are still listed as “To Be Announced.” All we know right now is that the tour will kick off somewhere on August 15 and will pull into Little Rock, Ark. The tour is expected to run through September 30.

In statements, some of the members of the bands involved with the tour talked about their excitement about the trek.

“This is our first year on the Uproar Festival,” said Brent Smith of Shinedown, “and we are honored to be sharing the stage with all the bands… Trust me this is one tour you do not want to miss.”

“Nothing makes us feel more at home than playing the best festival in the U.S. with the baddest-ass line-up of the year!” adds Godsmack’s Shannon Larkin. “You better hold on to your hats America, ‘cause this fall we’re coming at you hard ‘n loud with the power hour Smackdown!”

Last year, the Uproar tour played to a total of 324,800 fans, and organizers hope to increase that number this year with the addition of a new stage.

“We’re really excited about this year’s awesome lineup,” says producers John Oakes and John Reese. “It’s incredible to have so many of the biggest bands in rock together with some newer bands that are blowing up. By adding a second stage to the festival area and including even more great talent, we’re stepping things up a notch for the Uproar fans.”

Death Cab for Cutie, currently on the road around the U.S., already have announced an upcoming summer tour that will take them across North America.

The 18-date tour will kick off on June 30 at The Commons in Niagara-on-the-lake, Ontario, and continue through July 22, when the band plays the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Del. In between, the band will headline gigs in Barrie, Ontario; Rochester Hills, Mich.; Lawrence, Kan.; Charlottesville, Va. and Montclair, N.J.

In addition to the Firefly Festival, the band will also be playing a few other festival dates throughout the tour, including Summerfest in Milwaukee, the 80/35 Music Festival in Des Moines, Iowa and the Bunbury Music Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Speaking recently with Billboard.com, Death Cab guitarist Chris Walla said that he is having a great time on the road right now as the band tours with the Magik*Magik Orchestra along with that group’s arranger, Minna Choi.

“These are my favorite shows that we’ve played so far,” Walla told the website. “Aside from what happens musically, which is totally great, Minna Choi is a fantastic arranger, and the players are totally world class, it’s just really fun hearing that album cycle fifteen years into the band and having really different chemistry on stage. It’s not like anything we’ve ever done.”

The band is still on the road to support their most recent album, Codes and Keys, which was released last May. The album is the group’s seventh studio album, and reached number three on the Billboard 200 albums chart when it was released.

Walla says the band is unsure of their plans after this newly announced tour at this time.

“I think a break of some kind is probably in order,” he continued to Billboard.com. “It’s all malleable. We could jump right back in the studio and make another record or it could be another two or three years. We really don’t know. It remains to be seen.

In what may result in the most vocal reverb ever applied to any tour, My Morning Jacket has announced that they will bring Band of Horses along with them on a newly announced North American trek later this year.

The two bands will stay on the road together for more than three weeks this summer, and will mark the beginning of the tour with a two-night stand at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colo., August 3-4. The tour will then continue through the end of August with a gig in Raleigh, N.C. on August 26. In between these dates, the bands will play cities including Toronto, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Atlanta.

The Brooklyn date, which is August 19, will not feature Band of Horses, who will be replaced by Shabazz Palaces. Trombone Shorty will appear during the Red Rocks dates, and Trampled by Turtles will also provide additional support during a Minneapolis show, which is scheduled for August 10.

In a statement, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James expressed his excitement about the upcoming jaunt.

“We are delighted to be sharing the stage with our pals in Band of Horses,” James said. “We danced a beautiful dance together at Madison Square Garden [in December 2011] and there is a lot of love between our camps. It’s gonna be a good old-tyme thrill ride.”

Ben Bridwell, singer of Band of Horses, echoed this anticipation.

“YES! We’re touring with the incredible My Morning Jacket!” Bridwell said. “So psyched to hit the road with our buddies and (hopefully) warm you all up for the greatest band going.”

My Morning Jacket has quite the busy schedule even before this tour begins. From now until July, the band will be appearing at summer festivals both in the States and in Europe. Events they will be playing on this side of the Atlantic include Beale Street Music Festival and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Former Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson has announced a spring and summer tour for his group The Chris Robinson Brotherhood later this year. The tour will support the band’s upcoming debut studio album.

The tour will kick off May 3 at Tipitina’s in New Orleans and will run through August 25-26, when the band plays a two-night set at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, N.Y. Other cities the tour will visit include Birmingham, Ala.; Cleveland, Ohio; Asbury Park, N.J.; Denver; Tulsa; Buffalo, N.Y.; and Ridgefield, Conn.

The band, which has already played 118 shows since the Black Crowes announced a second hiatus a little over a year ago, will be supporting Big Moon Ritual, its album that will be released June 5. The album will be the debut for the group, which features Robinson, Adam MacDougall, George Sluppick, Mark Dutton and former Ryan Adams and the Cardinals guitarist Neal Casal.

Robinson explains a little about the sound of the album in a press release.

“This music is unashamedly what we’re into,” he said in the statement. “It’s not a psych band because you have a Prince Valiant haircut and wear Beatle boots. It’s psych because that’s where our heads are. We want to make music that blossoms. We want to make music that sounds cosmic.”

Robinson also has called the music of the album “cosmic space boogie.” The band will appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” the same night the record is released.

During the tour with the Brotherhood, Robinson also will play shows with the group he has formed with Grateful Dead founding member Bob Weir and Academy Award winning musician Jackie Greene. Appropriately called the Weir, Robinson, Greene Acoustic Trio, the group will play dates in May and June during the tour, including stops in Kansas City, Mo., Geneva, Minn. and Nashville.

Country singer Eric Church caused some waves with fellow country stars (and husband and wife) Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.

In a profanity-laced interview with the magazine, Church first seemed upset about Shelton’s position as a judge on the Fox reality singing competition, “The Voice.”

After calling the show “‘American Idol’ gone mad,” he mentioned Shelton by name.

“Honestly, if [“the Voice” coaches] Blake Shelton and Cee Lo Green f**king turn around in a red chair, you get a deal?” the singer told Rolling Stone. “That’s crazy. I don’t know what would make an artist do that. You’re not an artist.”

As he continued, he seemed to still be taking swings at Shelton.

“If I was concerned about my legacy, there’s no f**king way I would ever sit there [and be a reality-show judge],” he added. “Once your career becomes something other than the music, then that’s what it is. I’ll never make that mistake. I don’t care if I f**king starve.”

Lambert was the first to address the situation as she took to her Twitter account. Lambert first received widespread recognition after she appeared on the reality television show “Nashville Star” in 2003.

“Thanks Eric Church for saying I’m not a real artist. Or @kelly_clarkson, @carrieunderwood & @KeithUrban. Your [sic] welcome for the tour in 2010,” she tweeted.

Shelton’s response was also on Twitter, but he had less to say than Lambert.

“I wish I misunderstood this,” he said.

After his interview was published, Church released a statement through his publicist addressing the issue yesterday.

“The comment I made to Rolling Stone was part of a larger commentary on these types of reality television shows and the perception they create, not the artists involved with the shows themselves,” he said in the statement. “I have a lot of respect for what artists like Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, and my friend Miranda Lambert have gone on to accomplish…. I apologize to anybody I offended in trying to shed light on the issue.”

Though this year’s 11^th season of “American Idol” has yet to wrap up, dates for the American Idol Live! tour already have been announced.

The 45-date tour will kick off in Detroit at the Joe Louis Arena on July 6, and will run through September 11 when the former contestants perform at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. In between, the extensive tour will hit Minneapolis, Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Nashville, Toronto and Cincinnati.

Performing during the tour will include contestants that have already been eliminated including Colton Dixon, DeAndre Brackenstick, Erika Van Pelt and Heejun Han, as well as contestants still competing on the show like Joshua Ledet, Skylar Laine, Hollie Cavanagh and Phillip Phillips.

Elise Testone, a 28-year-old teacher from Charleston, S.C. that was eliminated last Friday also will appear on the tour. She recently expressed her excitement about the upcoming tour.

“On tour, I’m going to have the best time,” she said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. “I’m going to leave it all out there on the stage. I’m going to meet all the wonderful people who have been supporting us. And enjoy singing a whole song.”

When asked exactly what songs she wanted to perform on the tour, she said she had some suggestions in mind already.

“I want to give some suggestions to the tour manager…” she continued. “Whole Lotta Love,” Led Zepplin, would be awesome but I don’t know. Id’ love to do some Adele on tour. I’d love to do some Jessie J.”

She also added that she would love to reprise “Somebody I Used to Know,” the duet she performed with Phillip Phillips on the show.

All contestants that appeared as part of the Top 10 finalists will be included in the tour this year. The trek is presented by Chips Ahoy! And Ritz, and the U.S. Air Force Reserve is an associate sponsor.

Usher debuted songs from his upcoming studio album in a most unconventional way over the weekend: by singing them during an off-Broadway play.

Usher appeared as the lead “Running Man” in the play “Fuerza Bruta: Look Up” at the Daryl Roth Theatre on Friday night. The play is a fast-paced and acrobatic one, and performers dance and jump around the stage as well as the audience, which stands during the performance.

Usher appeared at the beginning of the play on a treadmill as his number one hit “Climax” played in the background. Usher debuted 12 songs throughout the night, though it’s not clear if all will appear on his upcoming album, Looking for Myself, which is scheduled for release on June 12.

Looking for Myself will be the R&B singer’s seventh studio album, and his first since Raymond v. Raymond was released in March 2010. “Climax” was released in February, and topped Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Usher released the album’s second single, “Scream,” earlier this month, and is expected to release “Let Me See” as the third single soon. The latter song features rapper Rick Ross. Producers on the record include Diplo, Rico Love, Salaam Remi and Max Martin.

Notable parts of the Fuerza Bruta performance include when dancers splashed around in a plastic pool that was suspended over the crowd. This happened during a song that the Associated Press called a “slow groove,” and featured lyrics appropriate to the performance like “It’s raining inside your bed.”

During the performance of “Scream,” Confetti rained down on the crowd as the lights flickered and sirens were heard.

“Fuerza Burta” is Spanish for “brute force,” and was developed by Argentinean Diqui James. He also created the long-running “De La Guarda. The Friday night performance was invite only, but Usher appeared again for two shows on Saturday that were open to the public.

When I think of music from Iceland, the artists coming to mind are very bold and innovative, and probably couldn’t have come from any other corner of the world. A band like Sigur Ros is totally unique, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing the things Bjork has done over the course of her career. It’s a funny little country with colorful houses and even more vibrant characters, and you get a bit of that from Of Monsters and Men, but they seem to borrow as much as they can from elsewhere rather than innovating.

My Head Is An Animal is a very cool album, loaded with great songs, of which it is hard to select a few that stand out–for all the right reasons. The band shamelessly borrows from as many bands as they can, combining their own personalities with the very best of indie rock. It’s a little difficult to get a sense for the band themselves, hidden behind the many masks they wear, but at least I know they’re into great music.

‘Dirty Paws’ is the opener, a simple folk tune about animals in the woods at war with a hive of bees. The song has anthemic ambitions, which may at first seem out of place, but the band makes sense of the dichotomy and everything pulls together into a perfect little indie package.

A driving beat and celtic feeling dominate ‘King and Lionheart’, which wants to sound a little too much like Mumford and Sons. Later, on ‘Your Bones’, the band marries their Mumford mode with Beirut and echoing surf guitars, which is a lot more interesting. There is a marked difference between emulating one specific and defined sound, and drawing from several at once to make something new from those ingredients.

On the whole, the album pulls together shades of not only Mumford and Sons and Beirut, but Florence + The Machine, Young the Giant, and more than anything else, Arcade Fire. It’s hard to imagine that they would be able to do this without a misstep, but they really don’t falter, and fans of any of those acts should love them.

‘Numb Bears’ features cute and playful vocals, and a style a little more unique. It shows a bit more of what Of Monsters and Men can bring to the table on their own, and it stands up to the rest of My Head Is An Animal. When they show these clarifying glimpses of what makes them different it shines very brightly.

The vocals of the male and female singers, Ragnar Þórhallsson and Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, are absolutely perfectly complementary to each other in their folk-indie aesthetic. On most songs they sing and harmonize together, and ‘Sloom’, which is closer to a classic duet, showcases them at their best both together and apart.

‘Little Talks’ is very strongly influenced by early Arcade Fire. The bands also share the same whimsical, almost obsessive focus on childhood and childishness. In some ways they actually do Arcade Fire better than Arcade fire, from the “hey hey!” shouts on ‘From Finner’ to the various singalong moments peppered throughout the album’s dozen tracks. They show absolutely no hesitance to command aspects of that sound, which Arcade Fire have themselves begun to shy away from.

A highlight of the album for me is the combination of ‘Six Weeks’ and ‘From Finner’, presenting a determination to be content with mild adversity, and to face challenges with a brave smile and ambition. Few bands can get away with these songs without it coming across as lame or campy, but again, Of Monsters and Men are completely without shame, totally confident, and it’s to their great benefit.

As much as My Head Is An Animal is an extremely derivative album, it’s also very good, and the band certainly does bring a lot to the table that is their own–primarily in the way that they blend their influences to find their own footing. If that involves extensive pillaging from the best indie bands on the radio today, so be it, because they do it just about perfectly.

Bassnectar has been around for a while, and in the decade-plus that Lorin Ashton has been producing music he has been able to thoroughly explore many different schools and styles of not only EDM, but popular music in general.

Vava Voom is mostly a dubstep album, but there are clear influences from other genres in each song, showcasing a very broad musical vocabulary. The record very heavily features hiphop, but even gets into punk, and if you can count the mishmash of ideas in the album’s bonus track, a bit of death metal. An impressive range to say the least.

The titular opening track is a great intro to Vava Voom’s blend of hiphop and dubstep, and shows some of what makes Bassnectar unique, featuring a chiptune melody which carries the song through the deep murk of heavy bass, and almost grants it a kind of levity. At around 2:45 the track shifts into its battle stance, and it ends having presented Bassnectar’s complete arsenal for this album.

It could be a problem that Vava Voom gives you the money shot up front, and though it is clearly the strongest track, there are shapes left to twist these components into.

‘Empathy’ glistens with a crisp soundscape of ice and stone, evoking a cold and ethereal feeling very much unexpected after the weight of ‘Vava Voom’. I wouldn’t call it ambient music, but it certainly creates an image for the listener, without loosening up so much that it lets go of its club appeal.

Frenetic drumming builds the backbone for ‘Ugly’ before a quick translation into the language of overcharged bass. It ends up being one of the most typical dubstep indulgences on the record, but the vibe set by the drums off the top helps reveal a direction, which keeps with the listener and makes the second act more interesting. Especially for anyone interested in the craft itself.

From here on, the album seems to become increasingly blatant in its themes and influences. ‘Ping Pong’ is a rather frank experiment around the sounds of bouncing ping pong balls, and it sounds great, but that gets somewhat lost or drowned out by chugging bass, with no real connection to the clattering provenance.

I think it’s right to see some of these songs as experiments, as if Bassnectar is really just playing around with random ideas and having a little fun with it. At times it seems to be musically immature, but this is a seasoned and experienced artist with a real mastery and understanding of what he is doing. Perhaps he’s just not overly precious about his songs, and is playing to his audience, but some of these ideas do end up feeling a little unfinished.

The album seems to frontload all of its heavy hitters, with a couple of exceptions. The westcoast, Minimoog gangsta whine of ‘Do It Like This’ is a standout, and feels perfectly at home in dubstep. However, ‘What’ could be considered interchangeable with ‘Ugly’, and Vava Voom really never attempts to reach a climax.

One of the more interesting tracks on the record is ‘Pennywise Tribute’, at least in the context of an EDM record, but on its own it’s just a straight cover of Pennywise’s classic ‘Bro Hymn’. It doesn’t really change shapes until three minutes in, after which it is one hell of a remix, but up to that point Bassnectar does almost nothing with the song.

The final three songs are soft and crystalline, whetting your appetite for a finish which never comes. ‘Laughter Crescendo’ is the longest track, and it feels like it. While ‘Butterfly’ is a better song, the fact that it immediately follows a tune which goes on a bit too long and has the same kind of vibe, really compounds the problem. ‘Nothing Has Been Broken’ fits into the same mold, and while it is a gorgeous dreamscape, it’s also an anticlimax. You want something big to smack you around here, but the album is over.

The bonus track, ‘Chronological Outtakes’, is just a highlight reel of discarded ideas, and it doesn’t remedy the lacklustre ending. Some of the concepts are interesting, some really aren’t, and none of them are complete. It’s a little self-indulgent.

I should say that I really do like the three closing tracks, just not all together and at the end of an album which seems to promise heavy hitters with its opener. Bassnectar has an almost synaesthetic approach in those simpler, softer songs, and they work very well on their own. It’s just a weirdly structured album.

Bassnectar is a great DJ and producer, with an extensive bag of tricks and a very firm grasp on what makes different types of songs great. I think his prowess with chiptunes and the other playful aspects he brings to dubstep are his strongpoints, but the record as a whole feels rushed and incomplete. Most of these songs would be a great addition to any mix, but as an album, it kind of leaves you hanging.

Demi Lovato recently announced that she would undertake a summer tour later this year to continue support for her most recent album, Unbroken.

The tour will kick off on June 12 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Del Mar, Calif., and will continue through September 1 when the pop star and actress performs at the Oregon State Fairgrounds Pavilion in Salem, Ore. In between, Lovato will perform in cities including Hershey, Penn.; Canandaigua, N.Y.; Salt Lake City; Las Vegas; Highland Park, Ill.; Essex Junction, Vt. and Monroe, Wash.

Hot Chelle Rae and Owl City are scheduled to provide support for the artist throughout this tour.

Lovato was recently on tour in South America, and she will be continuing to support Unbroken, which is her third studio album and was released in September last year. The album continues to be successful – the single “Skyscraper” was recently certified platinum, and her new single, “Give Your Heart a Break,” was released earlier this month.

Lovato spoke to MTV News recently about the album.

“I didn’t want to come out with this depressing album,” she told the network. “I think it’s important that I kept a lot of my heart open on the album because I talked about my personal issues. But I also had some fun dance songs on there for people to enjoy.”

In other Lovato news, a recent show in Paraguay was forced to be temporarily stopped when fans began to rush the stage. Screaming fans began to rush the stage and caused Lovato to shout, “You guys gotta be safe though.”

Security reportedly became involved when a female fan ran up to Lovato and hugged her, which prompted many male fans to try and do the same. The incident forced the singer to leave the stage, though she returned shortly to finish the concert.