Weezer: Voyage To The Blue Planet Tour 2024

Weezer: Voyage To The Blue Planet Tour 2024

Weezer with The Flaming Lips & Dinosaur Jr. at Kia Center on September 20 on the Voyage to the Blue Planet Tour. Weezer will be playing the Blue Album in full for its 30th anniversary.

As one of the most popular groups to emerge in the post-grunge alternative rock aftermath, Weezer merged the heavy power pop of arena rockers like Cheap Trick and the angular guitar leads of the Pixies while injecting their melodies with doses of ’70s metal gleaned from bands like Kiss. What truly set the band apart, though, was their geekiness. None of the members of Weezer, especially leader Rivers Cuomo, were conventional rockers: they were kids who holed up in their garage to play along with their favorite records when they weren’t studying or watching TV.

As a result, their music was infused with a quirky sense of humor and an endearing awkwardness that made songs from their debut, Weezer (aka “The Blue Album”), into big modern rock hits during the mid-’90s. Weezer’s early singles turned into hits with immeasurable help from clever videos, and the quickly canonized 1994 debut was followed by a more artistically than commercially motivated 1996 sophomore effort, Pinkerton, which was adored by critics and set the tone for what became the band’s long and winding career.

As years turned into decades, Cuomo’s idiosyncratic personality seeped more and more into his songwriting, resulting in albums that ranged from the catchy nerd rock of 2009’s Raditude to the enduringly tender orchestral pop songcraft of 2021’s OK Human, as well as their ambitious four-part EP series SZNZ in 2022As one of the most popular groups to emerge in the post-grunge alternative rock aftermath, Weezer merged the heavy power pop of arena rockers like Cheap Trick and the angular guitar leads of the Pixies while injecting their melodies with doses of ’70s metal gleaned from bands like Kiss. What truly set the band apart, though, was their geekiness. None of the members of Weezer, especially leader Rivers Cuomo, were conventional rockers: they were kids who holed up in their garage to play along with their favorite records when they weren’t studying or watching TV.

As a result, their music was infused with a quirky sense of humor and an endearing awkwardness that made songs from their debut, Weezer (aka “The Blue Album”), into big modern rock hits during the mid-’90s. Weezer’s early singles turned into hits with immeasurable help from clever videos, and the quickly canonized 1994 debut was followed by a more artistically than commercially motivated 1996 sophomore effort, Pinkerton, which was adored by critics and set the tone for what became the band’s long and winding career. As years turned into decades, Cuomo’s idiosyncratic personality seeped more and more into his songwriting, resulting in albums that ranged from the catchy nerd rock of 2009’s Raditude to the enduringly tender orchestral pop songcraft of 2021’s OK Human, as well as their ambitious four-part EP series SZNZ in 2022

About The Flaming Lips

Even within the eclectic world of alternative rock, few bands are as brave, as frequently brilliant, and as deliciously weird as the Flaming Lips. From their beginnings as Oklahoma outsiders to their mid-’90s pop-culture breakthrough to their status as one of the most respected groups of the 21st century, the Lips rode one of the more surreal career trajectories in pop music. After years in the underground, a major-label deal scored during the early-’90s alt rock craze gave them a bigger platform for their mix of psych, noise-rock, and bubblegum melodies, and their 1993 album Transmissions from the Satellite Heart spawned the unlikely Top 40 hit “She Don’t Use Jelly.”

At the turn of the century, they delivered a pair of lush and heartfelt masterpieces with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin and 2002’s Grammy-winning Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Later, they took their experimental and pop impulses in wildly different directions. Whether collaborating with Miley Cyrus, issuing an expression of existential dread with 2013’s The Terror, exploring the loss of innocence on 2020’s American Head, or backing young singer/songwriter Nell Smith on 2021’s Where the Viaduct Looms, their distinctive sound and uncommon emotional depth made them as true originals.

About Dinosaur Jr.

Dinosaur Jr. were largely responsible for returning lead guitar to indie rock and, along with their peers the Pixies, they injected late-’80s alternative rock with monumental levels of pure guitar noise. As the group’s career progressed, they broke into three distinctive acts: the indie years of the original trio; the ’90s spent on major labels where the band was mostly a solo vehicle for J Mascis’ songwriting and guitar wizardry; and the surprisingly strong reunion of the original lineup beginning in 2006. Each phase produced distinctively monumental work, from the noisy squall of 1987’s SST-released You’re Living All Over Me to the insular slacker rock of 1991’s Green Mind, the distortion-drenched pop of 2009’s Farm, and the seasoned fuzz of 2021’s Sweep It Into Space.