Some of the biggest concert tours of 2025 include those by Kendrick Lamar, Metallica, Usher, AC/DC, Coldplay, Linkin Park, Rod Stewart, Heart, Katy Perry, Alan Jackson, Jack White and Dua Lipa. Also coming up are some major televised music events and at least two music-themed films.
Here, in chronological order, are some of my picks — at least one of which is a qualified one.
The 2025 Grammy Awards
Expect intrigue aplenty at the 2025 Grammy Awards.
Will all-time Grammy-winner Beyonce, who has a field-leading 11 nominations, finally win Album of the Year honors? Will she lose — again — to Taylor Swift, who Queen Bey is facing in this category for the first time since 2010? Or will a young upstart, like Sabrina Carpenter or Chappell Roan, be the biggest winner? And will Kendrick Lamar win for “Not Like Us,” his song that accuses pop superstar Drake of being a predator and a pedophile (and prompted Drake to file ongoing multiple lawsuits against Lamar)?
5 p.m. PST, Feb. 2. CBS TV Channel 8, live.grammy,com and Paramount+. The Premiere Ceremony, at which most of the awards are presented, airs that day at 12:30 p.m. PST on live.grammy,com.
Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl gig
One week after the Grammy Awards, Los Angeles-bred hip-hop maverick Kendrick Lamar will become the first Pulitzer Prize-winning artist to headline a Super Bowl halftime show.
It remains to be seen if he brings out any guest stars (SZA, the opening act on Lamar’s 2025 tour, seems like a good bet). It also remains to be seen if Drake will storm the onfield stage at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans if Lamar performs “Just Like Us,” his chart-topping Drake diss song.
Either way, Big Easy native Jon Batiste will sing the national anthem. The pre-game show will feature fellow Louisiana natives Trombone Shorty, Ledisi and Lauren Daigle.
3:30 p.m. PST, Feb 9, Fox TV Channel 5.
Palm Springs International Jazz Festival
The idea of holding an annual jazz festival in Palm Springs, California, was first floated in 1958 and was proposed as a three-day outdoor event on a polo field — four decades before the decidedly non-jazz Coachella festival was launched on a polo field in nearby Indio. But back in 1958, Palm Springs’ then-police chief raised concerns that featuring improvisation-fueled jazz would cause “undue exuberance” among young attendees, and the city council voted to deny a permit for the festival.
It was not until 2019 that such an event finally took place, with the debut of the Palm Springs International Jazz Festival. It went dark the next year because of the pandemic shut-down, then returned in 2022.
The festival’s 2025 lineup is by far the strongest so far. Confirmed performers include vocal standouts Dianne Reeves and Cecile McLorin Salvant, and sax legend Charles Lloyd, who will be leading a band that includes guitarist Bill Frisell and pianist Gerald Clayton.
There will also be a 50th anniversary celebration of the pioneering Cuban band Irakere, featuring pianist Chucho Valdes, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and the band Cimafunk. And, rather than a polo field, the performances will take place at the intimate Annenberg Theatre at the Palm Springs Art Museum.
Feb. 20-23, psjazzfest.org
Oasis reunion tour
The news that one of the most overrated English rock bands of all time is reuniting after 16 years for a cash-grab tour generated lots of headlines. Equally intriguing is how fast multiple online betting sites began taking odds about how quickly the tour might implode. For good reason.
Liam and Noel Gallagher — the long-feuding brothers who are the only Oasis alums confirmed so far for the tour — have publicly been trading increasingly barbed insults since the band first imploded in 2009. One of my favorites is this dig by Noel at Liam: “He’s the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.” Liam, in turn, has called his brother “potato,” “tofu” and much, much worse.
What spurred these two antagonistic siblings to finally reunite after Noel’s countless declarations that he would never, ever get back together with Liam? Noel’s recent $20 million divorce settlement may have been a factor. How long their sold-out reunion tour will actually last is anyone’s guess, but fans seeing them at the start of Oasis’ multi-country trek may want to count their blessings.
July 5-Nov. 23
‘The World of Bob Dylan’
The Timothèe Chalamet-starring Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” climaxes at the legendary 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan’s turn from acoustic folk music to loud electric guitars and a raucous rock- and blues-fueled sound ignited a firestorm of controversy.
The film is based on the 2015 book, “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan And The Night That Split The Sixties.” Not coincidentally, the sixth annual “The World of Bob Dylan” conference in Oklahoma is pegged to the 60th anniversary of Dylan’s seismic Newport performance.
Open to the public, the conference is being jointly presented by the University of Tulsa Institute for Bob Dylan Studies and the nearby Bob Dylan Center. The roster has not yet been announced, but last year’s edition included a keynote presentation by veteran music author Greil Marcus and performances by Rodney Crowell, Happy Traum, former Dylan band guitarist Larry Campbell and others.
July 24-27 at the University of Tulsa and various locations in the Tulsa Arts District. dylan.utulsa.edu
San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival
It usually takes at least three years for a new festival, concert series or music venue to establish itself, but the fledgling San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival seems off to a good start already.
This year’s inaugural edition featured such artists as Cindy Blackman Santana, Tijuana’s Nortec Collective, Magos Herrera, Gerald Clayton and Gilbert Castellanos. It drew 4,000 people to three concerts (two free, one ticketed) in both cities, an impressive turnout for a fledgling event. The cross-border fete is the brainchild of veteran La Jolla Athenaeum jazz curator Daniel Atkinson, whose 2025 winter series at the Athenaeum runs Jan. 26 to March 19.
Buoyed by $400,000 in seed money from Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs, Atkinson and festival co-founder Julián Plascencia are already building on the momentum of the 2024 edition as they solidify concepts for the 2025 edition. Music fans in San Diego and Tijuana alike will be the beneficiaries.
Dates tba. sdtjjazz.org
KAABOO?
The question mark is warranted for the KAABOO Del Mar festival. It debuted in 2015, went dark in 2019, and has been mired in controversy and litigation ever since, with several changes of ownership along the way.
New operators of the dormant festival emerged last year. They signed a contract with the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Southern California and trumpeted KAABOO’s return in September 2024. But after failing to announce any performers or put tickets on sale, they postponed the three-day event until next year. They have also failed to respond to any email requests from the Union-Tribune and have not updated the festival’s social media pages since 2021. The KAABOO website, which was dormant as recently as mid-December, is now reactivated with a two-word message: “Stay tuned.”
Why, then, am I including KAABOO in this article? Primarily, in the hope that the estimated $500,000 owed to hundreds of ticketholders left in the lurch since 2020 will finally be refunded. That will be a key step for KAABOO’s elusive new operators to gain credibility to resume an event whose past lineups have included everyone from Robert Plant, The Killers and Sheryl Crow to Snoop Dogg and the late Jimmy Buffett and Tom Petty.
Dates tba. kaaboo.com
Joni Mitchell and Spinal Tap
Oscar-winning director Cameron Crowe announced in October that work on his Joni Mitchell biopic was soon to be underway, and word is he’s aiming for a late 2025 release. Crowe and Mitchell, who are longtime confidantes, have been working on the project for several years. Meryl Streep, a friend and admirer of Mitchell, has been touted to play Mitchell in her later years.
In the meantime, 2025 is also the target date for a new Spinal Tap movie, 42 years after the release of the 1983 classic, “This is Spinal Tap.” The long-overdue sequel, “Spinal Tap II,” will see the return of director Rob Reiner and the original film’s three co-stars, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean. The initially announced cast also includes Paul McCartney, Elton John, Questlove, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.
