American boy band Backstreet Boys are the latest act to announce a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Produced by Live Nation, the Into The Millenium stint will comprise nine performances on 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27 July.

The five-piece will perform tracks from their best-selling album Millennium, alongside a selection of their greatest hits.

The iconic boy band will join a select group of artists – Kenny Chesney, U2, Dead & Company, Eagles, Phish and Afterlife Presents Anyma – in headlining the 17,600-seat Sphere, which launched in September 2023.

Beyoncé has added a fifth stadium show in both Los Angeles and New Jersey on Cowboy Carter Tour. With the newly added dates, she now holds the record for most shows of any artist on a single run at NJ’s MetLife Stadium and most overall performances at LA’s SoFi Stadium.

Produced and directed by Parkwood Entertainment and promoted by Live Nation, the outing will also visit London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Paris’s Stade de France, Chicago’s Soldier Field, Houston’s NRG Stadium, Washington D.C.’s Northwest Stadium and Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium. See the full list of dates here.

Sam Fender has extended his 2025 UK summer tour with the addition of three new dates.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA have added an additional London show to their Grand National Tour

The first of the new shows will be held in Manchester’s Wythenshawe Park on 16 August, before he takes to the Royal Highland Showgrounds in Edinburgh the following week 22 August as part of the Scottish capital’s Summer Sessions series. On 28 August, Fender will headline the VITAL Festival at Boucher Road Playing Fields, Belfast.

Support comes from Olivia Dean in Manchester and Edinburgh, with CMAT in Belfast. Further opening acts are yet to be announced.

These shows will follow Fender’s previously announced European and US tours through the spring, plus three sold-out stadium gigs at Newcastle’s St. James Park (June 12-15) and London Stadium (June 6). He will also appear at Radio 1’s Big Weekend festival in Sefton Park, Liverpool, on May 24 – bringing his UK summer line-up to eight dates.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA have added an additional London show to their Grand National Tour, on 23 July at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

After their record-breaking Super Bowl halftime performance, the tour—presented by Live Nation, pgLang, and Top Dawg Entertainment—will feature over 14 stadium shows across Europe and the United Kingdom this summer.

The Smashing Pumpkins have announced a series of major UK headline shows as part of their Aghori tour this August.

The American alternative rock band will perform in Gunnersbury Park, London (10 August), The Piece Hall, Halifax (12 August), Scarborough Open Air Theatre (13 August), and Colchester Castle (14 August).

Morrissey has also announced a string of 2025 tour dates in the UK and Ireland which will kick off later this summer.

The former Smiths frontman will head over to Dublin on 31 May for a gig at the 3Arena. From there, he will play two nights at the O2 Academy in Glasgow on 4 and 5 June respectively before wrapping up with a homecoming show at Manchester’s Co-Op Live on 7 June.

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Morrissey has claimed that ex-bandmate and songwriting partner Johnny Marr “ignored” a recent offer by AEG to reunite The Smiths for a global tour.

The seminal Manchester band – Morrissey, Marr, bassist Andy Rourke, who died last year, and drummer Mike Joyce –split up in 1987 and have never reformed.

Morrissey, 65, pursued a successful solo career following the group’s disbandment, while 60-year-old guitar virtuoso Marr had stints as a member of the Pretenders, The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse and The Cribs before eventually going solo.

In a post on his website featuring a classic photo of the two of them together, Morrissey wrote: “In June 2024 AEG Entertainment Group made a lucrative offer to both Morrissey and Marr to tour worldwide as ‘The Smiths’ throughout 2025. Morrissey said Yes to the offer; Marr ignored the offer.

“Morrissey undertakes a largely sold out tour of the USA in November. Marr continues to tour as a special guest to New Order.”

In a 2022 interview, Marr said there was “zero chance” of him ever working with Morrissey again

Marr and AEG have been approached for comment. However, in a 2022 interview with BBC Radio 2, Marr said there was “zero chance” of him ever working with Morrissey again, adding that it had been “18 or maybe 15” years since he had last spoken to the frontman in person.

His comments followed another website post from Morrissey asking Marr to stop mentioning his name in interviews.

Speaking in 2012, Goldenvoice boss Paul Tollett said that Coachella “try every year” to book the band, despite them turning down a $5 million offer from the festival.

The talk comes days after fellow Manchester legends Oasis announced they are reuniting for the first time since 2009 for a series of huge shows next summer.

Revisit IQ‘s article on the music’s biggest reunion tours here.

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Former agent Mike Hinc, whose client roster included the likes of The Smiths, Morrissey, Primal Scream, The Birthday Party, and The Sisters of Mercy, has died at home in France. He was 70.

Fiercely proud of his father’s Polish ancestry, Hinc studied Sociology and English literature at Bedford College, University of London, before finding himself a job at the Roundhouse as head of security. He next moved to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, where he launched the legendary ICA Rock Week programme.

In 1981, he joined Rough Trade Agency, which under his leadership evolved into All Trade Booking a few years later. He subsequently went on to co-head Cloud Music Agency with Richard Cowley.

Always interested in art, Hinc studied for his MA degree at Hertfordshire University, where he also lectured on the music industry. Upon his retirement as an agent, he became an accomplished artist and split his time between Ware in Hertfordshire, England, and France, where, in 2003, he relocated to the city of Carcassonne, where he also cared for his ailing mother until her death a year ago.

Despite enjoying a successful new career as an artist, Hinc also continued to represent The Sisters of Mercy as their agent.

“Mike was grizzly, curmudgeonly, but most of all cuddly”

“Mike was grizzly, curmudgeonly, but most of all cuddly,” says long time friend Eric Longley, former MD of Factory Records. “He was always a gentleman and when Morrissey’s new management advised a change of agents, his response summed him
up: ‘If that’s what Morrissey wants, that’s what he should have.’ To be fair, Morrissey was equally gentlemanly and both acted very professionally toward each other.”

Upon learning of Hinc’s death, Morrissey wrote, “Mike was The Smiths live booking agent… very funny and very irreverent in the spirit of the Blenheim Crescent age. He was also very intelligent whilst being next to incomprehensible… which was perfect for the exciting psychic disorder of Rough Trade.

“Along with Geoff Travis, Scott Piering, Jo Slee, Martha DeFor, Richard Boon and Pat Bellis, he worked very hard for the Smiths from the very beginning, and his cramped All Trade hut within the record label was a hideaway sanctum of busy blackboards and choking cigarette smoke. He was much admired by John Peel and John Walters, and this certainly helped the Smiths to move quickly. I was thankful then, and I’m thankful now.”

Hinc is survived by his brother David, and half sister, Anna.

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