Concerts

Four mornings a week, an SUV with darkened windows bears Michael Jackson through the gates outside a nondescript building near the Burbank airport. He spends the next six hours on a soundstage in the company of 10 dancers and pop music's best-known choreographer. The details of rehearsals for Jackson's upcoming concerts in London are closely held secrets, but what's at stake for him is not.

Texas singer-songwriter Joe Ely has been in love with trains his whole life. In 1977, he recorded one of the great train songs -- "Boxcars," which his longtime pal Butch Hancock wrote -- laying out exactly what had hooked him over the course of countless rides in open freight cars journeying to and from his hometown of Lubbock. If you ever heard the whistle on a fast freight train Beatin' out a beautiful tune If you ever seen the cold blue railroad tracks Shinin' by the light of the moon If you ever felt a locomotive shake the ground I know you don't have to be told Why I'm going down to the railroad tracks And watch them lonesome boxcars roll "My grandfather worked the Rock Island line, and my father worked on the Santa Fe line," Ely, 62, said Sunday night following his performance at Burt's Tiki Lounge, about two blocks from the Albuquerque train station.

Sony Pictures Entertainment received court approval to bring Michael Jackson to the big screen, and it set a release date on what just may be the toughest weekend of the year at the U.S. box office. The court's authorization, announced Monday in Probate Court by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff, allows them to edit more than 80 hours of rehearsal and behind-the-scenes footage into a movie. The deal was negotiated last month by Sony Pictures and its sibling unit, Sony Music Entertainment, with the Michael Jackson Estate and AEG Live, producer of the late singer's planned London concert series.

Michael Jackson spent his final night alive in his favorite spot on Earth: the stage. At Staples Center on Wednesday night, the performer did a full run-through of his planned comeback concert. He and his company -- dancers, musicians, singers, aerial performers, choreographers and costumers -- planned to fly to England early next week for dress rehearsals at London's O2 Arena, the site of the superstar's 50-night sold-out run. By lunchtime Thursday, Jackson was in cardiac arrest.

It's hardly the triumphant return to the United States that South Korean pop superstar Rain had hoped for. The popular singer-actor, dubbed the "Justin Timberlake of Asia," arrived in Hawaii on Monday facing two lawsuits stemming from the cancellation of dates on his 2006-07 North American Rain's Coming tour. Rain's legal troubles follow his attempts to break into the U.S. market and build the kind of loyal fan base here that has eluded other Asian performers.

Concerts scrapped: Because of lagging ticket sales as well as a decline in individual and corporate donations, the Santa Clarita Symphony has canceled its 2009 season.

Promoters on Wednesday more than doubled Michael Jackson's summer run of concerts in London after advance tickets sold out within hours of going on sale at prices ranging from $70 to $105. AEG Live said an advance allotment of half the tickets for the 10 shows in July sold out soon after going on sale. Eighteen concerts have been added into September, and more shows are possible. The 50-year-old King of Pop has said the shows at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in south London will be his last in the British capital.

Street closures? It seems Hollywood "Just Can't Get Enough" of them. Authorities plan to shut Hollywood Boulevard near its storied intersection with Vine Street on Thursday for a free concert by the electro-pop band Depeche Mode. Parts of the 8 p.m. event will be videotaped for airing later that night on the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show.

They're singing the blues again at Folsom prison after officials canceled a concert marking the 40th anniversary of Johnny Cash's groundbreaking performance there, with the prison and the promoter blaming each other for the decision. The event, scheduled for Sunday, was canceled late Monday over security concerns and what officials called the changing demands of event organizers.

Art circles buzzed with last month's news that private art collectors Janice and Henri Lazarof had notably enriched the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Modern art holdings with their donation of 130 works by major artists. With last week's opening of LACMA's three-plaza-level Modern art galleries, much of the collection is now on display.