Alejandro Fernández Showcases Mexican Pride With Back-to-Back Hits: Highlights From His Viña del Mar Set

Alejandro Fernández took the stage Tuesday (Feb. 21) at the Quinta Vergara for his highly anticipated performance at Chile’s Viña del Mar International Song Festival.

Accompanied by a live band that included mariachi and norteño musicians, the ranchera superstar — who wore an elegant black and gold charro suit — delivered an impressive performance where he belted out anthems such as “Tantita Pena,” “Estuve,” “Hoy Tengo Ganas De Ti” and “Mátalas.” Fernández received silver and gold gaviota trophies for his riveting 90-minute set. “Let’s celebrate, campeones (champs),” he said.

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Here are some highlights from his Feb. 21 headlining set at Viña del Mar:

EL POTRILLO RETURNS TO VIÑA

“Chile, Viña,” he said at the beginning, vividly emotional as he made his return to Viña del Mar after last performing there in 2015. “Ahí te va charrito (here you go, charrito),” he added as he walked toward one side of a stage to give a little fan in the audience — who wore a charro outfit — a part of his very own suit. “I always feel great excitement to be on this stage, from the very first time I had the opportunity to be part of this important festival to this day. I promise to leave my soul and heart here. Let music always unite us. Viva Chile! Viva México!”

A SWOON-WORTHY PERFORMANCE

After more urban-leaning sets by Karol G and Tini on the first two days of Viña, Fernández brought romanticism to the festival. Occasionally blowing kisses to his fans — who would scream at the top of their lungs after one of his many charming gestures toward them — the charro sang the classics, or as he called them “viejitas pero bonitas,” that made it seem like the entire Quinta Vergara was either in love or going through a heartbreak that night. The crowd sang along in unison to “Hoy Tengo Ganas De Ti,” “Si Tu Supieras,” “Te Voy a Perder,” “Qué Voy a Hacer Con Mi Amor,” “Como Quien Pierde Una Estrella,” “Me Dediqué a Perderte” and “Canta Corazón.”

NEW MATERIAL

The last time Fernández performed at Viña del Mar was eight years ago. “Every single time, the response from the Chile audience only gets bigger,” he said mid-set when he received the silver gaviota. Since he last performed there, he’s released new albums and new singles and he took this opportunity to play his new material, which included “Hecho En México,” “Caballero,” “Decepciones” and “Inexperto En Olvidarte.”

A TRIBUTE TO VICENTE FERNÁNDEZ

One of the most special moments of the night, and definitely a highlight, was when El Potrillo paid tribute to his father, the Mexican icon Vicente Fernández, who died in December 2021. “My father would be so happy to see the response I’ve gotten at Viña this year,” he said. “But, you know, I think he’s here with me. I feel him, he’s probably here on my shoulder.” He went on to perform a medley of Chente’s greatest hits, including “Por Tu Maldito Amor,” “Mujeres Divinas,” “Las Llaves de Mi Alma,” “De Qué Manera Te Olvido” and “El Rey.”

For the first time in its more than six-decade history, the Viña del Mar International Song Festival is being livestreamed in the United States, exclusively on Billboard.com, Billboard’s YouTube channel, and via Twitter @Billboard. The six-day festival continues with Fito Páez on Feb. 22; Christina Aguilera on Feb. 23; and ending with Camilo on Feb. 24. All headliners will perform at 8 p.m. ET.

Find the rest of the week’s schedule below.

Wednesday, Feb. 22: Fito Páez

Thursday, Feb. 23: Christina Aguilera

Friday, Feb. 24: Camilo

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Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival to Return in 2023 – With a Little Help from Amazon

After a four-year hiatus, long-running Seattle music festival Bumbershoot will return this Labor Day weekend — with help from e-commerce giant Amazon.

As announced Tuesday (Feb. 21) by new Bumbershoot producer New Rising Sun, the festival will return for its 50th edition on Sept. 2-3, 2023, and Amazon has agreed to underwrite presale tickets for this year’s edition to keep it affordable. The e-retailer will sponsor a special early bird $50 single-day ticket and $85 two-day general admission ticket — prices that are 50% lower than when the event was last held in 2019. Amazon has also announced plans to work with arts organization Third Stone to give out 5,000 tickets to area non-profits and community organizations.

First launched in 1971, Bumbershoot faced a double whammy in recent years thanks to declining ticket sales and attendance in the 2010s followed by three years of closure due to the pandemic.

Bumbershoot was previously produced by AEG Presents, which had agreed to produce the festival with Seattle non-profit festival production company One Reel beginning in 2014 to help cover the $1 million in debt One Reel had racked up and restore the event’s financial footing. In 2019, AEG Pacific Northwest vp Rob Thomas announced the company was not renewing its agreement, hinting at financial differences with One Reel. That same year, a barricade collapse at Bumbershoot injured four attendees.

One Reel executives announced plans to stage the festival in 2020, only to be stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, host venue the Seattle Center put out a new request for proposals for the event, with the winning bid going to New Rising Sun, a collective founded by Neumos co-owner Steven Severin, who now serves as Bumbershoot’s co-president & director of music programming; Vital 5 Productions founder Greg Lundgren, who serves as curator; and McCaw Hall general manager Joe Paganelli, who serves as producer.

“We heard from our community and took action — fulfilling our promise of affordability and inclusivity,” Severin said in a statement to Billboard. “When re-imagining our festival for this return, we examined everything through an arts lens and expanded upon what art is and can be. We look forward to sharing our vision this Labor Day weekend.” 

“As ticket prices steadily climb for concerts and events around the globe, we’re excited to support reduced and free ticket prices, creating opportunity for more of our community to enjoy the diversity of Seattle’s creative ecosystem, participate in Bumbershoot’s exciting education programs, and immerse themselves in the arts,” added Amazon senior vp/general counsel/secretary David Zapolsky.

Tickets go on sale Friday (Feb. 24) at 10:00 a.m. PT via bumbershoot.com. Fans are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance as they are expected to sell quickly. A performer lineup will be announced at a later date.

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Kelly Clarkson Promises ‘Better Days’ Ahead With Dermot Kennedy Cover

Kelly Clarkson brought her usual positive energy to her eponymous talk show on Tuesday (Feb. 21), this time taking on Dermot Kennedy‘s upbeat ballad “Better Days” for her daily Kellyoke segment.

Backed by her My Band Y’all, the pop superstar performed an emotional rendition of the track, singing in the chorus, “I know you’ve been hurtin’ / Waitin’ on a train that just won’t come / The rain, it ain’t permanent / And soon, we’ll be dancin’ in the sun / We’ll be dancin’ in the sun.”

The track is featured on the 31-year-old Irish singer-songwriter’s 2022 album, Sonder. “I found the word ‘sonder’ a few years ago, the meaning being just the awareness that everybody is living a life just as important and as complex as your own,” he recently told Billboard of his sophomore LP’s title. “At that point, I didn’t really have any part of my life or career to attach it to, so it was just a word that I appreciated and it meant something to me.”

Clarkson’s daily mini-performances have become so popular since The Kelly Clarkson Show first began in 2019, she released an EP featuring recordings of six Kellyoke-ified songs over the summer. Her standout cover of Whitney Houston’s “Queen of the Night” was one of them, along with Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever,” The Weeknd’s “Call Out My Name” and more.

Watch Kelly Clarkson’s cover of Dermot Kennedy’s “Better Days” below.

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Madonna Laughs Off ‘Swelling From Surgery’ After Criticism of Her Appearance at 2023 Grammys

Who’s that girl? It’s Madonna, showing off her latest snapshot and a little sense of humor, after the internet criticized how she looked at the 2023 Grammys.

Madonna shared a new photo of herself staring down the camera on Twitter Monday (Feb. 20). The pop icon is dressed casually in the picture, wearing ripped jeans, a jacket and a black cap reading “SPIRITUALLY HUNGRY,” with her hair styled in braids.

“Look how cute i am now that swelling from surgery has gone down. Lol,” Madonna tweeted about her face, with a crying-laughing emoji.

At the Grammys earlier this month, the singer had introduced Sam Smith and Kim Petras for a performance of their Grammy-winning “Unholy.” Following the telecast, her speech was seemingly overshadowed by her appearance, as people on social media shared their opinions about how different she looks in 2023, throwing out accusations about botched plastic surgery.

Two days later, Madonna fired back at critics with an Instagram post: “It was an honor for me to introduce Kim Petras and Sam Smith at the Grammys,” she wrote. “I had wanted to give the last award which was Album of the year, but I thought it was more important that I present the first trans- woman performing at the Grammys— a History making moment!! And on top of that she won a Grammy!! Instead of focusing on what I said in my speech which was about giving thanks for the fearlessness of artists like Sam and Kim- Many people chose to only talk about Close-up photos of me Taken with a long lens camera By a press photographer that Would distort anyone’s face!! Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny That permeates the world we live in. A world that refuses to celebrate women pass the age of 45 And feels the need to punish her If she continues to be strong willed, hard-working and adventurous.”

“I have never apologized for any of the creative choices I have made nor the way that I look or dress and I’m not going to start,” she added at the time.

See Madonna’s new photo on Twitter.

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Harry Styles Drinks Out of His Shoe at Australia Concert

Harry Styles treated himself to a big gulp out of his own shoe in Perth, Australia, Monday night (Feb. 20).

While making casual conversation with the crowd in between songs at HBF Park, Styles seems to have decided that this particular Love On Tour stop was the perfect time partake in an interesting Australian drinking tradition: doing a shoey.

To do a shoey, one must pour alcohol into one’s shoe — not water, as Styles learned Monday night — and chug it.

“Does anybody have a drink that they wouldn’t mind lending?” Styles asked fans in the audience and then pondered, “Can we do a shoey with water or is that against the rules? No?”

Before dumping a drink into his mouth straight from his shoe, which appears to be the Adidas x Gucci Gazelle sneaker, the Harry’s House hitmaker commented, “This is one of the most disgusting traditions.”

Post Malone and Kacey Musgraves are among the fellow music arts to have joined in on the Australian rite of passage on previous tours.

Watch Styles do a shoey in the video clip below, beginning at the 7:07 timestamp.

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Katy Perry, Lionel Richie & Luke Bryan Brought to Tears Over Audition in Tribute to Willie Spence on ‘American Idol’ Premiere

Kya Monée’s 2023 American Idol audition, a heartfelt tribute to late contestant Willie Spence, made everyone in the room emotional on the show’s premiere Sunday night (Feb. 19).

Spence, the Georgia singer who placed second on the 2021 season of American Idol, died in October 2022. He was only 23 years old.

“We grew a very, very close friendship … Losing Willie was just very, very hard for me,” Monée, a singer from Texas who performed a duet of Rihanna and Mikky Ekko’s “Stay” with Spence during Hollywood Week in 2021, said on Sunday’s Idol episode. “He passed in a tragic car accident and I’m still trying to cope with that.”

Through tears, she said, “Willie, he always told me, ‘No matter what, you’ll always be a singer.’ Three days before he passed, Willie was telling me, ‘You have to go back. You have to chase your dream. I’m gonna go with you to American Idol.’ He made me want to do it and I’d really love to make it further. But most of all, I wanna make Willie proud.”

“He was actually supposed to be here with me today for my audition,” Monée told judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan. “It’s just very hard to not have that support anymore. But I know he would want me to be here … The song that I’m singing today is a song that we picked together. I’m singing ‘I’m Here’ from The Color Purple.”

Perry, Richie and Bryan were visibly moved by Monée’s performance of “I’m Here,” and agreed that the singer would be advancing on to the next round in the competition.

“That’s how you sing through crying,” Perry commented, leading the trio of judges in a standing ovation for Monée.

Richie wiped away his own tears, handed Monée a handkerchief and embraced her in a hug. “What you’ve given us was everything we’ve been trying to tell all of these kids,” he said. “That performance was so emotional, so heartfelt, so divinely guided in the glorious name of our dear brother Willie.”

“I’ve lost some people in my life. When you go to sing, you just sing like Willie’s still here,” Bryan noted.

“It was on another level. It was so connected to the pain, and everybody’s feeling this loss but we also feel connected together because you are authentic, just like he was,” Perry added.

Watch the moving performance from Monée below.

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Huey ‘Piano’ Smith, Session Man and Hitmaker, Dies at 89

Huey “Piano” Smith, a beloved New Orleans session man who backed Little Richard, Lloyd Price and other early rock stars and with his own group made the party favorites “Don’t You Just Know It” and “Rockin’ Pneumonia and Boogie Woogie Flu,” has died. He was 89.

His daughter, Acquelyn Donsereaux, told The Associated Press that he died in his sleep Feb. 13 at his home in Baton Rouge. She did not cite a specific cause.

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A New Orleans native who performed nationwide but always returned to Louisiana, Smith was one of the last survivors of an extraordinary scene of musicians and songwriters who helped make New Orleans a fundamental influence on rock ‘n’ roll. He was just 15 when he began playing professionally and in his 20s helped out on numerous ’50s hits, including Price’s “Where You At?”, Earl King’s “Those Lonely Lonely Nights” and Smiley Lewis’ “I Hear You Knocking.” Little Richard, Fats Domino and David Bartholomew were among the many other artists he worked with.

In 1957, he formed Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns and reached the top 10 with “Rockin’ Pneumonia,” a mid-tempo stomp which featured the vocals of John Marchin and Smith’s buoyant keyboard playing, and the equally rowdy and good-natured “Don’t You Just Know It.” The Clowns also were known for “We Like Birdland”, “Well I’ll Be John Brown” and “High Blood Pressure.”

One Smith production became a major hit and rock standard, for another performer. Smith and his group wrote, arranged and recorded “Sea Cruise,” but Ace Records thought the song would have more success with a white singer — as Smith learned bluntly from local record distributor Joe Caronna — and replaced the Clowns’ vocals with those of Frankie Ford, whose version became a million seller.

“I was crying as he (Caronna) said that,” Smith told biographer John Wirt, whose Huey ‘Piano’ Smith and the Rocking Pneumonia Blues came out in 2014. “I had been drinking a little bit. It hurt me to my heart when he told me he was taking that.”

Artists covering “Sea Cruise” and other Smith songs included John Fogerty, the Beach Boys, Aerosmith and Jerry Garcia. In 2005, Ford would deny “stealing” the song, alleging that he had written the words. “Huey sorta went through a period and ‘forgot’ a lot of things,” Ford told Offbeat Magazine.

Smith’s popularity faded after the Beatles arrived and by 1980 he had quit the business, settled in Baton Rouge with his wife, Margrette, and become a Jehovah’s Witness. Like many rock musicians from the ’50s, he fought to be paid and credited for “Sea Cruise” and other hits and spent decades in legal battles and financial trouble. Local musicians, meanwhile, continued to cite him as an inspiration.

“To me he was the man who got more out of simplicity than anybody in New Orleans,” drummer Earl Palmer told Wirt.

In 2000, Smith received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and he was honored a year later by the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame. Admirers would cite him as one of the most vital performers not to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He is survived by his wife, 10 children, 18 grandchildren and 47 great grandchildren, his daughter told the AP.

Smith grew up in the Uptown section New Orleans, his father a roofer, his mother a laundry worker. As a boy, Smith took up piano, learning by watching his uncle play, and he soon mastered the eight-bar progression that anchored countless blues songs. He played obsessively, sometimes to the annoyance of his neighbors, and in high school he helped start the band the Joy Jumpers.

He was still in his teens when he met another young New Orleans musician, Eddie Lee Jones, who as “Guitar Slim” influenced countless musicians and gave Smith his “Piano” nickname. Lewis’ own work initially drew upon the blues-boogie woogie of Professor Longhair. But he would eventually absorb a wide range of styles, whether the jazz of Jelly Roll Martin or the rock-rhythm and blues of Fats Domino.

“I took up to tryin’ a variety of music other than just one individual style,” he told Wirt. “I like my own style, but my own style is completely different than rhythm-and-blues, or calypso or any of that. It’s just deep down funk.”

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Ariana DeBose Opens 2023 BAFTA Awards With Musical Performance

After winning the BAFTA supporting actress award last year for West Side Story, Ariana DeBose returned to open the 2023 ceremony on Sunday (Feb. 19).

The actress — also known for Hamilton and Westworld — performed an exclusive contemporary song inspired by this year’s nominees on stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Richard E. Grant serves as the host of the ceremony.

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Alongside DeBose, Mercury Prize-winning artist Little Simz was also set to perform and will sing a track from her album, No Thank You. The pioneering hip-hop artist and actress — who has starred in Top Boy (which also stars this year’s BAFTA best-supporting actor nominee Micheal Ward) — has won MOBO, Ivor Novello and BRIT awards.

Last year, iconic Welsh singer Dame Shirley Bassey raised the curtain on the 75th edition of the BAFTAs with a rendition of the classic James Bond theme “Diamonds Are Forever” in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the film franchise.

All Quiet on the Western Front led the pack of nominees for this year’s BAFTA awards with a record-equaling haul of 14 nominations. Netflix’s acclaimed anti-war epic entered the Sunday ceremony competing for best film, director (for Edward Berger), adapted screenplay and supporting actor (for Albrech Schuch) alongside almost every single below-the-line category.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

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