• The Package: Certain boy-band-loving Gen X and Y women across the country woke to what must have been ecstatic news Wednesday morning when still-reunited, still-aging New Kids on the Block announced that they will be hitting the arena circuit once again this summer, this time on a triple-bill tour with 98 Degrees and Boyz II Men (who, by the way, play Feb. 16 at City National Grove of Anaheim, if you want to see just them, and sooner).
The outing, dubbed The Package (get it? works on so many levels), kicks off May 31 on the East Coast and reaches Staples Center in Los Angeles on July 5. Tickets, $29.50-$89.50, aren’t widely available until Feb. 2, but the American Express pre-sale starts Jan. 25.
NKOTB starts next week by dropping “Remix (I Like The),” the first single from 10, due April 2. In an apparently un-ironic statement, Donnie Wahlberg warned, “Ladies, we’re coming for you. This is going to be the craziest year yet — the single, the album, the tour with 98 Degrees and Boyz II Men … We can’t wait to give fans The Package!’”
• Andrea Bocelli: Already shelled out big to see the Italian tenor at the Hollywood Bowl on June 8 but actually live minutes from where the Ducks play? You just got burned a little. The Italian tenor just added an encore performance closer to home, June 9 at Honda Center in Anaheim. Tickets, $75-$375, go on sale Monday, Jan. 28, the day before his 14th album Passione arrives. A collection of Mediterranean love songs, it includes duets with Jennifer Lopez, Nelly Furtado and virtual Edith Piaf. Check Ticketmaster for pre-sales.
• Andrew McMahon: So he’s officially a solo act, though it always seemed like he was ever since he set aside Something Corporate. Having also retired the Jack’s Mannequin moniker after two charity shows at El Rey last summer, McMahon is embarking on his first tour under his own name, backed by a six-member band, including holdovers Jay McMillan and Mike Wagner.
After three weeks of opening for fun. throughout the right half of the U.S., L.A. resident McMahon will come home to O.C. for a March 21 show at the Observatory in Santa Ana, $27.50, on sale Friday at 10 a.m. Also see him March 20 at House of Blues San Diego, $20-$30.
Other choice new bookings at the Observatory: rapper Wale, Feb. 7, $17.50; Brooklyn indie rock duo Matt & Kim, March 8, $25, and Welsh noisemakers the Joy Formidable, March 18, $18. (Also see them March 21 at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, $23. Both gigs are on sale Friday at 10 a.m.)
Oh, and there’s a performance from your grandma’s favorite bands, Cannibal Corpse and Napalm Death, on May 16, $23. And in the smaller Constellation Room: Heartless Bastards, March 28, $18.
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New shows: New Kids’ Package, Bocelli in O.C., Observatory adds Andrew McMahon and more is a post from: Soundcheck