In a battle of two corporate behemoths, Live Nation continues to face off with Ticketmaster for the extremely lucrative live entertainment ticketing business. Live Nation scored a major victory in the latest round by making a five-year deal with a third corporate giant, SMG, to sell tickets at most of the SMG’s facilities.

Live Nation ticketing expects to sell 10 million tickets in their first year of operation which will probably start in the middle of 2009 when their current deal with Ticketmaster expires. That number should jump dramatically in the second and third year of operations for LN Ticketing. We haven’t heard the last of this war.

Let’s take another look at what’s happening elsewhere:

• You can watch Farm Aid 2008 live on Direct TV’s The 101
• Look for the Fillmore: The Last Days DVD on November 11
• Alex Young of CoS previews this year’s Halloween concerts
• Watch moe., the Biscuits, K-Dub, String Cheese Incident and other jammers on your cell phone thanks to the Relix VCast Channel
• SongVest plans to auction rights to parts of 18 hit songs
• Matthew Sweet talks to JamBase about his career [via LHB]
• Crawdaddy reprints an interview with members of The Band

One more item before we go: The Mirage in Las Vegas recently unveiled details of a $25 million facelift for their world famous faux volcano. The 20-year old landmark’s getting a slew of fireball-throwing devices that will be choreographed to erupt on cue with a soundtrack co-composed by the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart. For the Mirage’s sake, let’s hope there’s no rapping involved. [via The AP]

The summer concert season has kept the HT gang busy for the last couple of months hitting amphitheaters, clubs, boats and festies in order to catch great live music. Since we haven’t seen each other in quite awhile, we thought we’d round up crew to crack open some Sea Hag IPA’s for one last summertime cook out and another rousing edition of At The Barbecue - that’s bound to ruffle a few feathers.

This time around we’re going with bands that all your friends love, but no matter how hard you try they still leave you scratching your head wondering just what the fuss is all about…

Chilly Jackwater:

“Generic.” “Ordinary.” “Plain.” These words could be used to describe The Band’s name. But I also enjoy using them to describe The Band’s music. Before you go all “Oh man…The Last Waltz…best doc EVAR…Scorsese…blah blah” Let me tell you: Yes, I’ve watched The Last Waltz. And it’s not all bad. It’s just the parts when The Band are playing their songs that I usually find myself dozing off.

READ ON for more Head Scratchers from the Hidden Track Staff…

Musicians aren’t usually known for having the best memories, so when they plan out which songs they want to play on a specific night they usually have their stage manager write down the setlist and tape it to the floor in front of each band member. Most of the time these stage setlists wind up in the hands of rabid fans after the gig, and other times they are lost forever to the garbage dump.

Recently scanned images of stage setlists from artists throughout nearly every genre have made it onto the ‘nets. Over the past few years photo and image search engines on the web have become much more sophisticated and include millions of new pictures each day. We spent all day yesterday using these search engines to find 60 stage setlists from our favorite acts. We’re gonna present 20 of these lists over three segments of the B List.

Here’s part one:

1. The Derek Trucks Band 06/24/07 Vancouver, BC:

[via Rock Music Daily]

Ross over at Rock Music Daily checked out the DTB at the Commodore Ballroom last summer and came back with the most beautiful stage setlist I’ve ever seen. Who has time to make something so visually stunning while on tour?

READ ON to check out stage setlists from U2, TLG, Springsteen, Cold War Kids, The Band, Arcade Fire, the Beastie Boys, Gov’t Mule, Metallica, Eric Clapton, Malkmus, Grace Potter, Kiss, GNR, LCD Soundsystem, and more….

Mike Gordon and Bill Kreutzmann will continue their trend of playing in lush tropical locales on January 5th in Costa Rica. Steve Kimock will be busy sailing the seas on Jam Cruise, so the former members of Phish and the Grateful Dead picked Max Creek’s Scott Murawski to join them on guitar. Kreutzmann first played with Gordon as part of SerialPod in December 2005, while Murawski was a member of the Phish bass player’s solo band in 2003. No word yet on whether Trey and Phil will continue their trend of playing crappy old arenas in New York State.

Now let’s celebrate the end of the week with a batch of linkage:

• Billboard runs down the 25 Best Rock Posters of All Time
• Help save drummer Johnny Vidacovich’s house
• Garth Hudson talks to Anthony DeCurtis about Dylan and The Band
• Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks reveal the track list for their upcoming album Emotional Trash, due in March
• Early rumors suggest Rage Against The Machine will headline Vineland
• Ronnie Wood wants to collaborate with Band of Horses
• The Sex Pistols plot their return to the road
• Journey finds a new lead singer via YouTube
• Fresh Bread took some amazing photos of the beautiful Grace Potter
• Our good friends over at the sports blog Ghosts of Wayne Fontes count down their Top 10 favorite Harry Hoods of all time (no 6/22/00?!)

Finally, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle found humor in three things near and dear to my heart: New Jersey, Asian stoners and those delicious little sliders. The boys are back, and this time they’re fucked. Check out the NSFW trailer for Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, in theaters April 25th.

Ronnie Hawkins pitched Robbie Robertson on joining his band with one undeniable sentence: “Son, you won’t make much money, but you’ll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra.” That’s what most heterosexual males call “a decent offer.”

Some 15 or so years later, Hawkins stood with Robertson and the other four brilliant members of The Band on the Winterland stage on Thanksgiving day in 1976. It’d mark the last time these five performed together as one of the greatest mostly non-American, American rock bands in music history (and probably the most underrated). Just about 31 years after The Last Waltz, we celebrate the greatest rock concert ever and the greatest concert film of all-time. Lotta superlatives today.

There’s no legitimate or acceptable excuse to be a music fan and not own this DVD. But if for some strange reason you “just never bought it,” we’ve compiled just about every single musical clip from the movie after the jump. Spend this fine turkey day with The Band and some little-known friends like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Van the Man Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, Dr. John, Neil Diamond, Ronnie Hawkins and more. Could you imagine if blogs existed back then? The Internet may have exploded that night.

Maybe one day when the time is right, we can finally pull off my Last Waltz Halloween Party. It’ll be better than Vegoose. Anyway, read on to really enjoy your Thanksgiving…

Somehow my regular searches of The YouTube for all things Danko & The Band failed to turn up this late December 1971 video from New York’s Academy of Music that’s been languishing in the cluttered goatfuck of the site’s archives.

And bully for us: The video’s poor editing is a serendipitous bonus — not only are we privy to a raucous version of Don’t Do It, but we’re also treated to about 40 seconds of a beautiful Richie Manuel-crooned Rocking Chair. The clip boasts the same lineup from the same run of shows that produced Rock of Ages, noted by this particular fanboy fluffer as “the best live album ever released.”

I watch videos like this quite often, and I’m always left wondering how and why this band — The Band — isn’t in the conversation about the greatest group of performers in music history. Very few bands I’ve had the pleasure of seeing live have come close to what these guys did on stage night after night. Or so I’m told.

• Related Video: Rick Danko sings The Weight solo on Canadian TV

When I first started collecting bootlegs, the quality on most of the cassettes and LPs I purchased was downright awful. Many were sourced from audience recordings that sounded like they were taped under Rerun’s trench coat. In the early ’90s a few bootleggers from Italy began focusing on releasing high-quality recordings that came from the soundboard. Now that the Interweb has made sharing shows so easily, you can find the crispiest of recordings everywhere. This week’s GTA presents four A+ quality soundboard-sourced boots for your pleasure.

Marvin Gaye ??-??-1983 SBD [FLAC, MP3 ] (date unknown, from Atlanta)

It’s just not right that Marvin Gaye was stolen from us in 1984. Just check out this bootleg from 1983 for an example of how The King of R&B was just hitting his stride. Gaye shows throughout the evening that it just doesn’t get better than his mix of well-written songs performed with the passion that was a trademark of his sound. Check out the moans from the ladies in the audience when Marvin starts Distant Lover. Even though this recording is a soundboard, you can hear the mostly female crowd voice their approval throughout.

Gaye’s voice sounds great from the opening notes of Let’s Get It On through the scintillating Sexual Healing closer. The backing band performs its job admirably, especially during a wild romp through Rockin’ After Midnight. Marvin Gaye is well-regarded as an artist, but he’s underrated as a live performer. Hopefully terrific sounding bootlegs like this one will help show that you Gotta Give It Up to him live. Read on after the jump for three more GTA SBDs from the Flaming Lips, Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and The Band…

When Roger Waters staged The Wall live in Berlin in 1990, it was easy to figure out the lingering moment would turn out to be the Van Morrison-infused Comfortably Numb that graced both The Departed soundtrack and the Sopranos scene in which Tony kills Christopher. But there’s a seldom-discussed performance that’s fairly interesting: Sinead O’Connor singing Mother backed by The Band’s Rick Danko and Levon Helm, with Garth Hudson on accordion.

The Band’s definitive online resource relays a cool footnote about the night:

According to Waters in an interview on the 2003 DVD release, there was a total power outage on stage during the live version of “Mother.” They had recorded the rehearsal the night before as a back-up because it was going live on the air all over the world. On the video you see Roger Waters standing by the Band, holding the lyrics to read. After the show Waters wanted to re-record the song but Sinead O’Connor refused, so it is the night before the concert that is shown on the video — if Waters’ version is correct. He also describes how unreasonable O’Connor was and suggests she is the most difficult person he has ever worked with.

In any event, let’s take a look at a performance worth resurrecting:

• Related: Van Morrison and the Band boys on Comfortably Numb
• Related: Rick Danko — When You Awake — solo acoustic

Can NYC handle all of the new venues that are opening in the city this year? The New York Times takes a look at these new concert halls that aim to make their mark, and one of the many tidbits found in the article is the news that Wetlands founder Peter Shapiro is opening a 20,000-square-foot combination bowling alley and performance space in Williamsburg. Spectacular.

We’ve got plenty of other stories left over as well:

• David Sanborn will appear on Ween’s new album La Cucaracha
• Apple will be announcing new iPods on Wednesday
• Superfly unveils a YouTube channel for the Vegoose Festival
• Kenny Wayne Sheppard, Robert Randolph and Buddy Guy are headlining the Experience Hendrix tour
• Lagunitas Brewery now names its beers after Frank Zappa’s albums
• BBC has unearthed a batch of live Bob Dylan solo footage and will present it as part of an 80-minute documentary
• The Police busted out Hole In My Life on their European tour
• Best concert film? Stylus debates Stop Making Sense vs. The Last Waltz
• On November 6th, The Who will release not one but two DVDs
• The North Mississippi Allstars have a new concert DVD out
• Thurston Moore kinda wishes Sonic Youth had broken up, so they could have reaped the rewards of a reunion tour
• Neddy lists the shows of the next week and a half

Have any interesting links to share? Leave a comment below so we can all kill some time until 5 o’clock…

MCA of the Beastie Boys is breaking into the virtual world, where he will be a character in the new Tony Hawk video game. Tony Hawk: Proving Ground will be released in October, and if you are good enough at the game you’ll be able to unlock MCA’s character. Jewish skateboarders…what will they think of next?

We ain’t just Beastie X Games…we’ve got plenty of other news to report:

• The Rolling Stones’ Bigger Bang World Tour came to an end last night in London after an incredible 146 performances
• The Cure have delayed their plans to tour North America in the fall
• Coachella 2008 will take place April 25th- 27th [via thedailyswarm]
• Ben Harper lists his favorite bands for the New York Times
• Rage Against The Machine packed Alpine Valley
• The Playlist talks to Royal Mountain Band about playing The Band in the new Dylan biopic, I’m Not There
• Bright Eyes will be touring this fall
• Part II of Randy Ray’s interview with Trey Anastasio and Tom Marshall
• Grace Potter and the Nocturnals recently stopped by WXPN’s World Cafe for an interview and performance
• Pitchfork interviews Daryl Hall…seriously
• Hometracked lists 10 Recording Bloopers That Made The Album [via Largehearted Boy]
• Check out some of these photos from Van Halen — hey, assless chaps!
• Herbie Hancock talks to the Chicago Sun-Times about why he recorded an album of Joni Mitchell’s music
• Tour dates from the Disco Biscuits, including Halloween in Boston
• AC/DC is releasing a three-DVD set on October 16th, a compilation featuring both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson on lead vox

And as usual on Mondays, read on after the jump for a full slate of setlists from the weekend, including but not limited to Arcade Fire, Black Crowes, Kings of Leon, Rage, Ratt, RAQ, TLG, Umphrey’s, Wilco and many more…