By Eric Lochridge

Erin Lester, a recent journalism graduate of South Dakota State University, attended the Jason Mraz concert last week on her birthday and submitted these photos.

By Eric Lochridge

You’ll be able to read an excellent preview story about Jason Mraz’s Gratitude Café tour in Friday’s Journal. But if you haven’t bought tickets yet, check this out: On Wednesday, Sept. 16, ONLY, tickets to Mraz’s show on Tuesday, Sept. 22, will be discounted to $25 for either floor or reserved-seat balcony.

The regular price for those tickets — which I imagine some of you have already bought — is $39.50.

By Eric Lochridge

This many years after The Beatles’ stormed the shores of America, it would be easy to downplay the band’s relevance in 2009. But this week, we have the much-anticipated “The Beatles: Rock Band” hitting video-game store shelves and remastered CDs of the Fab Four’s music.

I think smart marketing plays a big role in that pairing. But I do wonder how successful it will be once the hype passes.

On a certain level, it seems like a generational mismatch: video games primarily hit the younger, millennial demographic, and The Beatles are, and always will be, a Boomer sacred cow.

But the Beatles’ music is still interesting after all these years, and Aerosmith’s foray into the video game world via “Guitar Hero” seems to have gone over pretty well.

And in the event that you’re not getting your Beatles fix this week, our local Fab Four tribute group, The Abbey Road Band, is playing Saturday night at Thirsty’s in Rapid City.

By Eric Lochridge

A never-before-released Nirvana concert is coming to CD and DVD on Nov. 17.

The band’s set at the 1992 Reading Festival has become legendary and is among the most-bootlegged concerts in rock. Press release follows:

Ranked #1 in Kerrang Magazine’s “100 Gigs That Shook The World” and voted as “Nirvana’s #1 Greatest Moment” by fans in an NME poll, Nirvana’s historic August 30, 1992, headlining appearance at the UK’s Reading Festival is one of the most bootlegged concerts in the annals of rock ’n’ roll. Now, fans will have an opportunity to own a pristine copy of that entire performance — color-corrected video from the original film with audio sourced from the original multi-track masters. Nirvana Live At Reading will be issued in a limited edition CD+DVD Deluxe Edition as well as DVD-only, CD-only configurations on November 3, 2009, followed by a 2 LP version on November 17, 2009.

While the show’s centerpiece was a performance of nearly the entire “Nevermind” tracklist, also noteworthy were early performances of three as yet unrecorded songs which wouldn’t be released until two years later on “In Utero:” “All Apologies,” “Dumb,” and in its first ever public performance, “Tourette’s.” The career-spanning setlist also reached back to the band’s 1989 Sub Pop debut album, “Bleach,” for “Blew,” “About A Girl,” “School,” “Negative Creep” and first single “Love Buzz,” and even further back to the mid-‘80s for “Spank Thru.” Other songs from the Reading set would appear in studio form on the “Incesticide” compilation later in the year: “Aneurysm,” “Been A Son” and “Sliver.” Additionally, the band played a pair of beloved covers by two bands that helped shape the formative Nirvana sound – “The Money Will Roll Right In” by Fang and “D-7” by The Wipers.

Only two of the 25 performances on the DVD have ever been released before.

Nirvana Live At Reading DVD:
1. Breed
2. Drain You
3. Aneurysm
4. School
5. Sliver
6. In Bloom
7. Come As You Are
8. Lithium
9. About A Girl
10. tourette’s
11. Polly
12. Lounge Act
13. Smells Like Teen Spirit
14. On A Plain
15. Negative Creep
16. Been A Son
17. All Apologies
18. Blew
19. Dumb
20. Stay Away
21. Spank Thru
22. Love Buzz*
23. The Money Will Roll Right In
24. D-7
25. Territorial Pissings