Monday, February 10, 2014

Bruce Springsteen coming to Charlotte in April

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will make a tour stop at Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena on April 19.

Tickets are scheduled to go on sale at 10 a.m. Feb. 21 at the Time Warner Cable Arena box office, online at timewarnercablearena.com or ticketmaster.com or by phone at 800-745-3000.

Springsteen's latest studio album, "High Hopes," was released last month.

Knights introduce partial season ticket plans

Beginning at noon Monday, the Charlotte Knights will make partial season ticket plans available for fans interested in purchasing multiple tickets to the inaugural season.
For  $288, or $16 per game, fans can choose from four 18-game partial ticket plans. Each plan features a field box seat to one premium game, as well as a balance of weekday/weekend games, and promotional nights.
In addition, fans interested in purchasing full season tickets for the 2014 season can still do so. Single-game ticket sales have not yet been launched.
The Knights will open BB&T Ballpark on Friday, April 11, at 7:05 p.m. against the Norfolk Tides. Details: www.charlotteknights.com; 704-357-8071; or email seasonseats@charlotteknights.com.
Here's how the partial season ticket plans have been broken down:
-          Pink Knights Pack – featuring the Charlotte Knights 9th Annual Pink Knights game, presented by Belk and Charlotte Radiology, on Saturday, May 10.
-          Team USA Pack – featuring the Team USA vs. Chinese Taipei game on July 3 at BB&T Ballpark.
-          4th of July Pack – featuring the first 4th of July game at BB&T Ballpark with the annual WBT Skyshow – the area’s largest fireworks show!
-          Championship Pack – featuring the Gildan Triple-A National Championship Game on Tuesday, September 16.

Pink Knights Plan
Sunday, April 13
Friday, April 18
Friday, April 25
Thursday, May 8
Saturday, May 10
Thursday, June 5
Monday, June 9
Sunday, June 22
Wednesday, June 25
Tuesday, July 1
Saturday, July 5
Saturday, July 12
Friday, July 18
Tuesday, July 29
Wednesday, August 6
Sunday, August 10
Monday, August 25
(1) Undated Voucher

Team USA Plan
Saturday, April 12
Tuesday, April 15
Monday, May 5
Sunday, May 11
Wednesday, May 21
Friday, May 23
Friday, June 6
Sunday, June 8
Saturday, June 21
Tuesday, June 24
Thursday, July 3
Friday, July 11
Thursday, July 17
Wednesday, July 30
Thursday, August 7
Tuesday, August 19        
Friday, August 22
Monday, September 1

July 4th Plan
Monday, April 14
Thursday, April 17
Tuesday, April 22
Friday, May 9
Tuesday, May 20
Saturday, May 24
Tuesday, June 10
Thursday, June 26
Monday, June 30
Friday, July 4
Sunday, July 13
Sunday, July 20
Thursday, July 31
Friday, August 8
Monday, August 18        
Saturday, August 23
Sunday, August 31

Triple-A Championship Plan
Wednesday, April 16
Thursday, April 24
Tuesday, May 6
Monday, May 12
Thursday, May 22
Sunday, May 25
Tuesday, June 3
Saturday, June 7
Friday, June 20
Monday, June 23
Friday, June 27
Thursday, July 10
Saturday, July 19
Friday, August 1
Tuesday, August 5
Saturday, August 9         
Sunday, August 24
Tuesday, September 16

Friday, January 10, 2014

For superfans, 'Banshee' premiere event is a scream

Fans of Cinemax's "Banshee" assembled inside uptown's McGlohon Theatre at Spirit Square got what they came to see at Thursday night's event to launch the second season: a testosterone-fueled new episode of the North Carolina-produced series, and an in-the-flesh glimpse of sexy stars Antony Starr and Ivana Milicevic, who waved and smiled from the stage pre-screening.

For regular viewers, the experience must have been gleeful -- an opportunity to watch it as if watching a movie, with the darkly humorous moments enveloping them in a roomful of laughs and action-scene punchlines producing rousing cheers.

But due to its high quotient of brutal violence and graphic sex, one wondered how it was being received by those simply on hand to celebrate the fact that the show is shot in the Charlotte area, and who had never seen "Banshee" before. "I've not seen the show," Mayor Patrick Cannon said beforehand. "But I've heard a lot about it, gotten great feedback." (His faves? "Scandal" and "Homeland.")

Cannon walked the red carpet in the nearby Duke Energy Theater before the screening, one of many in a line of other distinguished guests and actors who have minor roles in Season 2. The main draws, however, were Starr and Milicevic.

Both had arrived in Charlotte fresh off a press blitz in L.A. the previous day.

Starr -- sporting a softer appearance than his character, with slightly longer hair and a clean shave -- shook hands with greeters despite a brace on his right that he was wearing as a result of a recent surgery. "I've had it about a month," he said. "I wish I had a really good story for you, but unfortunately it's just something that I've been meaning to get done and I finally had the time in between seasons."

And Milicevic shook hands and posed for photos despite a warning that she had taken a red-eye that got her into Charlotte at 6:30 a.m.: "I did (sleep). But not enough. Yeah, don't get too close," she joked.


Both had predictably nice things to say about Charlotte and its hospitality, though Starr -- who plays a tough guy's tough guy on the series -- did say something surprising about our area.

"You know what scares me about Charlotte? Snakes, in a nutshell," he said. "All the disgusting animals that you have here, that I'm not used to because I'm from New Zealand, where we have nothing that hurts you. ... The worst bite you're gonna get there is a mosquito bite; it's great. You can go and sleep out in the bush or out in the forest and not worry about it.

"I'd show you, but it'd take me too long to go through my phone -- I've got a collection of snake shots, because I'm fascinated by them. Most of them are rat snakes and black snakes, so they're harmless, but ... we had someone clearing water moccasins (for a scene near Lake Norman) in Season 1. It's quite surreal for me. Not in the best way."

Milicevic, meanwhile, sounded like she couldn't wait for Thursday night's event to be over.

OK, we're kidding, but the 39-year-old former Bond girl did say this:

"I think tonight if they said, 'Oh, the premiere is off, something happened,' I'd go to Mellow Mushroom for pizza, I'd go to Tony's Ice Cream (in Gastonia -- her favorite flavor is Cowboy Crunch) ... and I would absolutely end up at Soul (Gastrolounge in Plaza Midwood) later. I may end up at Soul later tonight."