Megan Thee Stallion is still picking up the pieces and moving forward after the “abrupt” end to her relationship with NBA player Klay Thompson in April. The Houston Hottie reflected on the split in her cover story with Marie Claire on Tuesday (Sept. 29).

“It was so abrupt. I’m in shock still,” she admitted. “I’m not pretending I’m 100% okay. I ain’t never been through nothing like that in my whole life. I’ve never, ever, ever been in a relationship like that, ever. So I’m definitely not worried about another one for a long time.”

Meg has been busy working on her Act: III album and is not looking for another relationship at the moment. “I’m not thinking about anything romantic,” she said.

The Billboard Hot 100-topping rapper continued to explain that she was in a constant state of panic while with Thompson. “I feel like that’s what I was in, constantly on edge. My nervous system needed to calm down,” Meg added. “I feel like I was in a panic 24/7. I’m still not eating all the way right. I’m feeling all the feelings. I’m not trying to take no shortcuts.”

Rumors of Megan Thee Stallion and Klay Thompson getting cozy in the first half of last year were confirmed when they went public with their relationship with a red carpet appearance at Meg’s Pete & Thomas Foundation Gala in NYC in July 2025.

They dated for less than a year, as Megan released a statement confirming they had split in April and claimed infidelity was at the center of the breakup. Thompson has never addressed her allegations.

“Trust, fidelity and respect are nonnegotiable for me in a relationship, and when those values are compromised, there’s no real path forward,” Megan told Billboard in an April statement. “I’m taking this time to prioritize myself and move ahead with peace and clarity.”

Earlier Tuesday (Sept. 29), Megan unleashed her “Tina Tuesday Freestyle” and she was announced among the performers for the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

The Grammy-winning rapper’s most recent album came with Megan in June 2024, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 64,000 total album-equivalent units.

The Victoria’s Secret Angels will share the runway with some pretty big names across country, pop and hip-hop: KATSEYE, Megan Moroney, Megan Thee Stallion and Tate McRae are all set to perform at the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show next month, Billboard can exclusively reveal.

The all-women lineup will perform at the fashion show on Oct. 18 in Los Angeles.

The performance announcement comes amid world tours for both KATSEYE and Megan Moroney. KATSEYE kicked off their WILDWORLD Tour earlier this month in support of their brand-new WILD EP, which gave the group their first No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Moroney also scored her first No. 1 on the albums chart in March with Cloud 9, and is currently on her Cloud 9 Tour.

Last month, Megan Thee Stallion signed a distribution deal between Interscope and her Hot Girl Productions company, letting her fans know: “ACT III IS ON THEE WAY HOTTIES.” Also in August, McRae put on a buzzy headlining set at Lollapalooza and teased her next era on Instagram.

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has long been known for its blockbuster music performances, including Taylor Swift in 2013 and 2014, Rihanna in 2012 and 2015, Lady Gaga in 2016 and another epic all-women lineup last year of Karol G, TWICE, Missy Elliott and Madison Beer.

This year’s show will take place in Los Angeles at a yet-announced venue, where it will stream live globally on Sunday, Oct. 18. Viewers can tune in through YouTube at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT, while Victoria’s Secret will also stream the event across its Instagram and TikTok accounts.

Miley is over the moon. The singer could not contain her joy after news broke that her new album, Bass Persuades, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “Bass Persuades being #1 transcends a win. This process has been some of the best times for me. Everyone involved made it possible and more importantly fun and memorable,” Miley wrote on Instagram.

“Thank you Atlantic, my team, and everyone who walks beside me with conviction. I love you,” she added before giving a special shout-out to her beloved Smilers. “To the fans you make my world go round. Making music for you brings immeasurable joy to my life. Forever. 🖤 MILEY.”

The post included a picture of a gigantic No. 1 made out of white roses, as well as one of Miley (who recently went mononym after going by Miley Cyrus until this point) posting next to the flower arrangement. She also included a note from Atlantic Records chairman/CEO Elliot Grainge, who wrote, “Miley, congratulations on the #1 debut! We are so proud and lucky to get to do this with you. Here’s to many more!”

Bass Persuades debuted atop the Billboard 200 on the list dated Oct. 3, launching with 61,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 24, according to Luminate. It’s her sixth total chart-leading album and 16th top 10-charted LP; she last topped the chart in 2013 with Bangerz. The album’s title track and first single debuted at No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated Sept. 19), marking Miley’s 24th top 40 hit. Her previous album, last year’s Something Beautiful, debuted and peaked at Nov. 4 on the June 14, 2025-dated Billboard 200.

Miley, who hasn’t toured in years and rarely performs at big venues, will celebrate her 10th studio album with two rare Hollywood Bowl shows on Oct. 16 and 18. “I’ve sat in those seats many times, but I’ve never taken the stage,” she said while announcing the gigs. “L.A. is my heart and I’m bringing it home. See you there.”

Linkin Park’s reformation and comeback — with a hit album (2024’s From Zero), three No. 1 Mainstream Rock chart singles and two Grammy Award nominations — is one of rock’s top stories of the decade so far.

Now the band is telling the story behind it.

The documentary Linkin Park: Unshatter, directed by group member Joe Hahn, hits theaters for a limited release on Sept. 30, five days after it drops the concert album Unshatter (Live in Sao Paulo).

That Brazilian concert, held on the day of From Zero’s release (Nov. 15, 2024), is a framing device for the film, which chronicles Linkin Park’s decision to get back together six years after vocalist Chester Bennington’s suicide put the brakes on a career that, since 2000, saw sales of more than 100 million records worldwide, five No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and 19 Top 5 Mainstream Rock singles.

“Originally the film was slated to just be that (São Paulo) concert, the actual experience of watching the show. I thought that wasn’t good enough,” Hahn – who, as Linkin Park’s creative director, has been responsible for most of the group’s music videos — tells Billboard via Zoom.

“I felt like everything deserved an explanation. I wanted to really show what it took to get back on our feet, to explain how this came about, because there’s so much newness. It’s not a switch you can just flip on; it was really a process.

“The process of making this documentary was a healing process as well, because there was so much reflecting involved, and acknowledgement of things that did go right. I think the overall sentiment is a message of hope.”

That said, Hahn considers the film’s Sao Paulo performances (Linkin Park played two shows, also on Nov. 16, before nearly 97,000 fans each at the Allianz Parque stadium) to be incendiary highlights. “There couldn’t have been a better place to do it,” he says. “The Brazilians have always begged us to come play there; we hadn’t played there very much before that. And they were just…insane.”

Like his bandmates, Hahn had no idea when, or if, Linkin Park would come out of the indefinite hiatus it called after Bennington’s death on July 20, 2017 — the birthday of Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, a friend and mentor who committed suicide two months prior — at the age of 41.

“We were just moving, moving, moving since we were kids,” he explains, “gaining success when we’re, like, 20. It didn’t stop, and then it did and all of a sudden we’re in our 40s. For it to have ended the way it did, there are so many feelings that go with that — loneliness, embarrassment, you name it.

“I think when we just started talking to each other again, there was a great deal of empathy all around, and openness — and also similarity. We were all going through similar enough things to relate to each other in a way that others might not, just because of our own life experience together. We’re kind of an old band but really see ourselves as a new band at the same time. Somehow we got to start over and pick up where we left off. We did it for the right reasons, mainly ’cause we love the music, and we love being together.”

In addition to the concert footage — from Sao Paulo and from the Sept. 11, 2024 Los Angeles concert where Linkin Park revealed its plans as well as new vocalist Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain — Unshatter features loads of fly-on-the-wall footage, including initial discussions between Hahn, frontman Mike Shinoda and bassist Dave “Phoenix” Farrell about resurrecting the band.

Videographer Mark Fiore, a childhood friend of Farrell’s, has been working with the band (previously known as Xero and Hybrid Theory) since its early days; Hahn refers to Fiore as “almost a seventh member” and says that at this point “we’re so used to it we don’t really know that cameras are rolling. And when I tour, I make sure to take a camera with me and capture as much as I can…Sometimes it can be annoying, but then two years later, 10 years later, 30 years later, I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, I’m so happy I took that picture…’”

The hour-and-50-minute film — subtitled The Hardest Part of Ending Is Starting Again — takes viewers through the reformation process, including the arrivals of Armstrong and Brittain and the writing and recording of From Zero. In one memorable scene, Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus visits and professes “goosebumps” listening to the new tracks in progress.

“I think we were confident in what we were doing,” Hahn recalls, “but at the same time doubtful. We’re human. Things can pop in your mind — ‘Are we doing the right thing?’ What’s so-and-so going to think?’ Some of that stuff never goes away. So to get encouragement like that, and relying on each other for encouragement, kept us going.”

Unshatter references the band’s history, including some early rehearsal footage with Bennington during the end credits, but maintains a focus on recent events. It treads lightly on drummer Rob Bourdon’s decision not to return but goes in-depth with guitarist Brad Delson about his initial reservations, ultimately contributing to From Zero but opting not to tour with Linkin Park.

One thing you won’t see in the film, however, is a moment of dramatic disconnect ala James Hetfield’s temporary walk-out on Metallica in 2004’s Some Kind of Monster — because nothing like that happened, according to Hahn.

“I just approached this to be as honest as possible, don’t manufacture anything, don’t look for conflict,” he says. “Things that are obvious will just be there. This was the aftermath of something terrible that happened. It’s a film about healing. People know the history. They know the tragedy involved and probably already have an idea of what happened. There’s enough there.” That also provided Hahn with impetus to direct the film himself after an “initial instinct” to have someone else helm the project.

“It’s impossible for anyone to come in and be objective,” he notes. “They’re trying to create a story. They’re gonna look for drama, great stories, blockbusters, whatever you want to call it. The whole film revolves around some kind of chaos. It was important to me not to do that…and just tell the story that’s there.”

It’s a story that will continue, Hahn says. As Unshatter rolls out (tickets and theater information can be found via linkinpark.com) the group is planning what’s next — including, Hahn says, some more music videos. He offers no concrete details on new music and other plans, meanwhile.

“I feel like this film is just perfect timing for us,” Hahn says. “It’s bookending everything we’ve done from From Zero and reflects on what it took for us to get here. Everyone was like, ‘OK, let’s make sure we take at least a month off and then let’s get back to work,’ so we’re now writing music again. There’s no timetable, but I think there’s an urgency. We know we can work fast, ’cause we’re so excited to output a lot, so it’s not going to be another five years or a long time before we come out with something new. At the same time we’ve been so in your face a lot with (From Zero) that it’ll be nice to give people a little bit of a break and then reconvene and come up with something really great.”

What can a musician do next after being in, arguably, the greatest band of all time? Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville’s 2026 documentary, Man on the Run, seeks to answer just that. With never-before-seen footage of Paul McCartney, his family, and his second band, Wings, Neville shares McCartney’s challenging journey from Beatles frontman to soloist to leader of a new group.

Set between about 1968 and 1980, McCartney starts on his isolated Scottish farm with his wife, Linda, and growing family, wrestling with what to do with his newfound freedom. The Beatles had called it quits — it was John Lennon’s idea, says McCartney — but the world didn’t know it yet.

Over the course of its runtime, Man On The Run shows McCartney as he makes his way back to headlining arenas across America and all the bumps along the way to get there. Unflinching, the documentary does not shy away from addressing the critics’ panning of much of McCartney’s solo work, the murder of John Lennon, his brief stint in a Japanese prison and his bold choice to sue the Beatles.

Key figures like Stella and Mary McCartney, Mick Jagger, Denny Laine, Laurence Juber, Chrissie Hynde, Joe English, as well as Paul himself shared stories for the documentary. Linda, who passed away in 1998, also shared several stories via archival footage, voice-over, and photos.

The documentary, which is available now on Amazon Prime, was screened at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles on Monday (September 28), and the presentation was followed by a Q+A with McCartney and Neville, hosted by filmmaker Judd Apatow. A condensed and edited version of that conversation can be found below.

Apatow: So, Paul, when someone says, “Let’s do a Wings [documentary],” do you think, “Great, I really want to dig into that period of my life,” or, “Oh, God”?

McCartney: No, I like that period. Well, you know, now it’s a fond memory. What do you do after the Beatles? The Beatles break up. That’s been your only job you’ve ever had, and then you don’t have it anymore. It’s like you got sacked. And so that was Wings, you know—trying to figure it out. And as you can see in the film, we did well. It was kind of madcap, you know. But, yeah, no, I like that period.

Oh, and then on top of [leaving the Beatles], there was this business guy, Allen Klein, who was basically stealing from the Beatles, and I was the only one who thought that. The other guys thought, “We love him.”

Apatow: Why were they so dumb? Honestly, because I think the business people knew he was a kind of shady character.

McCartney: I’ll tell you why. Because you’d be at a meeting with him, and you’d go, “What do you want? The New York guy, what do you want? What do you want? A million dollars?” “Yeah.” “Okay, you got it.”

He just promised the earth and didn’t deliver it. But meanwhile, I could see that this was a crook. It was me against the other guys, and that was the worst thing. You know, I mean, I’d come up against the guys making music, but it was okay because you could say, “Well, I know I really think this is right,” and so on. And I did either agree or they wouldn’t, and I’d go with their version, you know. But it was relatively easily solved. This was suddenly everything we’d ever earned—everything we’d ever, all the money we’d ever earned—was going to go into this guy’s bank account, and I just really had to fight it.

Apatow: And it’s your best friends, so you’re suing your best friends

Well, that was it. I said, “Okay, I’ll sue Allen Klein. I’ll get him.” My lawyers were Linda’s dad and brother, and so I said, “Yeah, let’s go. We’ll get this guy.” They said, “You can’t, because he’s not a party to any of the agreements. The only people who are parties to these agreements are the Beatles.” They said, “So you’ll have to sue them.” I said, “Well, I can’t.” This went on for months. I said, “I can’t do it, you know. It’s just like the world will go against me, number one, and I’ll go against me, and it’s not a great idea.” So in the end, that was the only way. I had to do it.

Tons of people do amazing things when they’re really young, and then for the rest of their lives they never get close to it. Was it a terror for you?

Yeah, I think just being on my own was very scary because I’d always had the union of the group, but then I had to figure out how I would do it and make it different. That was the trick, because I thought, “Well, I could just write some more kind of Beatles-y songs, and we could imitate it. We’d be like a Beatles cover band.”

When you look back, Ram is considered a classic. A lot of people think it was even the beginning of a certain kind of indie rock and home recording. But when people attacked you for it at the time, was that devastating that people didn’t know how to enjoy it for what it was?

Yeah, I think so. I thought we’d got something special, and the critics didn’t. Critics criticize, and they criticized me. So, with all these hopes—with the young family and this record—I thought, “This is a good record.” The worst bit is, I bought into it. I listened to the critics and thought, “Maybe they’re right. I don’t know.” For years, I thought it wasn’t a very good album. Then one of my nephews came up to me one day and said, “You know, my favorite album of yours is Ram.” I went, “What?” And I suddenly liked it again.

Why do you think that period annoyed John Lennon? Was it the joyfulness of it, while he was doing Primal Scream and you were having fun? What do you think got under his skin about it?

It’s just one of those things. I mean, I loved John and love him to this day and always will. It wouldn’t matter, as it didn’t matter, what he said or did, because I’d known him since I was 15, and so he was this mad guy I knew, and I really looked up to him.

When you’re 13 and a half or something—and, when I was a little older, I was 15, and he’d be 16 and a half—there’s that kind of guy who’s cruel and witty and right on. You look up to them and say, “Wow, he’s really cool.” I always thought John was very cool, and I still do. But he could be a complete idiot over some things. He was a lovely guy. And the thing is, if you look at his life, there’s reason for him to be crazy. A lot of bad things happened to him.

At what moment did you wake up and say, “I want to start another band”?

We were watching Johnny Cash on TV, and he’d put together a band with Carl Perkins and some country guys that we really liked. I just thought, “Wow, Johnny’s just put together a band. What a great idea!” I turned to Linda and said, “Do you want to? Should we start a band? Do you want to be in it?”

I knew she had no musical education, but then I thought, “Well, neither did we in the Beatles. We didn’t know anything.” But we learned a couple of chords, and we learned together. That was the great thing: We climbed the steps together. She got a lot of flak for that, and I got a lot of flak for that. “Oh, Mick Jagger, what’s she doing with this old lady in the band?” Fuck off. What’s it got to do with him?

You guys had such an amazing blend as singers—the two of you and Denny Laine. Did you understand that there was a kind of magic to that sound?

I listen to it now and think, “Wow.” Linda’s voice in particular is really good. It adds a very interesting flavor. You’ve got to remember, there were no Auto-Tune systems, so she had to just sing it right. Listening back to it, I think it’s very good. It was a great blend.

Eventually, we did what the Beatles did: We got better. We stuck at it and got really good in the end. We could come to America, sell out the kingdom or whatever it was, and put on a good show in the end. But it took a lot of work.

Slipknot have announced their biggest tour to date, a 2027 global stadium run they’re calling the (Sic)est Stadium Tour, with Bring Me the Horizon opening all North American dates.

The tour’s name is a nod to “(sic),” the opening track from the band’s 1999 self-titled breakthrough. Produced by Live Nation and promising new staging and a career-spanning setlist, the run opens July 3 at London’s Wembley Stadium — its only UK and European date — before a North American leg that kicks off July 16 at Washington, D.C.’s Nationals Park and wraps Aug. 18 at Phoenix’s Chase Field.

Five South American shows follow in September. Bring Me the Horizon support every North American date, with a rotating cast of guests across the run including Lamb of God, Motionless in White, Lorna Shore, Loathe, Acid Bath, Polyphia, Kublai Khan TX and Vended; Marilyn Manson, Lorna Shore and Hatebreed join for the Wembley opener. An artist presale begins Tuesday (Sept. 29), with general tickets on sale Friday (Oct. 2).

The tour follows “Arsenal,” Slipknot’s first new song in three years, released earlier this month. On the track, frontman Corey Taylor screams, “I got a lot to f—ing say / And if you didn’t listen, you didn’t hear me anyway.” It marked the band’s first recording since the departures of turntablist Sid Wilson, who left in August, and keyboardist-sampler Craig Jones, who exited in 2023. Guitarist Jim Root has said the single won’t appear on the band’s next album, and Slipknot’s last full-length remains 2022’s The End, So Far.

Formed in Des Moines, Iowa in 1995, Slipknot became one of the most commercially successful metal acts of the past three decades. The End, So Far debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and topped the Top Album Sales chart in 2022, marking the band’s sixth top 10 album on the chart.

Its predecessor, 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind, gave Slipknot their third consecutive No. 1 on the Billboard 200. A Grammy winner with 11 nominations, the nine-piece group has sold tens of millions of records worldwide, and Rolling Stone named their 2001 album Iowa among the greatest metal albums of all time.

SLIPKNOT — (SIC)EST STADIUM TOUR 2027 (North America)

July 16 — Washington, D.C. — Nationals Park

July 18 — New York — Citi Field

July 21 — Montreal — Parc Jean-Drapeau

July 23 — Toronto — Rogers Stadium

July 25 — Chicago — Soldier Field

July 28 — Hershey, PA — Hershey Park Stadium

July 31 — Boston — Fenway Park

Aug. 3 — Nashville — First Bank Stadium

Aug. 6 — Houston — Daikin Park

Aug. 9 — Commerce City, CO — Dick’s Sporting Goods Park

Aug. 13 — Los Angeles — SoFi Stadium

Aug. 15 — San Francisco — Golden Gate Park

Aug. 18 — Phoenix — Chase Field

Tones and I has announced a surprise pop-up show on the same weekend she was due to headline the NRL Grand Final pre-game entertainment, before those plans collapsed.

The singer, born Toni Watson, will perform an all-ages acoustic show at the Echuca Hotel in Victoria on Friday (Oct. 2), with a meet-and-greet, two days before the Grand Final in Sydney. Tickets go on sale Wednesday (Sept. 30). The gig sits alongside her headline slot at the Deni Ute Muster festival in Deniliquin, New South Wales, on Oct. 2-3.

The pop-up follows the breakdown of talks for Watson to headline the NRL Grand Final pre-show on Oct. 4, with the National Rugby League initially declaring there would be no pre-game entertainment, citing “creative differences,” and initially planned to redirect the performance fee to grassroots football.

NRL boss Peter V’landys initially said the league would still redirect the performance fee to junior rugby league, but has since confirmed a surprise pre-game act will take the field after all, without revealing who.

“It’ll probably be the most high-rated 11 minutes you’ll ever see because no one knows what it is,” he said, adding that fans “won’t be shocked, but you’ll be very, very well entertained.” Local acts including Shannon Noll and Jon Stevens have offered themselves up for the slot. The Grand Final, between the Sydney Roosters and Newcastle Knights, takes place Sunday.

According to a statement from Tones’ team at Lemon Tree Management, however, the singer was “recently approached to perform the preshow at the NRL Grand Final.” An offer was presented to Tones via management on Sept. 5, reads the message, seen by Billboard.

“Tones had a prior commitment with Macklemore in America and explored all avenues to make it work.” However, “nothing was signed or confirmed in writing.”

“Due to the last minute nature,” the statement continues, “and prior commitments by Tones, we were unable to accept the offer. We wish the NRL nothing but the very best for their event.”

Watson became one of Australia’s biggest global success stories with “Dance Monkey.” Released in 2019, the track topped the charts in more than 30 countries and reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. In Australia, it spent a record 24 weeks at No. 1 on the ARIA Singles Chart and became one of the most-streamed songs of all time. Watson, who was busking in Byron Bay shortly before the song’s release, has won multiple ARIA Awards and remains one of the country’s most successful contemporary artists.

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There was a time when upgrading your headphones meant cutting the cord. In 2026, apparently, plugging back in is the upgrade.

Bose is officially returning to wired earbuds for the first time in more than a decade with the new Bose Noise Cancelling Wired Earbuds, announced Monday (Sept. 28). Priced at $99, the USB-C earbuds arrive as wired headphones continue to find a new audience among younger listeners, but Bose isn’t simply digging an old pair out of the archives.

The new earbuds combine the plug-and-play simplicity that made wired headphones appealing in the first place (back in the early aughts) with features more commonly associated with today’s wireless models. There’s active noise cancellation, lossless audio support and an in-line remote, but no Bluetooth pairing, app or charging case to worry about. Since the earbuds draw power directly from a connected phone, tablet or computer, there’s no internal battery to keep charged either.

However, the timing isn’t exactly accidental. Wired headphones have been enjoying a resurgence among younger listeners, with Bose pointing to changing listening habits as part of the inspiration behind its return to the category.

COMING SOON

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The best part about going wired again? These $99 Bose earbuds never need to be charged.

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“Wired earbuds are experiencing a cultural renaissance, and when we decided to bring them back, we knew we had to make them even better than before,” Raza Haider, president of Bose Premium Consumer Audio, said in announcing the launch.

Bose Wired Earbuds Specs at a Glance

The biggest upgrade from the wired earbuds you might remember untangling from the bottom of your bag is Bose’s QuietControl technology. Four microphones, two on each earbud, continuously monitor surrounding sound to help minimize distractions. Quiet Mode turns up the noise cancellation, Aware Mode lets your surroundings back in and ANC Off offers straightforward wired listening.

Bose also equipped the earbuds with its SoundDesign digital signal processing technology and support for lossless audio. The direct USB-C connection offers low-latency performance, helping keep sound in sync while watching videos, gaming or creating content.

Physical controls are built into an in-line remote for adjusting volume, controlling playback, taking calls and switching listening modes. The earbuds come with three sizes of silicone ear tips, removable stability wings and a zippered carrying case.

And because apparently bringing back the wire wasn’t enough nostalgia, Bose is leaning into the throwback with its limited-edition Dewdrop Mint colorway, alongside Black and White Smoke.

The Bose Noise Cancelling Wired Earbuds are available to preorder now at Bose for $99 and begin shipping Oct. 15.

Keanu Reeves lived out a fan’s dream in San Francisco, introducing Peter Hook & The Light onstage before being spotted dancing enthusiastically to Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” — a song the actor has called his all-time favorite.

The moment came at the Warfield on Sept. 21, where Hook — the co-founding bassist of Joy Division and New Order — performed with his band The Light. Reeves took the mic to bring them on, telling the crowd, “The one, the only Peter Hook and the Light! Playing the music we all love from then, today and tomorrow,” before embracing Hook as he took the stage.

Reeves is a longtime Joy Division fan and once told The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that “Love Will Tear Us Apart” would be his desert-island song. Fittingly, Hook dedicated the 1980 classic to Reeves late in the 26-song set, which ran through Joy Division and New Order material along with a couple of tracks from Monaco, Hook’s mid-1990s project. Footage shared online shows Reeves losing himself to the song from a private box.

The appearance came the night before Reeves’ own band, Dogstar, played San Francisco’s Fillmore on their All In Now tour. Reeves formed the alternative-rock trio — completed by vocalist-guitarist Bret Domrose and drummer-actor Robert Mailhouse — in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, and the group has drawn on the same post-punk lineage Hook helped define. After breaking up in 2002, Dogstar reunited in 2020 and returned in 2023 with Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees, which reached No. 6 on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart. Their latest album All In Now, released this year via the band’s own Dillon Street Records, produced the single of the same name, which gave Dogstar its first appearance on a Billboard songs chart in more than 25 years when it debuted on Mainstream Rock Airplay in April.

For Hook, the night lands during a milestone year. He is set to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this fall as part of the class of 2026, honored for his work with both Joy Division and New Order. The class also includes Phil Collins, Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Oasis, Sade, Luther Vandross and Wu-Tang Clan.

A judge says Ticketmaster can be sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for allegedly enabling mass-scale ticket reselling on its secondary market.

A Monday (Sept. 28) court order, obtained and first reported by Billboard, denies Ticketmaster’s motion to dismiss the bombshell lawsuit brought by the FTC a year ago. The decision does not endorse the truth of the federal agency’s claims, but it holds that they are legally sufficient to move forward into the next phase of litigation.  

The FTC sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation under the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, which makes it illegal to circumvent a ticket issuer’s security measures. The agency claimed Ticketmaster violated this statute by allowing brokers to bypass its ticket purchasing limits with hundreds or sometimes thousands of accounts under fake names. According to the lawsuit, Ticketmaster enabled this conduct so that brokers would resell large swaths of tickets on its own secondary market, thus generating billions of dollars in resale fees for the platform.

Ticketmaster’s leadership denies these allegations, with Live Nation legal chief Dan Wall testifying before Congress earlier this year that the company has “walked the walk” on anti-broker initiatives to protect artists and fans. But Ticketmaster’s motion to dismiss argued that the FTC lawsuit has an even more fundamental defect: namely, that the BOTS Act is only meant to be wielded against individual resellers, not the ticketing platforms that host them.

Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, however, roundly rejected this argument in Monday’s order. “The BOTS Act does not preclude platforms from facing liability,” wrote the judge, “and the court will not read it as doing so.”

According to Judge Frimpong, the FTC’s lawsuit lays out sufficient allegations that Ticketmaster allowed ticket brokers to bypass purchase limits. The judge cited an internal email in which a senior executive said they “turn a blind eye as a matter of policy” to this conduct, as well as other communications that allegedly show Ticketmaster was aware of specific brokers who frequently generated fake accounts.

“Upon identifying violators, Live Nation and Ticketmaster could have implemented measures to curtail continuing violations of ticket purchase limits,” wrote Judge Frimpong. “However, the FTC maintains that Live Nation and Ticketmaster ‘have reduced, discontinued, or declined to implement the use of tools that could effectively enforce ticket limits against brokers,’ thereby enabling circumvention. Thus, the complaint illustrates that Live Nation and Ticketmaster had knowledge of the violations, had the opportunity and means to counter the violations, but elected to allow scalpers and brokers to bypass ticket purchase limits.”

The judge also ruled that the FTC can level deceptive business practice claims against Ticketmaster over drip pricing — i.e., the practice of tacking on additional fees at checkout. Though Ticketmaster says it now employs all-in pricing, Judge Frimpong says the long-term use of a mere “plus fees” qualifier could be considered “vague and ambiguous” enough to sustain the FTC’s claims.

Reached for comment on Monday’s decision, Ticketmaster said in a statement, “Ticketmaster remains the leader in the fight against bots and other technical exploits that scalpers use to steal tickets from real fans. We continue to believe that this lawsuit is misguided and will ultimately fail.”

A rep for the FTC did not immediately return a request for comment. The case will now enter the evidence discovery phase, followed by an eventual trial unless a settlement is reached.

The lawsuit is part of the FTC’s recent emphasis on BOTS Act enforcement under a directive from President Donald Trump. In addition to the Ticketmaster lawsuit, the agency sued broker Key Investment Group last year for allegedly using fake Ticketmaster accounts to flip tickets for Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour. The FTC received a judge’s green light to move forward with that case in April.

Meanwhile, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are wrapped up in a high-stakes antitrust lawsuit that could have huge implications for their future. A jury ruled at trial that the combined companies had worked to suppress competition, and now dozens of state attorneys general are urging a judge to break them up. Live Nation denies all wrongdoing and says divestiture is unnecessary.