Maybe the best American rock group of the Double Zeroes, Spoon makes what is, for me, a long-awaited South Florida appearance, April 16 at Revolution in Fort Lauderdale.

I can't recommend this band enough. Spoon's latest three - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007), Gimme Fiction (2005) and Kill the Moonlight (2002) - make up the finest trio of albums I've heard from one band since Wilco put out Being There, Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 1996-2002.

Spoon does not bare its heart like Wilco; Spoon's music is icier, and the sentiments are played closer to the vest. Singer-frontman Britt Daniel's voice almost sounds dessicated, as if he's rid it of excess emotion and trained it entirely to the task of acute observation. Just about every word Daniel sings sounds telling. (And he's fashionably hoarse.)

Being smart does not make Spoon joyless. Yes, a listener could take purely cerebral pleasure in the precision of the songs and their insinuating hooks. But Spoon also offers a kind of survival guide to contemporary life; their approach to not getting rolled by the chaos is to be cool and circumspect - and not in a cheesy "I wear my sunglasses at night" kind of way. Spoon has its eyes wide open.

The band's publicist says The Walkmen and White Rabbits will be the opening acts. I'll post more details on showtime and ticket prices as I get them.

Here's Spoon playing Don't You Evah, from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, last year at a record release party in their hometown.

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The Police, with opener Elvis Costello & the Impostors, will perform on May 17 at Cruzan Amphitheatre (formerly Sound Advice), promoter LiveNation announced today. Tickets are $50 - $225.00 and go on sale 10 a.m. Feb. 23.

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Radiohead at Bonnaroo festival 2006 / AP

A ticket pre-sale happens Thursday at the Radiohead-run Web site W.A.S.T.E. with general Ticketmaster on-sales beginning Saturday. Tickets are $32.50 (lawn) and $55.00 (reserved).

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LiveNation today announced that hip-hop/soul singer Mary J. Blige and rapper Jay-Z will launch their co-headlining Heart of the City Tour with a March 22 performance at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami. Tickets for the double-bill are $49.75 - $125.75 and go on sale 10 a.m. February 16 through Ticketmaster (954-523-3309, 561-966-3309, 305-358-5885, ticketmaster.com).

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I'm a bit late on this ... OK, very late since single-day tickets to the Langerado festival went on sale in early December. But last week I was still getting questions about who's playing which day at the big to-do in the Everglades. If you go to the official site, click on "Tickets" and then on "Single Day Passes," you'll find this lineup:

Friday March 7th: Beastie Boys - 311 - The Roots - G. Love & Special Sauce - Umphrey's McGee - Built to Spill - Mickey Hart Band - The Wailers - Ozomatli - !!! - Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars - Indigenous - Sam Bush - The Walkmen - Vampire Weekend - Brett Dennen - The Spam Allstars - matt pond PA - Bassnectar - Earl Greyhound - the Dynamites - The Heavy Pets - Backyard Tire Fire - American Bang - School of Rock All-Stars.

Saturday March 8th: R.E.M. - Matisyahu - Thievery Corporation - Ben Folds - Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood - The Disco Biscuits - Robert Randolph & the Family Band - Citizen Cope - Antibalas - Ghostland Observatory - Arrested Development - Benevento Russo Duo - State Radio - Dr. Dog - the New Mastersounds - the Bad Plus - the Avett Brothers - Railroad Earth - Yard Dogs Road Show - Blitzen Trapper - Pelican - Dan Deacon - American Babies - RAQ - Pnuma Trio - the Wood Brothers - Trevor Hall.

Sunday March 9th: Phil Lesh & Friends - Ani DiFranco - Gov't Mule - Keller Williams - funky Meters - The National - of Montreal - Minus the Bear - Martin Sexton - Grace Potter & the Nocturnals - Blind Melon - Ryan Shaw - Felice Brothers - Shout Out Louds - Josh Ritter - the Lee Boys - Will Hoge - Steel Train - Pete Francis - Balkan Beat Box - Jonah Smith.

p.s. for Thursday March 6, sort of a warmup stretch, no single-day tickets are available. To see these acts, you have to buy full-festival entry: Les Claypool - Dark Star Orchestra - Perpetual Groove - the New Deal - Busdriver - Phix - Golem - That 1 Guy - Awesome New Republic - the Postmarks.

Starting from the home page, click on "Festival Guide," and then "Re-Entry," and there's some useful information for single-day attendees as well as anybody who plans to come and go more than once:

When you arrive at Big Cypress, your valid ticket will be scanned for a festival wristband which must be worn at all times. You will be allowed to leave the festival grounds and re-enter as many times as you need to over the weekend, but please be aware that each time you leave, you will be subject to a thorough search at the tollbooths upon your return. Once inside the campgrounds, incoming traffic will prohibit your leaving until Friday evening, unless you are in day parking. Please make every attempt to alleviate any traffic by preparing yourself for four days of camping.

A day parking lot will be available for those choosing not to camp. Please follow the parking staff's directions when arriving on-site.

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The tour shall go on. AP

Miley Cyrus, the 15-year-old star of the Disney Channel show and daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, announced Wednesday she’ll extend her hugely popular concert tour with 14 more performances in January.

A Disney rep told AP that tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday for all 14 new Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus shows, including Jan. 31 at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami. But note that Ticketmaster is listing 10 a.m. Friday as the start time for their "presale." And just so you know, HM/MC also plays Jacksonville and two concerts in Orlando.

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Tickets for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 18, 2008 at BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, go on sale 10 a.m. Saturday (Dec. 1) through the usual outlets.

Tickets are $67.75 and $97.75 (plus the usual fees) if you get them before they hit the much-discussed secondary market. I'm reminded of a recent story in The Washington Post, which began:

After attending Bruce Springsteen concerts for more than 20 years, Ron Collins is facing the music: He can no longer afford to see the Boss.

Fat man sitting on a little stool
Takes the money from my hand while his eyes take a walk all over you
Hands me the ticket, smiles and whispers good luck

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I've got a story in today's print and online editions about Hannah Montana mania in South Florida.

If you read it, you may find yourself asking, how do brokers get their concert tickets before you do? Thank Hannah Montana for making the question so much fun to ask.

Hannah, to recap, is the eponymous hero of a Disney channel TV show that has five million viewers each week. When tickets went on sale in September for a string of Hannah Montana concerts, they seemed to vanish. The 54-date tour sold out, including Tuesday’s show at BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, and at some tour stops every seat in the building was gone literally within minutes.

Parents and kids were bewildered and upset. Where did the tickets go? One answer came in the form of a media storyline that emerged in October, not long before the tour hit the road. The headline on an article posted last month to CNN’s Web site may have phrased it best: “Brokers snatch joy from Hannah Montana fans.”

The article explained, “Ticket brokers swooped up thousands of tickets within minutes of them becoming available online and shut out legitimate Hannah followers. Desperate fans found they would have to pay brokers $350 to $2,000 for the $63 concert tickets.”

Price-gouging brokers. Disappointed kids. What a great story.

I’m not saying it’s just a story. Brokers, those “evil scalper monkeys,” as my colleague Sherri Winston dubbed them, clearly did get their prehensile paws on tickets. Probably thousands of tickets, all told, using various methods, some old-fashioned, some ingenious, some diabolical but possibly quite legal (pending the outcome of certain court proceedings). And in their earnest desire to resell those tickets to you, their suggested markups have been dramatic, to say the least.

At the Web site for a brokerage called Front Row King, the “King,” thangyaverymuch, was asking $2,999 for a front row seat and $13,500 for a 20-person luxury suite on Tuesday at BankAtlantic.

The tickets retailed for about $25-$60.

It’s tough, of course, to put a price tag on love. As any broker might ask, what’s it worth to you to keep your child happy? But I’m not here to discuss Hannah Montana tickets as a measure of parental caring. (I don’t have kids.) Rather, I want to tell you what I know about how brokers have come by blocks of tickets while you’re still trying to get a Ticketmaster operator on the phone. And in another blog post or two over the next few days, I’ll look at a question that’s more complicated than CNN and other news outlets might have led you to believe: How much responsibility do brokers, and other parties, bear for a scarcity of Hannah Montana tickets priced at face value?

I’m hoping to give people some idea of the odds they face when they’re trying to get into a concert, any concert, that can be legitimately described as a “hot ticket.” Don’t ask to define the term; you know a hot ticket when you covet one.

So if this interests you, read on.

How do brokers get tickets? Let us count the ways.

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Tickets for the Feb. 12 Van Halen concert at BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise will not - repeat, not - go on sale this weekend as tour promoter LiveNation originally said. Instead, tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster at 10 a.m. Dec. 8 (a Saturday), according to a revised on-sale schedule announced today.

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Indie rock's first arena band, R.E.M., headlines the sixth annual Langerado festival, March 6-9 at Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation (Mile marker 49, Alligator Alley). It's the first R.E.M. show in South Florida since the Athens, Ga., group, played Miami Arena on Sept. 8, 1995 with Radiohead opening.

Tickets go on sale noon Friday at 1-800-594-8499 and online at www.langerado.com. Four-day general admission passes, with camping included, start at $169.50.

Also playing Langerado's expanded four-day lineup: Beastie Boys, Phil Lesh & Friends, 311, Matisyahu, Ani DiFranco, Ben Folds, The Roots, Thievery Corporation, Les Claypool, G. Love & Special Sauce, Gov't Mule, Built to Spill, Disco Biscuits, Umphrey's McGee, Ghostland Observatory, The National, !!!, Minus the Bear, State Radio, Citizen Cope, Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood, The Wailers, Of Montreal, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, and more TBA.

The move to Big Cypress, where the jam band Phish rang in 2000 with more than 75.000 concertgoers, marks Langerado's "transition from day festival to a camping event," said a statement from the tour's publicist.

UPDATE: Single-day tickets for Langerado will go on sale in January, said a publicist for the festival. Stay tuned for details and prices. The publicist also said that re-entry will be allowed to festivalgovers who want to "commute" to and from Langerado, and there will be day parking available in addition to camping.

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Teen-aged r&b crooner Chris Brown leads a caravan of hitmakers to BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise for a day-after-Christmas concert, Dec. 26. Tickets, $39.75 - $69.75, go on sale 10 a.m. Friday through Ticketmaster. Also playing are rappers Bow Wow and Soulja Boy, young singer Sean Kingston, rap band Shop Boyz, lady rapper Lil Mama and more performers TBA.

Note: Sean Kingston also sings at the Y100 Jingle Ball, Dec. 15 at BAC.

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The promoter of the upcoming Led Zeppelin reunion concert says if you bought your ticket with someone else's credit card, and not yours, you may not get in.

Harvey Goldsmith is taking a tough line against scalpers, or "touts," as they're called in the U.K. He's trying to avoid collateral damage, allowing for exemption by "reasonable explanation," such as kids who used their parents' credit cards. (Access to tickets was determined by an online lottery.)

But I like Mr. Goldsmith's ire:

I have no interest in supporting parasite businesses who prevent fans from supporting their artists by the increased price of the tickets and who ultimately put nothing whatsoever back into our business to support it.

I imagine every person who didn't score a Hannah Montana ticket and doesn't like the markups would agree.

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As a teen-ager trying to learn how to play guitar, I spent more time than I should admit to listening to Rush. I liked Rush, a lot, and was painfully aware that most critics didn't. So when Todd Rundgren's band, Utopia, came along, I immediately perceived them as a threat, mainly because Utopia got good reviews whereas Rush got panned. Why was Rush's brand of prog more loathsome than Utopia's, I wondered.

I still can't answer that question. But at some point I relaxed my guard around Utopia and decided there was room in my fragile psyche for more than one arty rock band.

All of this is a roundabout way of mentioning that Utopia's original bass player, Kasim Sulton, is performing tonight (Wednesday, Aug. 29) at Alligator Alley in Oakland Park. Utopia is a sensible starting point for any discussion of Sulton, but it's not a complete account. Go here for that. Sulton has had a wondrously varied career as a bassist, composer, session diety and bandleader in his own right. He played on Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, which Rundgren produced. He may be on more records than I own - as a bassist, back-up singer, guitarist, keyboardist or arranger. Who else can boast having worked with Patti Smith and Patty Smyth?

You can visit him online, and find out more about the show by calling the Alley, 1321 E. Commercial Blvd., Oakland Park, at 954- 771-2220. Admission is $30. Doors open 7 p.m. Fernando Perdomo opens.

And I'm now prepared to admit that Oops! Wrong Planet is a cooler album title than anything Rush ever came up with.

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One of the biggest names at this year’s JVC Jazz Festival is also one of the most beguiling performers in Brazilian music: Bebel Gilberto. She’s the daughter (born in New York) of famed Brazilian singer-songwriter Joao Gilberto, and she’s added a dash of contemporary soundscaping to the music that her father helped make famous. Whether you call what she does “bossalectronica” or “bossa nouveau,” it’s some of the most enchantingly rhythmic and melodic pop music being made anywhere today. Showtime is 8 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, Knight Concert Hall, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Tickets are $46-$66 through Ticketmaster. Call (305) 949-6722, or visit carnivalcenter.org. For more information on the JVC Jazz Festival visit festivalproductions.net.

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