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A bevy of charitable efforts have popped up all around the world since the coronavirus pandemic became a global issue. The music community has spearheaded its fair share of them, and now a group of Canadian artists are doing their part as well: Justin Bieber, Rush’s Geddy Lee, Avril Lavigne, and a number of other have teamed up to cover the late Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me” for charity.

Stronger Together, Tous Ensemble, a TV special aired to honor healthcare workers dealing with the pandemic, went down across Canada over the weekend, and the show was highlighted by the star-studded rendition of “Lean On Me.” Aside from the aforementioned, other participating artists include Bad Child, Bryan Adams, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Command Sisters, Dan Kanter, Desiire, Donovan Woods, Fefe Dobson, Jann Arden, Johnny Orlando, Josh Ramsay, Jules Halpern, Marie-Mai, Michael Bublé, Olivia Lunny, Ryland James, Sarah McLachlan, Scott Helman, Serena Ryder, Shawn Hook, TIKA, The Tenors, Tyler Shaw, and Walk Off The Earth.

The recording is streaming now, and all proceeds from it will go to benefit The Canadian Red Cross.

The cover also served as a tribute to the recently deceased Withers, as a note shown before the performance read, “To the late, great Bill Withers. Thank you for your lyrics and inspiring message. We are grateful to lean on your music during our time of need. Your musical legacy lives on through us.”

Watch the “Lean On Me” cover above or listen below.

With concerts, festivals, and tours being postponed or canceled through the end of summer — and possibly even the end of the year — music fans who bought tickets earlier this year have had to deal with the added stress of holding tickets to shows that may not happen and hoping for a refund.

Today, Live Nation announced and detailed its “Ticket Relief” plans to accommodate those fans — if only a little. While canceled shows will automatically be refunded, rescheduled shows will be valid for refund after the new dates are announced, inside of a 30 day window. Those fans who don’t want to wait for the new dates to request a refund will still have to wait for 60 days from the postponement date.

Finally, if a show for a Live Nation venue was canceled fans can opt into a 150% credit toward another show. Further, Live Nation has committed to donating a ticket to healthcare workers for every ticket that was originally purchased. For more details, see below, or visit Live Nation’s Ticket Relief website here.

For Cancelled Shows:

Ticket holders will automatically receive a refund for cancelled events. Alternatively, if your show is at a Live Nation venue (list below) you will have 30 days to opt in to receiving your refund as a 150% credit to use towards buying future tickets. See more information below.

For Rescheduled Shows:

Tickets will automatically be valid for the new date, unless you opt for a refund within 30 days of the new show date being announced. Notification emails to ticket holders will begin May 1. If you have tickets to a show that is postponed, you will be able to select your refund option once the new date is announced. If 60 days has passed since a show was postponed and no rescheduled dates have been announced, the 30-day window for refunds will open at that time.

Hero Nation Program:

If you have tickets to a show at a Live Nation venue that gets cancelled, you can choose to receive a credit for 150% of your purchase (including fees). So if you spent $200 on tickets, you will receive $300 in credit! When you choose this option, Live Nation will also donate tickets to healthcare workers to share the gift of live with those working on the front line through our Hero Nation program. We will donate 1 ticket for every ticket you originally purchased. All ticket holders will receive emails with their options beginning May 1. This offer is not valid for special events, third party rentals or festivals.

Whenever I think of The Rise of Skywalker, I think of Babu Frik, obviously, but also the way Lisa describes Comic Book Guy in an episode of The Simpsons from a few years ago: “His favorite thing is Star Wars, and he hates Star Wars.” That’s an accurate summation of The Rise of Skywalker, which some fans loved, but many people considered the worst movie of the sequel trilogy. It’s still Star Wars, though, and they (me) will watch the film the first day it’s available on Disney+. Which is pretty soon!

Disney announced on Monday that Episode IX is hitting Disney+ two months earlier than expected, on May 4, a.k.a. Star Wars Day. “For the first time ever, fans will be able to stream the complete Skywalker saga all in one place,” a press release notes, which is only a half-truth. Yes, every episodic movie, Rogue One, and Solo will be there, but what about Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure? And Ewoks: The Battle for Endor? And don’t even get me started on no Star Wars Holiday Special…

Other Star Wars Day content on Disney’s streaming service includes the premiere of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian documentary series, The Clone Wars series finale, and a “week-long concept art takeover,” where “like a commemorative gallery, each film and series’ artwork will be updated on May 4th to feature its original concept paintings.” Neat!

Here’s hoping that includes some Ralph McQuarrie-style Baby Yoda artwork.

Almost a month after John Krasinski and Steve Carell came together to spread some Good News during the quarantine, Krasinski’s still holding weekly episodes to spread some cheer. This has included a virtual prom with Billie Eilish and the Jonas Brothers, along with weatherman Brad Pitt, but this week, Krasinski’s all about the food (and drink) with the Potluck Edition of “Some Good News.”

More specifically, Krasinski wished to honor restaurants, which are not only being hit terribly hard by this pandemic, but they’re also “some of the places where you can find the biggest heroes.” Yep, restaurants are donating meals to other heroes who work at hospitals, but they’re also in need of some help themselves. Enter Guy Fieri (who’s established a fund to help furloughed restaurant workers) throughout Krasinski’s latest epsiode, along with a smattering of other guests dropping in with tips and visuals. Perhaps the most timely visual of all comes from Stanley Tucci, who dropped in after the 12:00 minute mark to sip one of his newly famed Negronis, which is essentially a Quarantini these days.

If you were on the Internet at any point last week, there’s a good chance that you had the pleasure of watching Tucci go viral after posting a cocktail-mixing video that caused (and cured) a lot of thirst out there. Within days, James Corden hosted Tucci for the same purpose (to make a Tuccitini, sorry, not sorry), and Tucci told Corden that he fires up his mixing skills every evening at 5:00 p.m. For Krasinski’s webcast, the Quarantini’s helping to highlight a good cause.

Watch Krasinski’s Potluck Edition of SGN, above, for glimpses of Martha Stewart and David Chang, who drop food-based wisdom. It was delightful and, yes, much needed Good News. And in case you missed Tucci with Corden, here’s that video as well.

The music community has been forced to quickly adapt to this new world we live in due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lifestyle changes it has necessitated. Livestream concerts have become a primary form of musical entertainment, for example. Chance The Rapper is also mixing up how he’s releasing music: Over the past week or so, he has shared a number of new songs exclusively on his Instagram account. This weekend, he dropped another new one, and it features Lil Wayne and Young Thug.

Like the tracks that preceded it, this new one doesn’t have an official title beyond “Instagram song 8,” as Chance captioned the post. On the upbeat track, Chance delivers a boastful verse in which he gets boastful about his walk-in closet and about women. Meanwhile, Lil Wayne offers lines like, “My main b*tch say she feelin’ secondary / Love, you worry ’bout yourself and not the other b*tch I’m tellin’.” Thugger takes control on the third verse and also shares some lyrical gems, including, “Put my thumb in her butt, so I guess she got ice on her sh*t.”

Listen to the new song above, and keep an eye on Chance’s Instagram in case more fresh material follows soon.

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of Avengers: Infinity War, and one year of Endgame, the films’ writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely took place in a “Quarantine Watch Party” (organized by ComicBook.com) where they shared behind-the-scenes information. There was Doctor Strange in the Iron Man suit, a very different role for Captain America, and the key to blockbuster filmmaking. Markus and McFeely, who penned the scripts for The First Avenger, The Winter Soldier, and Civil War, also revealed the character that made them want to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Infinity War and Endgame.

In response to a Marvel fan calling Red Skull’s return “BRILLIANT, especially for a continuity sucker like me,” Markus wrote, “Bringing him back was the whole reason I agreed to do this movie. Well, that and all the other reasons. But to get a chance to bring back the bad guy from our first Marvel movie and use him in the wrap-up was too satisfying not to do.” He added that the return of Red Skull, who hadn’t been seen since The First Avenger (he was also played by a new actor, Ross Marquand, who replaced Hugo Weaving), was always in the script. “He got blasted to the end of the universe by the Tesseract in 1943,” Markus tweeted. “He’s been waiting for you ever since…”

If I’m blasted to the end of the universe, this is not the face I want to see waiting for me.

BBC America’s ‘Killing Eve’ first framed itself as procedural: a show about assassins and the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service that attempts to take them down. More than that, though, the show tangoed through an elaborate cat-and-mouse game between Jodie Comer’s assassin and Sandra Oh’s MI6 agent. This season, that game evolves for the better, and our weekly coverage will keep an eye on how this show’s transforming, and it (along with those kills) is only growing bolder with the passage of time.

This week’s Killing Eve episode, “Meetings Have Biscuits,” follows up on killer clowns and finds its title in a cocky declaration from Carolyn about how nobody one should expect cookies if a meeting’s not productive. It’s a strange episode for Carolyn, who goes on a roundabout date and ends up uncovering a financial-based lead about The Twelve in the process. All of that intrigue is geared toward finding out who killed Kenny, but naturally, there’s a ton going on with Villanelle, who prepares to return to London (and inevitably, Eve) by wanting to smell like power beyond measure.

In the process of this quest, Villanelle unsettles a perfumer, but what, exactly, is the smell of power? Villanelle mentions wanting to evoke a Roman centurion meeting an old foe from a former battle, so maybe she wanted to smell like rusting metal and sweat? The perfumer suggests something “woody” instead, which is probably a better call. Eve must have sort-of been reeled in by the smell, but not for long because it’s headbutt city. As for Villanelle, she looked exhilarated by the encounter after departing the bus.

That meeting’s about what we’d expect from these two after they’ve both tried to kill each other. At this point, Eve has stabbed Villanelle, and Villanelle has shot Eve, and both are pretty awful at killing people that they love. Yet what is more intriguing is that Villanelle planned to send the message to Eve (with that scent) that she’s now an all-powerful emperor. As for Konstantin, he isn’t too hyped by Villanelle’s new smell.

Granted, he wasn’t going to be impressed by much after Villanelle scared the bejesus out of him by hiding in his bed. This might be the most villainous thing that she’s ever done to the poor guy, including shooting him.

Jesus, I know Konstantin’s done some terrible things, and he’s probably double-agenting (and feeling a lot of pressure from The Twelve), but he didn’t deserve this. Their exchange is revealing, though, with him neither being impressed by Villanelle’s power-smell nor her musings about possibly being a cute baby. We get a taste of more to come with Konstantin hinting that he’s aware of Villanelle’s origins because, after all, he saw a photo of her “bulbous, unnatural” baby head. He attempted to make her angry and throw her off the scent by claiming that she’d only let a family down, but this can’t be the end of that discussion. There’s some paternalism there, but Konstantin’s obviously looking out most for Number One, and he’s probably worried about Villanelle’s impulsiveness. Oh, and he’s thinking about his biological daughter in a not-so-nice light as well.

This is definitely not the smell of power: “A little sh*t taking a sh*t on a big sh*t and three sh*ts combined into one enormous sh*t.”

Also not the smell of power: vodka or babies. Dasha — who puts a baby in a damn trashcan because she’s so fed up with Villanelle’s sloppiness putting both of them at risk — is about to lose her mind over her charge’s antics. “All you need is anorak and face like cheese” is probably my favorite quote ever about London, though.

During the course of this episode, Villanelle made three kills, including the below kiss-off. Bye bye, wealthy Spanish wife who tried to tell Villanelle how to treat a piano. She’s definitely better with a dart than Jax Teller was while smashing that skull in during the last Sons Of Anarchy season. No smells here, other than a whiff of disgust.

In addition to scents, this episode also has a thing about bears. Lots of little hints of this went down, including Haribo bears in an office background and Villanelle’s PJs. Other references were pretty blatant, especially when Villanelle sent another message to Eve by leaving a talking bear in her apartment.

The way that Eve held the bear’s “heart” up to her ear? Yup, she’s still in this.

But also, Eve uses a Rubik’s Cube (which spells out “Panda” after some decoding wizardry) proves to Kenny’s Bitter Pill colleagues that he was digging into The Twelve.

So, a Chinese intelligence dude named Fat Panda was tracking a double-agent (watch out, Konstantin) for The Twelve, and that leads to a convoluted discussion about a bank account in a Cayman Islands, which in turn leads to a Geneva account. All of that puts Eve and Carolyn on the trail of Charles Kruger, who’s The Twelve’s accountant with ties (of course) to Konstantin. Well, Villanelle lodges another kill after tracking down Kruger, and Carolyn gets grazed with the bullet.

Some loose ends involving Carolyn:

– She’s understandably a mess, although baths with her MI6 colleague, Mo, in the room probably crosses a line. Hopefully, Carolyn at least learned from her recklessness after her close call with Villanelle during the Charles Kruger stakeout operation. And they’ve still gotta do more work on who’s siphoning from that Geneva account. Also, Carolyn can’t even handle a few beers without enduring a migraine, so maybe she’ll go on the straight-and-narrow path soon.

– What can we gather from Geraldine’s renewed presence in Carolyn’s life? Actress Gemma Whelan recently told our own Jessica Toomer that, of Geraldine, “definitely a latent part of Carolyn in there somewhere.” She also hinted that her character would “harden” in later episodes, so I’m hoping that she really gets her hands dirty soon. Someone needs to straighten up Carolyn a little bit, and Geraldine might be the one to do the job. For Kenny’s sake! Everyone please keep thinking about Kenny.

BBC America’s ‘Killing Eve’ airs on Sundays at 9:00 PM EST with simulcasting on AMC.

It’s unclear when real-life concerts and music festivals are coming back as the coronavirus pandemic rolls on, but artists have provided alternative forms of entertainment for their fans. This has mostly taken the form of livestreams, whether they’re performing music or doing other things like guiding meditations. Virtual festivals have even popped up, but it turns out even those aren’t immune to pandemic-prompted postponements.

Block By Blockwest, a virtual festival set to take place in Minecraft this past weekend (on Saturday, April 25), was pushed back because the servers crashed an hour into the event, due to greater-than-expected viewership. The featival — boasting a lineup including Massive Attack, Idles, Pussy Riot, Cherry Glazerr, and more — has been pushed back to May 16.

One of the event’s organizers, DJ Sutera, wrote:

“Hi everyone,

We are sorry to do this but due to the massive demand, our servers were unable to accommodate the influx of attendees at this time.

We don’t want to compromise the experience of your performance or the attendee’s experience anywhere in the festival grounds. Because of this, BXBW will be postponed until May 16th in order to provide the experience that we promised.

Sorry for the inconvenience and we thank you all so much for your continued support.

As you can imagine, this adjustment will take some time. We will contact everyone early next week about the next steps.”

The festival was put on for coronavirus relief, and they had a donations goal of $5,000. The good news is that even though the first try at the event was only live for an hour, that goal was quickly met.

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