Drake w/ J. Cole, Waka Flocka Flame, Meek Mill, 2 Chainz, French Montana
Nikon Theater at Jones Beach
Saturday, June 16

Better than: That other suburban rap mega-show.

Well over halfway through his set, having already given the crowd a festival's worth of openers and played everything but his biggest hits, Drake turned to the crowd: "New York, let me show you how much I love you." Four hours in, his Club Paradise tour had bridged the gap not only between openers Waka Flocka Flame and J. Cole or genres like rap and R&B, but also across a wide range of demographics, seating spoiled 16-year-olds rocking "Self Made" tees side-by-side with old-school heads who first heard surprise guest Busta Rhymes on "Scenario," and not "Look at Me Now." But regardless of that, Drake was right: The show's most exciting moments were still yet to come.

At concerts like this, all those demographics share a desire to believe that their performance is particularly special, realer than all the others and put on just for them. Drake, once awkward in these settings, now knows better than to spoil the fun, spending a long ten minutes moving through the crowd singling out the girl 300 feet away in the red tank top and the couple in matching YOLO hats, but as he spun across the stage to the descending piano chords that anchor "Take Care" or called upon The Weeknd's Abel Tesfaye for some unexpected crew love, it was hard to believe that audiences in Akron or Saratoga saw the same thing.

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Bryan Horowitz

Kelly Clarkson plays Jones Beach Theater on August 21 and PNC Bank Arts Center on August 26.

Ah, the summer, the time of year when one can enjoy a concert in the glorious out of doors. This morning Live Nation announced the full lineups for its two local amphitheaters—the PNC Bank Arts Center in bucolic Holmdel, N.J. and the Jones Beach Theater, out on the South Shore of Nassau County—and there's a bit of a youthquake going on, especially when you compare the roster to last year's nostalgia-choked lineup.

Oh, sure, there's looking back to be had—you can remember the '70s with the ocean-loving Stevie Nicks, the '80s with Def Leppard, the '90s with an alt-rock-stuffed package tour that has both Sugar Ray and the Gin Blossoms on its bill, or the '00s at the still-moshing Warped Tour—but Drake is headlining both venues, Wiz Khalifa is bringing Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q to Jones Beach, and Big Time Rush will try to prove to the kids that it's important to cultivate some hoome-grown boy bands. And Kelly Clarkson, who, despite her curious decision to tour with the soggy blankets in the Fray, always puts on a great show, and she's playing both venues as well. Tickets for many of these concerts are on sale now; check Live Nation's official site for details. Full lineup below.

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Stevie Nicks w/Michael Grimm
Nikon Theater At Jones Beach
Sunday, September 4

Better than: A radio stuck on the classic rock station.

"Welcome, Jones Beach," Stevie Nicks said before her second song on Sunday night, the last night for both her current mini-tour and the Long Island oceanfront amphitheater's 2011 season. "If you know me, you know there's nowhere I'd rather be than the ocean. I love it here." The crowd—even those people flouting her request to not hoist their cameraphones and get video of her performance that night—cheered.

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Yeasayer. Here's hoping things are a bit warmer than this for their shows this summer.

Today Live Nation announced a slew of shows at Long Island's Nikon at Jones Beach Theater and New Jersey's PNC Bank Arts Center, and in addition to the many classic rock acts (with "classic rock" now being expanded to include the mid-period Headbanger's Ball era of Tesla, Firehouse, etc.) and country stars lining the bills we've got Brooklyn's own Yeasayer, who have been tapped to open the Flaming Lips/Weezer tour that stops at PNC on July 28 and at Jones Beach the following day. Other highlights: Ke$ha (Jones Beach, August 20); Janet Jackson (PNC, August 6); Aretha Franklin (Jones Beach, July 28/PNC, July 30); and the New York Pops playing the music of Billy Joel (Jones Beach, August 13), a performance that looks to be bereft of the Piano Man himself. There's also the Identity Festival, which looks to be an all-electronic-music Lollapalooza starring the likes of Rusko, Steve Aoki, and Chad Hugo. Tickets for a bunch of these concerts go on sale this Saturday; full schedules for both venues after the jump.

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Despite launching himself off of Jones Beach's dauntingly tall mezzanine and falling 25 feet into the seats below, the Phish fan who was carted out of the band's Wednesday show by paramedics will live. The Post is reporting that the guy, who remains formally unidentified (Gothamist pegs him as 25-year-old Luke Southworth), came away from his plunge with relatively minor wounds. "It's really a miracle, man. He's just got some broken bones, but he's going to be fine," a friend said. Southworth, or whoever he is, remains sedated at Nassau University Medical Center, and his pals profess ignorance as to whether or not he was on drugs when he decided to push through the crowd and leap. A happier outcome than the one today out in California, that's for sure. Let's not do this anymore, OK everyone? [NYP]

Click on the photo that is being linked to there at your own peril.

In what the New York Post is already dubbing a "horror leap," a 25-year-old man at last night's Phish concert dove headfirst off a 25-foot Jones Beach balcony, landing "with a sickening thud" on the seats below. It happened around 10 p.m., during an intermission, which meant that hundreds of the roughly ten thousand people in attendance saw the fall. Said one witness: "I was sitting two rows behind from where he hit. He hit a chair and he broke the back of another chair. There was blood everywhere. Everyone was yelling, 'Clear the way! Clear the way!' "

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Jones Beach

With the Rihanna/Ke$ha bill already announced for Nikon at Jones Beach Theater this summer, a pop-superheroine double-threat that Nicki Minaj sadly abandoned, there was a momentary glimmer of possibility that the Lon Guyland outdoor amphitheater's other bookings would give metropolitan lollygaggers another reason to voyage to the land of camera sponsorships and alcohol-free concerts. Take in the spectacle, breathe fresh air, not smell decaying rats, etc. Not exactly.

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