On May 4^th, the Red Hot Chili Peppers played Prudential Center in Newark. It happened to be the day that Adam “MCA” Yauch from Beastie Boys lost his battle with cancer. The band dedicated the night’s show to Yauch. Anthony Kiedis paid tribute by wearing a shirt with the letters “MCA” handwritten across the chest. New guitarist Josh Klinghoffer also tipped his hat to MCA by playing the riff to “So What’cha Want” during the show’s encore.

The full gallery of photos from the concert can be found here.

Jay-Z, part owner of the Nets basketball team and their new home, celebrated the grand opening of Barclays Center by hosting eight sold out concerts at the new venue.

I was there for the first night and the excitement about bringing the new arena to Brooklyn was visible everywhere you went. Many locals who weren’t even showgoers gathered around Barclays Center before the concert. I watched one guy being interviewed by NBC’s Andrew Siff describe the event as being “like Mahatma Gandhi himself coming to earth”. For some reason his drunken declaration didn’t make the 11 o’ clock news broadcast.

A full gallery of photos from the concert can be seen here.

After spending the past few years focusing on being a celebrity by writing a memoir and judging two seasons of American Idol, Steven Tyler has returned to what made him a star to begin with. He and the rest of the Aerosmith hit the road this summer and performed at Izod Center on July 24.

A full photo gallery from the show can be found here.

While some people consider the start of summer to be Memorial Day weekend or when schools get out for vacation, my start of summer is marked by the arrival of the summer concerts issue of Time Out New York. Well, it happened this week and I was happy to find three of my concert photos printed with their roundup, including the full page crowd shot on the front page of the article.

The three photos are from Weezer, Flaming Lips, and Bon Jovi concerts. Links to full galleries below.

Weezer

Flaming Lips

Bon Jovi

Last night, Regina Spektor and her band performed at United Palace Theatre. She treated her hometown audience to a preview of many tracks from her new album, What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, which will be released later this month.

The show opener was Only Son, a band led by Jack Dishel. A few photos in the gallery show when Jack joined Regina during her set to perform a song that they wrote together.

The full photo gallery can be found here.

I first photographed Regina in 2009 at Beacon Theatre. Photos from that show can be found here.

Last month, I had the pleasure of shooting a portrait session with singer-songwriter Gavin Degraw. It took place on an unseasonably warm February afternoon, which gave us the flexibility to do indoor and outdoor setups. Before arriving for the shoot in Williamsburg, I scouted some nearby locations to find some that would supply good looking backgrounds for the photos. I couldn’t believe how photogenic the neighborhood was! It seemed like every wall and doorway I saw had some character to it. In the end, we shot at two indoor and three outdoor locations, which provided some good variety to the photos.

Shortly after the shoot, it was announced that Gavin would be one of the competitors on this season of Dancing With The Stars, which premieres tonight on ABC. Set your DVR!

In the meantime, check out the full gallery of Gavin Degraw portraits here.

Tuesday night, Van Halen performed their first of two shows at Madison Square Garden. The band is currently touring in support of A Different Kind of Truth, their first album since reuniting with David Lee Roth. The last full length Van Halen release with Diamond Dave on vocals was the album 1984, some 28 years ago.

While the band has a history of conflict between members, there was no sign of it during their show. They all seemed genuinely happy to be performing together, which shows in the photos from the concert.

The full gallery of photos can be seen here.

Last Saturday, Megadeth’s Gigantour made a stop at the Theater at Madison Square Garden.

You don’t really want to read any more words! You’re here to see the photos, right?

The full set of concert shots can be seen here.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, Appetite For Destruction, which makes the band eligible for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

While there is speculation and hope that the original lineup of Guns N’ Roses will reunite for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony this summer, Axl is keeping his chops up by touring with his current version of the band. It was just announced that they will be playing three shows in New York City in mid-February.They were last in the NYC area in November, when they played at Izod Center in New Jersey.

A gallery of photos from the Izod Center show can be seen here.

After seeing Adele’s second album, 21, at the top of the charts throughout 2011, it is no surprise that it was the highest selling album of the year. What is surprising, though, is how many copies were sold. The year-end Soundscan figures were released last week, showing that 21 has sold over 5.1 million copies, making it the first album to sell over five million copies in one year since 2004, when Usher’s Confessions sold 7.9 million copies.

Both of Adele’s albums, 19 and 21, were named for her age when making the albums. On May 5th, 2009, Adele played Roseland Ballroom in New York, as one of the last shows of her “An Evening with Adele” tour. This date also happened to be her 21st birthday.

By then, Adele had been touring for nearly a year and 19 was a big success, so I was surprised that I was only one of two photographers covering the show. After shooting the first three songs of the set from the pit in front of the stage, I was told that it was Adele’s birthday and a surprise was planned which I should stay to photograph. At the end of the performance, a cake was rolled out onto the stage and balloons were dropped over the audience as they sang “Happy Birthday” to Adele.

Click here to see the full photo gallery from the show.