“Terms And Conditions” singer Mahalia has set her eyes on North America for a new wing of her In Real Life Tour. The musician’s latest album, IRL, will be enjoyed live by fans across Europe next week. However, supporters based in North America will have to wait until 2024 before Mahalia touches down.
Beginning in February 2024, Mahalia will embark on a 24-date run across the US and Canada. The tour will kick off on February 20 in Vancouver. Although she will be joined by the musical group No Guidnce for the UK and EU leg, no special guest has been announced for the North American wing.
View the full In Real Life Tour schedule below. Mahalia’s artist presale will begin tomorrow, Wednesday, October 4, at 10 a.m. local time. General ticket sales will start on Friday, October 6, 10 a.m. local time. Find more information here.
02/20/2024 — Vancouver, BC @ The Commodore Ballroom
02/21/2024 — Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
02/22/2024 — Seattle, WA @ Neptune
02/24/2024 — Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
02/25/2024 — San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom
02/27/2024 — Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
02/28/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Belasco Theatre
03/01/2024 — San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
03/02/2024 — Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
03/03/2024 — Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole
03/05/2024 — Denver, CO @ Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
03/07/2024 — Dallas, TX @ HOB Cambridge Room
03/08/2024 — Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn
03/09/2024 — Houston, TX @ House of Blues
03/11/2024 — Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
03/13/2024 — Charlotte, NC @ The Underground
03/14/2024 — Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore Silver Spring
03/16/2024 — Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts (TLA)
03/17/2024 — New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
03/20/2024 — Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
03/22/2024 — Toronto, ON @ History
03/23/2024 — Montreal, QC @ Beanfield Theatre
03/25/2024 — Detroit, MI @ Shelter
03/26/2024 — Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
IRL is out now via Atlantic. Find more information here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Is the fast food chicken sandwich better than the cheeseburger? This is a question I ask myself… fairly regularly, actually. On one hand, the cheeseburger has served us fast food lovers well, whether you like the cheap and easy stuff, fast casual sit-down restaurants, or straight-up traditional restaurants, there are delicious cheeseburgers at every level. Every town in this country has a drive-thru cheeseburger that could be in the running for your favorite, we can’t say the same for the fried chicken sandwich.
Having said that, something about the fried chicken sandwich holds mystique. Fast food brands are obsessed with the chicken sandwich. The famed Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich even ushered in the dreaded “chicken sandwich wars” — which sounds totally hyperbolic but… was kind of real, as fast food brands scrambled to grab attention for themselves. Every few months since 2019, we’ve witnessed a brand new chicken sandwich hitting the market, some of them earning permanent menu status, and some falling off the menu with little fanfare.
As a person who covers fast food, that’s exciting. But I imagine it might be incredibly annoying for someone who is just hungry and wants to spend their lunch eating something delicious. When endless options about, curation and well-meaning critique become more important than ever. That’s why we’re here to rank all of the best fried chicken sandwiches in fast food right now, in an effort to help you find the most delicious sandwich for your money.
The last time we did one of these rankings was in 2021, and a lot has changed since then. So we re-tasted old sandwiches, added new sandwiches, and ranked them all. Here is the best fried chicken sandwich you can eat in 2023, ranked from least essential to most delicious.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Food Rankings From The Last Month
Super processed and bland with a weird texture, a sad lack of crunch, and a barely-there black pepper flavor. This is hands down the worst fried chicken sandwich in all of fast food, harkening back to a time before Popeyes when most fast food brands didn’t even try to make a sandwich that wasn’t just a big chicken nugget flattened out to bun-size.
Atop the filet is lettuce, tomato, mayo — ugh, I mean do you even care? The experience of eating this sandwich is brutal, don’t even bother.
The Bottom Line:
You’re at Dairy Queen. Order something ice cream-related or don’t order at all.
A spongey and porous chicken filet with a crispy exterior generously seasoned with black pepper. The breading tastes fine (could use more seasoning) and provides crunch, but the texture of the meat here is downright offensive.
The sandwich is served with lettuce, tomato, and pickles, with mayo buttered on the bun. Pretty standard stuff, but none of these ingredients are quality, leaving the best part of the sandwich the brioche bun.
When the bun is better than everything inside of it, you’ve got a problem.
The Bottom Line:
Order jalapeño poppers, chili cheese fries, a hot dog, mozzarella sticks — anything but the chicken sandwich.
I appreciate the smokey and slightly sweet flavor of the black-peppered bacon but every other element of this sandwich is straight-up repellent. The chicken is dry and one note (black pepper), the lettuce is watery, the bread is way too dry, the tomatoes are too tart and unripened, and the honey mustard gives this sandwich an off-putting tang and a bitter finish.
Overall, it seems like this sandwich is only on the menu because it’s a box Arby’s is ticking off, why would anyone order this over a Smokehouse Brisket, Roast Beef Gyro, or Corned Beef sandwich? All three of those options are significantly better than this chicken sandwich. And in no circumstances should you order the inferior Arby Classic Crispy Chicken Sandwich, which isn’t even good enough to land on this ranking.
The Bottom Line:
Arby’s has “got the meats,” but apparently chicken isn’t one of those meats, because this is terrible.
17. Burger King — Bacon and Swiss BK Royal Crispy Chicken Sandwich
Burger King
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
The breading is salty and black-pepper forward with gentle smokey notes courtesy of the bacon, and slightly sweet cheese, with a sweet-savory finish. The best thing this sandwich has going for it is crunch, it’s audibly pleasing and makes the sandwich come across as more appetizing than it actually is. Unfortunately, the texture of the chicken filet is all wrong.
It’s chunky and flakey, a sign that the chicken was probably frozen before being fried, and the meat itself is flavorless. No amount of seasoning and crunch can mask this ultimately bland chicken taste good. Maybe 10 years ago this would’ve been passable, but in 2023 with all the great chicken sandwiches out there that are well-made and flavorful, this one suffers from poor quality and a bland flavor. So why would anyone order it?
Here is the frustrating part, a few years back Burger King launched the Ch’King sandwich — a stupidly named line of sandwiches that were surprisingly delicious. And then BK realized that the process of putting this chicken sandwich together was too time-consuming and expensive, so they simplified it and now we have the “Crispy Chicken Sandwich” line in its place.
Those cut corners weaken the experience considerably, putting Burger King back into the bottom tier.
The Bottom Line:
Remember the Ch’King? Well, that’s dead, and this new line of chicken sandwiches pale in comparison to that line of sandwiches that was killed off too soon. BK seems to spend all its money on great photography of its food because the real thing doesn’t look anything like this photo would suggest.
McDonald’s keeps f*cking with its chicken sandwich, changing it every year or so and that’s because as good as McDonald’s is, they still can’t figure out how to make a decent chicken sandwich. Even though this sandwich features a filet, the texture reminds us a bit of those highly processed chicken patties of old, back before Popeyes revolutionized the way chicken sandwiches are made.
The spicy pepper sauce is delicious, it has a strong cayenne kick to it with some sweetness to balance out the heat, but the pickles are too wet and brine-y, and the chicken has a strange chunky texture and a weirdly artificial taste that is pretty off-putting.
The breading is light and airy, similar to a chicken nugget, but doesn’t provide the same satisfying crunch as a McNugget. Back to the lab with this one McDonald’s!
The Bottom Line:
The sauce is good but you’re better off ordering some chicken McNuggets and dipping them in the sauce of your choice than dealing with the odd texture and bland flavor of this chicken patty.
Carl’s Jr has made significant improvements to its fried chicken sandwich since the last time we reviewed it, in place of the processed chicken patty is a hand-breaded breast filet with a crunchy breading that combines black pepper, salt, and a hint of garlic and onion powder. On top of that, you have some nutty and salty Swiss cheese, tasty smokey bacon (that is unfortunately too thin), and mayonnaise on a squishy potato bun. There are also tomatoes and lettuce but they’re not doing the sandwich any favors.
Luckily, the chicken has a great flavor, it’s nice and meaty, but what holds it back is that it’s a bit drier than some of the top-tier fried chicken sandwiches out there. That means we have to leave this one near the bottom of the list. Carl’s Jr has come a long way with its chicken sandwich but it still can’t compete with the big boys. Errr… big birds?
The Bottom Line:
Carl’s Jr’s best chicken sandwiches are the grilled ones. Get one of those instead of this.
14. Jack in the Box — Homestyle Ranch Chicken Club
Jack in the Box
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Super crunchy with a black pepper and garlic dominant flavor that is enhanced by some smokey bacon and complimented nicely by a tangy buttermilk ranch. The tomatoes add a nice juicy dimension but the lettuce tastes a bit bitter and the cheese comes across like melted plastic with a flavor that is not in any way reminiscent of Swiss. The breading is also a bit too generous, leaving more crunch than actual meat.
The bun is soft and spongey and a nice compliment to the sandwich, but unfortunately, half of the elements of this build really weigh the sandwich down and keep it from being truly great.
The Bottom Line:
A middling sandwich. Neither great nor bad. It’s fine.
Good crunch with well-seasoned breading with a white pepper, garlic, and onion powder forward flavor complemented by some sweet and slightly smokey barbecue sauce, a bit of sweet and smokey notes from the fried onions and bacon (which also helps add more crunch), with bright crispy thin pickles, and some mayo to help accentuate the savory flavors.
The double dose of different sauces helps to keep this chicken from coming across as dry but I suspect all that sauce is used to mask the flavor of the chicken itself, which I can’t really taste. It’s not that much of a problem because the overall flavor of the sandwich is good but in order for this to be a true top-tier sandwich, the flavor of the actual meat is going to need to poke through more.
The Bottom Line:
A good chicken sandwich, but all the sauce makes me feel like it’s hiding something. If we were ranking this list based on best names, this would take the top spot. Flavor-wise, the Mother Cruncher is stuck in the middle.
A spicy chicken sandwich, courtesy of KFC! If you know anything about KFC, that’s an anomaly, the brand doesn’t do spicy all that often, so this sandwich was a big deal to us when it dropped. It’s… just fine.
The issue here is that this sandwich is so close to being delicious, the chicken is tender and meaty, well-seasoned with a garlic, onion, black pepper, and salt-based breading, and a tasty spicy cayenne pepper sauce that is well balanced in heat and sweetness. But the build is pretty standard and it fails to stick the landing.
The other components are also lacking. The pickles are soft and soggy and don’t really cut the umami notes enough, and the bun isn’t so much buttery as it is greasy. The chicken is also way too heavily breaded which distracts from the other components. All KFC has to do is switch out that bun, not double-batter the chicken, and get some better pickles and this sandwich instantly moves from mid-tier to, well, upper-mid-tier.
The Bottom Line:
KFC is getting closer and closer to a great chicken sandwich, but they’re still not quite there. If they give us an Original Recipe version of this thing it might bump up KFC a few spots in our ranking.
This sandwich frustrates me, partly because Raising Cane’s has such great chicken tenders that you’d think a great chicken sandwich would be a no-brainer, and yet, Raising Cane’s made the stupid (yes stupid) decision of building their chicken sandwich by shoving three chicken tenders between a dense bready bun with some boring green leaf lettuce and the admittedly delicious Cane’s sauce.
Don’t get me wrong, the chicken tenders and sauce are a great combination, the chicken is tender, crispy, juicy, and some of the best in all of fast food, but the build is ridiculous. Because it’s three tenders in a bun you have to hold this sandwich with two hands and constantly adjust it to keep the tenders from falling out.
Which begs the question… why experience these flavors in a sandwich at all? Just order some chicken tenders and dip them in some sauce. Looking for more carbs? Each Raising Cane’s finger combo comes with a side of Texas Toast which is buttered and grilled and way more flavorful than the bun the sandwich is served on.
This sandwich is lazy and a missed opportunity.
The Bottom Line:
Order the tenders. Never order this sandwich. That way, maybe Raising Cane will wake up and give us a proper one instead of this mistake.
Church’s chicken sandwich wants so badly to be Popeyes, it features the same simple build: a huge chicken breast filet heavily breaded and topped with pickles and mayo, but just doesn’t deliver the same flavor. The chicken is pretty good, it’s tender and juicy, and the breading is well seasoned with a heavy black pepper flavor served atop a honey-buttered and mayo-topped brioche bun, but the flavors just don’t come together quite like the sandwich it’s imitating.
It lacks that depth of flavor Popeyes has and in my experience, you can taste a bit too much of the frying oil, which gives the sandwich a sort of ~ dirty ~ aftertaste.
The Bottom Line:
An obvious imitation of Popeyes that’s not nearly as good as the real thing.
9. Wendy’s — Spicy Chicken Asiago Ranch Chicken Club
Wendy
Spicy with a strong cayenne and black pepper flavor with smokey bacon notes, and some tangy creamy ranch notes. It used to be my go-to Wendy’s chicken sandwich. If you want something a bit more tame in the heat department, this is your best choice as it’s meaty and flavorful without really registering as “hot.”
But if you’d rather eat something a bit more adventurous, see our next Wendy’s entry.
The Bottom Line:
Still one of Wendy’s best chicken sandwiches but there is a newcomer on the menu that takes this idea and elevates it with a stronger emphasis on heat.
Finally, Wendy’s best dipping sauce is now part of its chicken sandwich. The Ghost Pepper Ranch Chicken Sandwich features a crispy tender filet of white meat chicken seasoned with a heavy dose of cayenne and black pepper, topped with spicy ghost pepper seasoned fried onions, creamy ghost pepper American cheese, and tangy and spicy ghost pepper ranch. There’s also lettuce and tomato, which help to reign the spicy flavors in. They do an alright job but are easily the weakest part of this sandwich.
It’s not quite as dangerously spicy as it sounds, but it has a strong initial kick of heat that slowly builds in intensity as you eat the sandwich. It’s a great sandwich, but if you have reservations about all this heat, go ahead and order it with the Homestyle filet rather than the spicy one.
The Bottom Line:
Three different layers of strong but manageable heat make this sandwich is real treat for your tastebuds.
A bit different than the other chicken sandwiches on the market, this one features a light cornstarch-based breading that is airy and crispy and helps to keep the chicken juicy and tender without being dried out from over-frying.
The breading is seasoned with garlic, pepper, salt, onion powder, and the slightest hint of parsley, with a deep and complex umami-heavy mayo. It tastes like a chicken sandwich should, but with a slightly different ratio of the seasoning which helps to make it a bit more unique than its simple build would suggest.
The Bottom Line:
A great umami-rich chicken sandwich that not enough people know about.
The first bite is savory, a mix of salty flavors with some vegetal jalapeño notes and a mild building heat followed by a sharp tang and a sweet floral finish. A bouquet of sweet, tangy, and spicy flavors that is hard not to fall in love with.
I really like this seasonal spin on Chick-fil-A’s original chicken sandwich. The build features a thick chicken breast filet with a thick smattering of pimento cheese, pickled jalapeños, and a honey spread bun. It’s distinctly different than every other chicken sandwich on the market, but different isn’t always better, so we can’t in good consciousness put this in the top 5.
The Bottom Line:
A medley of flavors that take you on a journey from savory, to tangy, to sweet with a slow-burning heat.
You may not know it considering this chain makes maybe the greatest fast food cheeseburger on the market, but Shake Shack’s chicken sandwiches are surprisingly solid. The breading is flaky and crispy, serving as a perfect sponge to soak up the buttermilk herb-seasoned mayo. The sandwich also features crispy pickles that have a nice snap to them, served atop a slightly sweet and extra soft bun.
The chicken is tender and meaty, and the is seasoned with a prominent onion flavor with a hint of black pepper on the aftertaste.
The Bottom Line:
Delicious, juicy, and crispy, but it can’t quite compare to a Shake Shack cheeseburger.
One of my go-to chicken sandwiches when I’m not on the job, the Spicy Deluxe features snappy crinkle-cut pickles, some slightly buttery green leaf lettuce, two succulent slices of tomato, and a whole meat chicken breast filet seasoned generously with black pepper, garlic powder, paprika and a hint of cayenne pepper, with pepper jack cheese for an added dose of heat. Not only is this sandwich fried in peanut oil which gives it a super crispy exterior but helps to keep the chicken juicy and moist, but the chicken itself is also marinated in pickle brine which adds a layer of complexity to the flavor of this sandwich that most of the competition just doesn’t have.
Everything above this sandwich is marginally better, but everything below it on this ranking pales in comparison.
The Bottom Line:
One of the best spicy chicken sandwiches in all of fast food, period.
I have a lot of issues with this sandwich, on the one hand, I love the build, a thick piece of chicken, a mix of cabbage and kale, some tangy savory sauce, and pickles (with the option to add cheese). Simple, delicious. But Dave’s is another one of those places that puts a chicken tender between two pieces of bread and calls it a sandwich and I just can’t stand for that.
Most of your chicken tender will extend out of the sandwich, half of your bites will be just bread, and while the tender is gargantuan (seriously what are they doing to these chickens to make them so plump?) it feels a little strange that at the end of your $15 meal, all you’re really getting is one chicken tender (and fries). It feels like a rip-off when for the same price you can get two tenders, fries, and a slice of white bread.
Again, it feels like Dave’s has a sandwich just because that’s what people expect.
Having said that, this is legitimately the hottest sandwich on this ranking. You can customize it between seven different heat levels, my favorite is the “Hot,” which features a strong heat that is enough to feel but not enough to ruin your meal. If you really want to be challenged, opt for the “Extra Hot” or “Reaper” heat levels.
The Bottom Line:
The hottest chicken sandwich you can find in fast food right now. But don’t get the sandwich, get the tenders instead — it’s more bang for your buck.
This sandwich hits you with an initial wave of intense spice that is balanced out by a vegetal slaw and briney tang from the pickles. After a few bites the heat continually builds on the palate, the first bite might not convince you this sandwich is hot enough but after a few, there is no denying it.
The chicken is breaded in a light crispy batter that has a nice crunch and serves as a good sponge for the hot pepper seasoning dusted on it.
This sandwich does spice a bit differently — rather than rely on a spicy sauce or heavy seasoning, the heat is delivered in multiple ways (cherry peppers, jalapeños, hot pepper seasoning) which combine and build into something greater than the sum of its parts.
The Bottom Line:
My favorite spicy chicken sandwich on the market currently. That said, it’s not the best fried chicken sandwich altogether.
A pleasing audible crunch greets you as you bite into this sandwich giving way to a tender juicy piece of chicken that is well seasoned with a mix of garlic and onion powder elevated by a gentle cayenne-based sauce, some smokey notes, an earthy brine-y tang, mild buttery flavors and a subtle hint of sweetness on the backend that makes this sandwich incredibly addictive.
Launched to little fanfare this year, Popeyes Spicy Bacon & Cheese Chicken Sandwich improves the one weakness of Popeyes’ sandwich, its build. The original sandwich just featured the sauce, pickles, and bun, and those accouterments were fine but the real star of the show was the chicken itself. It’s so good that it made up for the sub-par quality of the sandwich build.
Now the build offers a little more thanks to the inclusion of bacon and Havarti cheese, which help to deepen the flavors and add some additional points of interest for your tastebuds to explore.
The Bottom Line:
This is still the best-tasting chicken sandwich in all of fast food and while it feels like a cop-out to still claim that… it really is! Popeyes struck gold here, it’s okay to admit it, and they’ve improved upon the sandwich that changed fast food by adding bacon and Havarti cheese — an always welcome update!
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is back on the air this week after the WGA received a fair agreement following a months-long writers strike. However, since the Screen Actors Guild is still on strike, actors can appear as guests but cannot promote their projects.
Because of this, the late-night shows are also bringing on some fun musical guests to entertain the audience. Here’s who’s been scheduled so far for this week.
John Mayer — Monday, October 2
John Mayer appeared as Jimmy Fallon’s musical guest for the show’s return on Monday. He followed Matthew McConaughey on the night’s lineup, and Fallon had some jokes about it. “And Matthew McConaughey will sing too,” he said. “I haven’t asked him yet, but… Matthew will you?”
Jelly Roll — Tuesday, October 3
Tonight, Jelly Roll is the musical guest. For those not familiar, he is a country musician and rapper on the rise. He took home three CMT Awards earlier this year and just dropped a new album, Whitsitt Chapel, in June.
Carly Pearce — Wednesday, October 4
The Tonight Show will keep the country vibes going on Wednesday with Carly Pearce as the performer. The Grammy Award winner is also a member of the Grand Old Opry as of 2021.
Maluma — Thursday, October 5
While there currently aren’t any actors scheduled to appear on the Thursday episode, according to TV Guide, Maluma will be there to bring the energy. His latest album is this summer’s Don Juan.
Killer Mike feat. Robert Glasper and Eryn Allen Kane — Friday, October 6
Finally, to close out the week, Killer Mike will be joined by special guests including the Grammy-winning jazz musician Robert Glasper and Eryn Allen Kane for a not-to-miss performance.
The stories of Grimes and Elon Musk will forever be connected, even though they’re not together anymore, thanks to the fact that they share three kids. At the moment, though, things appear rocky between the two: It was reported today (October 3) that Grimes is suing Musk. But why?
Page Six reports that per court records they obtained, Grimes filed a “petition to establish parental relationship” on September 29 in a California court. This asks the court to identify the legal parents of a child whose parents are not married.
Grimes hasn’t publicly addressed the lawsuit (and neither has Musk), but yesterday, she did respond to an X (formerly Twitter) user who criticized the name of one of her and Musk’s children, X AE A-XII. She wrote, “This is the most bizarre criticism. He loves his name and mostly ppl think it’s cool. X men etc. x is popular at school lol. Also, I don’t wanna say his friends names cuz they’re civilians but most millenials named their kids weird names – not just me.”
This is the most bizarre criticism. He loves his name and mostly ppl think it’s cool. X men etc. x is popular at school lol. Also, I don’t wanna say his friends names cuz they’re civilians but most millenials named their kids weird names – not just me
X (the human, not the social media platform) is Grimes and Musk’s first child together. Their second is Exa Dark Sideræl and the third is named Techno Mechanicus. Musk, meanwhile, has 11 children overall, with three different mothers.
The 19-show run will kick off on January 26, 2024, in Miami, Florida. Tamino, Sunny War, Julia Jacklin, and Sarah Kinsley will join Mitski on the road as opening support on respective dates. The tour will make a few international stops in Toronto and Mexico City.
View the full tour schedule below. Mitski’s fan and Spotify presale will start tomorrow, Wednesday, October 4, at 10 a.m. local time. General ticket sales will begin on Friday, October 6, at 10 a.m. local time.
Find more information here and check out the tour dates below.
01/26/2024 — Miami, FL @ The Fillmore ^
01/29/2024 — Orlando, FL @ Dr. Phillips Center (Walt Disney Theater) ^
02/02/2024 — Durham, NC @ Durham Performing Arts Center ^
02/06/2024 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Met ^
02/10/2024 — Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall ^
02/11/2024 — Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall ^
02/15/2024 — Boston, MA @ MGM ^
02/16/2024 — Boston, MA @ MGM ^
02/21/2024 — New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre ^
02/22/2024 — New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre ^
02/26/2024 — Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre #
02/27/2024 — Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre #
03/21/2024 — Chicago, IL @ Auditorium Theatre *
03/22/2024 — Chicago, IL @ Auditorium Theatre *
03/28/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Auditorium *
03/29/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Auditorium *
04/04/2024 — Mexico City, MX @ Teatro Metropolitan ^
04/10/2024 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium %
04/11/2024 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium #
^ with Tamino
# with Sunny War
* with Julia Jacklin
% with Sarah Kinsley
It’s been almost three weeks since Imagine Music Festival. Heralded as one of the most immersive and transformational electronic festivals in the scene, attendees were treated to four days of interactive adventure, unique art installations, wellness programming, and vibrant music in Kingston Downs, Georgia.
Rooted in curating world-class electronic music lineups, the 2023 edition of Imagine presented its most powerful offering to date — more than 100 artists spread across four stages. From Subtronics b2b Ganja White Night, Sofi Tukker, Infected Mushroom, Elderbrook, Mersiv, Rezz, John Summit, Dom Dolla, Svdden Death, Big Gigantic, Dillon Francis, and more, fans were reminded of Imagine Music Festival’s spot as a transformative leader throughout the music community. And from the looks of it, everyone had a whole lot of fun.
Let these photos help you remember Imagine Music Festival’s biggest event to date — a party with style, sexiness, swagger, and some of the coolest revelers on earth.
Courtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideo
Revelers head out to the party at Imagine.
Courtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideo
Live art has become a mainstay of the festival scene.
Courtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideo
Pyrotechnics at Imagine’s UFO-conjuring main stage.
Courtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideo
The days were no less fun and stylish — with pool parties and a catwalk.
Courtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // DVPhotoVideoCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don IdioCourtesy of Imagine Music Festival // Don Idio
SZA revealed that she had been in a long-term relationship with her high school sweetheart, but after breaking up, had a few casual romances — including with Drake in 2009. However, she says, “It wasn’t hot and heavy or anything. It was like youth vibes. It was so childish.” She credits this to both being “really young,” with Drake just starting to see his big breakout in the wake of his mixtape So Far Gone and SZA a year out from high school graduation trying to settle on a college (she eventually went with Delaware State, but dropped out in her last semester). And although the two didn’t connect in a more meaningful way, she did say last year that, “We’re cool. And we’ve always been cool… I think highly of him…He’s King Drake.”
Record Store Day has unveiled the titles that they will be releasing for Black Friday 2023, just next month on November 24. Among the pressings, there are a few key titles that fans will be hoping to get their hands on.
Here’s what to know.
Noah Kahan is putting out a vinyl version of his Cape Elizabeth EP for the first time. Originally released in 2020, it will be available on a color marble vinyl as his “thank you to the fans who stuck around, came to shows, watched my livestreams and listened.”
Another RSD First release, Post Malone‘s The Diamond Collection will be available on clear vinyl.
Rilo Kiley will be reissuing their Under The Blacklight album on a translucent “blacklight” vinyl — available for the first time in this form since 2007.
Joni Mitchell’s Court And Spark Demos exclusive vinyl will include the never-before-heard recordings made during the album’s creation process.
Grateful Dead fans can also grab a vinyl copy of their Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA 3/2/1969 show. This will be limited to 7,500 copies and be a 5xLP pressing.
Other artists on this year’s list include releases from Dr. Dre, The Doors, The Jonas Brothers, The Beach Boys, De La Soul, Phoenix, Kim Petras, and more.
For a complete list of Record Store Day Black Friday 2023 titles, visit here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Thanks to his new memoir, Making It So, Patrick Stewart is spilling some tea about his adventures in Hollywood. The iconic stage and screen actor, best known for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, gets candid about his own behavior (“I could be a severe bastard,” he writes.) as well as some of his co-stars over the years.
In one notable excerpt from Making It So, Stewart opened up about his experience with a young actor named Tom Hardy. The two worked together on the film Star Trek: Nemesis where Hardy played Shinzon, a clone of Stewart’s Picard. However, despite the opportunity to emulate one of the most beloved figures in sci-fi, Hardy kept entirely to himself during production.
“He was by no means hostile — it was just challenging to establish any rapport with him,” Stewart wrote via Insider.
According to Stewart, the “odd, solitary” Hardy spent most of his time in his trailer with his girlfriend, which did not make the best impression on the veteran actor who was confident that Hardy’s career would go nowhere. However, Stewart is quite pleased that clearly wasn’t the case.
“On the evening Tom wrapped his role, he characteristically left without ceremony or niceties, simply walking out of the door,” Stewart wrote. “As it closed, I said quietly to Brent [Spiner] and Jonathan [Frakes], ‘And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.’ It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong.”
1. Last Friday, I traveled to Las Vegas to see U2 perform the first show of 25-night residency at a new, state-of-the-art, $2.3 billion entertainment venue called the Sphere. The residency is billed as “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere,” and it includes a complete performance of their classic 1991 album. (Though not in the original sequence.) I then spent four days processing the experience. My goal is to understand what this all means for one of the world’s biggest rock bands, one of the world’s largest spherical buildings, and the future of live music.
2. However, I recognize that not everybody cares about meaning, only yay-or-nay verdicts. For that crowd: I thought the Sphere was pretty cool! The enormous screen was dazzling! The sound was incredible! Achtung Baby is one of my favorite albums ever! I’m glad I went!
3. Here’s what I’m somewhat “nay” on: Is this extremely expensive bowling ball at all practical for non-Irish stadium acts who don’t have 18 months to prepare a two-hour spectacle? Plenty of artists could play at this venue. But who should? Harry Styles is rumored to be interested. I assume Chris Martin is already trying to get Coldplay in there. Any top pop star you could name — Taylor, Beyoncé, The Weeknd — would work. The jamband accounts I follow on what used to be known as Twitter are hyping Phish for the Sphere, but I wonder if that would be a good fit? (I don’t know that you can “improvise” video effects that humongous.) It takes certain delusions of grandeur to function in this space. You need ideas big enough to fill that huge canvas. Not even U2 is able to pull that one off completely.
4. At the same time I’m having trouble imagining a band that isn’t U2 in that space. The Sphere is overpowering and ridiculous, technologically advanced and rooted in an old-time “more is more” show-business sensibility, and supported by some of the industry’s most powerful players even though it’s possibly unsustainable. Put another way: The Sphere is U2.
5. Important formatting note: I understand that the “correct” way to refer to the Sphere is simply “Sphere.” But I am going to continue with “the Sphere,” because 1) it just feels better and 2) it seems way less Orwellian. Or should I say Bradbury-ian? James Dolan, the comically terrible owner of the New York Knicks and a part-time blues guitarist who dreamt up the idea of the Sphere, told Variety last week that he was inspired by the 1950 Ray Bradbury short story “The Veldt,” about a futuristic nursery outfitted with video screens that virtually transports children to exotic locales. “I don’t think that we quite achieved Bradbury’s vision with it,” Dolan confessed, “and I don’t really want to completely achieve his vision, because in the end of his story, the parents get eaten by the lions.” A billionaire reads a cautionary tale about hubristic humans who are destroyed by technology, and he decides to ignore the warning by doubling down on his own hubris. What could possibly go wrong?
6. To be clear: I did not witness anyone in the audience being eaten by lions. At least not literally. We will have to see about the figurative part in the weeks and months ahead.
7. At the end of opening night, Bono thanked Dolan from the stage, along with (among others) U2’s manager Irving Azoff — a man once referred to as “Satan” by Don Henley — and Live Nation’s oily CEO Michael Rapino. This is the cursed blunt rotation one must puff with in order to play a venue like the Sphere.
8. U2 played the same setlist the first two nights. The first eight songs were taken from Achtung Baby. Then there was a four-song acoustic set culled entirely from 1988’s Rattle & Hum. After that, they played the remaining four songs from Achtung Baby, followed by a six-song encore. The most effective use of the Sphere in the main set occurs during “Until The End Of The World,” in which an enormous gas flare burning in the form of a flag towers over the band, an apocalyptic image that evokes both the Book Of Revelation and U2’s own 1983 live album Under A Blood Red Sky. (It is based on a piece by the Irish artist John Gerrard taken from images captured in the South Pacific Ocean by the artist and activist Uili Lousi.) The flare is hyperreal — it looks like something you could feel while also resembling a dream. As U2 brought the song home, the burning flag cut an awe-inspiring and chilling figure, a nightmare brought to vivid life that made the horror tucked inside one of U2’s most reliable warhorses palpable again.
9. The screen is big. Really big. I’m talking “goddamn big” big here. I sat in the 100-level section above the standing-room-only G.A. section, and I was probably too close. The 200 or 300 levels might be preferable. You could also sit at the blackjack tables inside the Venetian Resort and still have a good view.
10. The weirdest use of the Sphere is during “Even Better Than The Real Thing,” which is set to a garish collage of images that depict various eras of Elvis Presley, with particular focus given to his Vegas years. At one point the images stream downward behind the stage, fooling the eye into thinking the stage is rising. It was the single most disorienting part of the set, and pretty unpleasant. It was meant to be excessive, and it was excessive but to an overly excessive, “This is too excessive!” degree.
11. Bono referenced Elvis throughout the opening night. He made the inevitable dad joke about how Elvis “has definitely not left this building” before christening the Sphere “an Elvis chapel” and “an Elvis cathedral.” Later, he sang “Love Me Tender” while images of JFK and a rocket launch flashed oddly on-screen. It all pointed to the familiar tension of 60something-year-old rock stars finally giving in to the temptation of a high-end Vegas residency. Nodding to Elvis tacitly acknowledges the (mostly) bygone stigma of Sin City being a bastion for show-biz has-beens, which more than anyone else Elvis signifies. But Elvis was only 34 when he made his late-’60s Vegas turn, nearly 30 years younger than Bono is now. He was in the midst of a creative and commercial resurgence. He was as handsome as he ever was in his life. His initial performances are rightly considered legendary. U2 meanwhile is in a less certain and more battered place. On opening night, they were almost apologetic about not playing with founding drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who is convalescing from a recent surgery. In interviews, Bono and The Edge have pledged that Larry will definitely be back while intimating that his recovery will be long and challenging. (His replacement is Bram van den Berg, a capable 41-year-old Dutchman who looks like Dax Shepard.) Creatively speaking, this is the second consecutive U2 live show centered on an old album, following the massive stadium tour celebrating The Joshua Tree in the late 2010s. In the encore, they debuted their new single “Atomic City,” which borrows liberally from Blondie’s “Call Me” and reads like an attempt to re-write two of the biggest (and worst) U2 hits of the last 25 years, “Elevation” and “Vertigo,” which naturally sandwiched “Atomic City” in the encore.
12. After those songs came the most publicized use of the Sphere so far, via the countless camera-phone videos that have circulated online: “Where The Streets Have No Name,” in which a desert vista is seamlessly replicated across the 160,000-square-foot LED screen. It is a spectacular presentation. What’s most impressive is how all those pixels create the illusion of natural light, even inside a dark orb at 10:30 on a Friday night. It is an inherently bogus trick that for about five minutes feels wholly authentic, the one undeniable “I have never witnessed anything like this in my whole life” moment of the concert. I can’t really compare it to any other large-scale concert I have ever seen. I can only liken it to “The Veldt,” only without those parents-eating lions.
13. If you hate it when people shoot videos with their phones at a concert, do not go to the Sphere. I doubt that any venue on Earth will more strongly compel the audience to capture images on their phones. I suspect that Kylie Jenner could hand each audience member a basket of adorable kittens and they would still keep their phones fixed on that screen.
14. I also shot videos on my phone. I justified this by telling myself that keeping some video records would help with the writing of this column. But in truth, I shot videos on my phone out of Pavlovian impulse. “The screen made me do it” sounds like the set-up of a David Cronenberg thriller, but I’m afraid I have to cop to being James Woods.
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15. “I could barely take any videos which actually rules because I just FULLY was in it,” a friend texted me the next day. She also mentioned that she was on mushrooms during the concert. So keep that in mind if you end up seeing U2 at the Sphere. Personally, I would not take psychedelics in this environment. I’m more of a “cabin in the woods” drugs person. The “Even Better Than The Real Thing” sequence already feels like a hallucination on its own.
16. What all those viral videos of the Sphere haven’t conveyed is how, for about half of the concert, U2 used that big screen like it was a normal screen set up at a normal arena or stadium. This concert is not non-stop mindfuckery — much of the time you’re just staring at a giant Bono and a giant Edge and a giant Adam and (less often) a giant Bram. This was likely a good thing in terms of maintaining the audience’s mental health, though it does speak to a larger question: What exactly do you do with this thing?
17. Surveying my photos and videos, I can see that I framed them all the same way, and it’s how most people framed their photos and videos — heavy emphasis on the big screen, with the band positioned at the bottom to accentuate their relative smallness. This is meant to represent the scale of the Sphere, but it also depicts the simplicity of the stage itself. This was also lost in the deluge of phone videos: U2 appears to play on a platform no more elaborate than the typical set-up at a college campus open-mic night. It’s a circle designed to look like a turntable. (It’s apparently borrowed from Brian Eno. I wonder if he keeps it in his basement.)
18. Because the Sphere is designed like a theater, with the seats arranged into four levels plus the G.A. section facing the stage — rather than the wrap-around seating you get in an arena — U2 felt smaller and more vulnerable than usual, four fragile musicians surrounded by that honkin’ screen on one side and stacks of humans on the other.
19. The most obvious critical observation one could make about the camera-phone phenomenon is that it squares the circle on what U2 started with the Zoo TV tour 30 years ago. The point back then for U2 was using technology to comment on (and condemn) the use of technology as a means of cutting humanity off from their most essential selves. The big screens fed the audience a steady stream of stimuli while always pointing out that gorging on visual stimuli will rot your brain. This observation is obvious because it is true: Inviting 18,000 people inside of a giant metallic eyeball where they can stare at a Statue Of Liberty-sized video screen via the additional screens of their phones renders the satirical elements of Zoo TV officially moot. But it is not a deliberate “point” of “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere.” There is nothing post-modern or ironic about this show. It has no discernible ideology, just spectacle.
20. The most interesting quote in that Variety story comes from Willie Williams, U2’s long-time creative director, who was unusually blunt about the challenges of working in the Sphere. “With all the big stuff I’ve done for U2 and anyone else, we don’t start with the equipment, we start with the idea,” he said, “and then figure out what we need to realize that idea.” The Sphere meanwhile begins and ends with the equipment. The idea part seems a little lost.
21. Zoo TV is a nostalgic reference point for this residency, not a philosophical one. But I am not above nostalgia as it pertains to this era of U2. Before the concert, I stopped by ZooStation: A U2:UV Experience, a 12,000-square-foot installation at the adjoining hotel. Part U2 museum and part theme-park attraction, Zoo Station is where you can sit inside of a Trabant car, stare at Anton Corbijn photos, and nurse designer cocktails from the upstairs Ultra Violet Lounge. It was like stepping inside the liner notes of Achtung Baby, only without a naked Adam Clayton or (again) any trace of sardonic humor.
22. In the actual show, the most potent shot of Zoo TV revivalism comes right away with the first two songs, “Zoo Station” and “The Fly.” Bono theatrically puts on his Zoo TV shades at the start of the former number, and those familiar text phrases assembled by Mark Pellington flash behind the band during the latter song. Was I thrilled to see possibly the greatest arena-rock show ever assembled (which I never got to see in person) briefly recreated? Absolutely. It was my favorite museum piece of the night.
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23. What Zoo TV obscured back in the early ’90s is made clear by this Vegas residency: Achtung Baby is a strange album to put into arenas and stadiums. It is not a larger-than-life, crowd-pleasing work naturally aligned with bombast and grand gestures; it is intense, introspective, and loaded with adult songs about marriage and divorce and the mysteries of the human heart. Zoo TV papered over that by leaving out certain songs. But because these Vegas shows pledge to feature the entire record, you can no longer hide tracks like “So Cruel,” “Ultraviolet (Light My Way), “Acrobat,” and “Love Is Blindness,” which formed a suite that closed the proper set. For me, those songs hit the hardest emotionally, though they weren’t quite suited for this specific environment. (“Elevation” got a much bigger response.)
24. The most surprising part of the residency’s opening weekend was the mini set of Rattle & Hum songs in the middle of both shows. I personally love Rattle & Hum, but the checkered reputation of the accompanying documentary has given the album an unfair reputation as the record where U2 unconvincingly attempts to present themselves as a grizzled American blues band. At my show, Bono intimated that the band might play a variety of tunes in their acoustic sets, but so far it’s been all Rattle & Hum. Two of the songs — “Desire” and “Angel Of Harlem” — are big hits that U2 plays most nights. One of the other songs, “All I Want Is You,” is rare, and the last number, “Love Rescue Me,” is super rare. (Before this residency, it had been played only four times since 1990.) To compound the shock of busting out this deep cut, Bono dedicated “Love Rescue Me” to the late Jimmy Buffett, which prompted me to later Google “Bono Jimmy Buffett” and learn that Bono and Buffett were once aboard a plane that was shot down by Jamaican police on suspicion of drug smuggling, an incident recounted in Buffett’s “Jamaica Mistaica.”
25. Sadly, U2 did not play “Jamaica Mistaica.”
26. In the history of U2, Rattle & Hum is notable for being the album that drove them toward the Eurotrash pranksterism of Achtung Baby. After music critics accused U2 of being overly serious poseurs playacting at being American roots musicians, they moved quickly to remake themselves as the polar opposite of that caricature. This has been recounted numerous times in U2 lore, and Bono does it again in the residency tour program. (“The album could have been called ‘The Importance Of Not Being Earnest,’” he writes, repeating a line I’m sure I’ve heard him say in documentaries and his memoir.) U2’s relationship with spectacle grew even more extreme with their next tour, PopMart, which also debuted in Las Vegas back in 1997. That tour was much bolder in its embrace of crassness-for-crassness’-sake, a mirror for an exceedingly crass period in pop culture. But, like Rattle & Hum, it confounded critics and prompted U2 to do another 180 back to “earnest simplicity” for The Elevation Tour. Since then they have been slowly working their way back to a different kind of dogma-free spectacle embodied by the Sphere.
27. “That’s what we started out wanting from the very beginning of the band is just to smash the fourth wall, get to our audience,” Bono recently told CBS News This Morning. In the ’90s, U2 did this by using artifice to smash through artifice, pointing out the invisible wall of omnipresent media immersion surrounding us all in order to make it visible and therefore capable of being transcended on the journey toward something deeper and truer. This is not what the Sphere is about. The meaning of “get to our audience” has changed. Now it’s about cutting through the noise for the sake of getting noticed at all. Why does a band play a venue as ostentatious as the Sphere if they don’t want social media flooded with video clips of deserts rising and flares flaring?
28. U2 is nothing if not a band that believes resolutely in the power of its own gigantism to bring people together. This belief has not abated in the many years since their prime on the pop charts. It explains why U2 is known to people under the age of 30 as the band that gave away a new album for free by inserting it, without public consent, into tens of millions of iPhones. What they were trying to do was engineer an instant monocultural moment. What they found instead is that the average person now is more invested in the sanctity of technology than the sanctity of music. (At least the sanctity of U2’s music.) This is the lesson carried forward to the Sphere — U2 has stopped trying to be bigger than our machines. They let the lions eat them.
Uproxx was provided lodging for this story by Vibee. They did not review or approve this story. You can learn more about the Uproxx Press Trip policy here.
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