Coldplay are teasing an Australian and New Zealand tour

Alfie Templeman has announced he’ll be embarking on his first-ever run of Australian headline shows, set to take place in June this year.He’ll be making two headline appearances, on June 14 in Sydney and June 16 in Melbourne, while also supporting The Wombats on their Australian arena tour that same month. Tickets for both dates go on sale April 6, and will be available to purchase here.Templeman has also shared a new single, ‘Leaving Today’, lifted from his forthcoming debut album.

EXCLUSIVE: Producers Andrew Bendel and Alistair Maclean-Clark of Blue Horizon Productions have optioned the memoir Sea Dragons, Yvonne Foley’s story of how she believed she had been abandoned in Liverpool by her Chinese father as a child only to find out many years later that he and other sailors had been deported.

Pixies have announced their return to Australia and New Zealand, taking to stages this December for their long-paused ‘Come On Pilgrim… It’s Surfer Rosa’ tour – get tickets here.It’ll be the band’s second time taking the run Down Under, after an attempt in 2020 was cut short by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. They played four of the dates on that tour – two headliners in Melbourne, one in Auckland and a set at that year’s Golden Plains festival in regional Victoria – but were forced to cancel shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth.All three cities are featured on the new itinerary, which is set to kick off in Brisbane on December 2.

South Australia’s new premier, Peter Malinauskas, is getting a different kind of attention since getting elected. Shirtless images of the 41-year-old dad first made headlines back in February when Malinauskas attended the Adelaide Aquatic Center for a photo op and decided to cool off in the pool.@GladysBParody, a Gladys Berejiklian parody account, tweeted, “Would do all manner of corrupt things to get with a man like Peter Malinauskas! Hot damm!”I would do all manner of corrupt things to get with a man like Peter Malinauskas! Hot damm!

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefPrime Video will begin filming of its first Australian Amazon original movie, “Five Blind Dates” from next month. The romantic comedy film was created and written by actor and influencer Shuang Hu (“The Family Law,” “Ronny Chieng: International Student”) and actor and comedian Nathan Ramos-Park (“As We Babble On,” “Club Mickey Mouse,” “Bone”).“Five Blind Dates” is an exploration of Chinese culture and family dynamics with a story that follows a tenacious tea shop owner who is told by a fortune-teller that she will find her soulmate on one of the next five dates she goes on.Directed by Shawn Seet (“Baron,” “Storm Boy”) the film will feature an ensemble cast fronted by Hu.

Sigur Rós have added four more shows to their sprawling list of impending tour dates, slating gigs in New Zealand and Australia for this August – get tickets here.The four-date stint will be sandwiched between their 27 shows in North America – the first of which will go down in just under a month – and their 29-date run in the UK and Europe this September. It’ll start in New Zealand, with a lone show at Auckland’s Spark Arena slotted in for Saturday August 6, before the band take to stages in the Australian cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.Tickets for the Auckland and Brisbane dates can be found here, while Sydney and Melbourne fans can get their hands on tickets here.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefWhether or not “The Power of the Dog” wins the big prize at the Academy Awards on Sunday, David Strong, chief executive of the New Zealand Film Commission for the past eight months, is guaranteed to be an in-demand visitor to Los Angeles over the next week.With the Jane Campion-directed film handily showcasing New Zealand’s talent, locations and craft strengths, the country has now reopened its borders to international visitors. Also sweetening the deal are more studio spaces.Ahead of Strong’s flight to Los Angeles, where he has a week of meetings set up with Hollywood decision makers, he spoke to Variety about what New Zealand has to offer going forward.What has been the impact of “The Power of the Dog” and its Oscar nominations? It’s already been a big success story for us.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorVeteran dance music executive Patrick Moxey has announced details of his new label group and has signed a new, worldwide deal for two key record labels with Warner Recorded Music.The agreement, which encompasses the legendary Payday Records and the newly created Helix Records, will see Warner Recorded Music handling global digital distribution via its independent services arm ADA Worldwide, and includes the option for the parties to co-sign new repertoire.The move comes just weeks after Moxey left Ultra, the label he founded during the 1990s, and Sony Music.Helix Records, the group’s new flagship electronic dance music label, which was officially launched this week at Miami Music Week, has already signed several artists, including electronic duo Snakehips, British-Australian band AR/CO, legendary house dj/producer Marshall Jefferson, and tech house maven DJ Susan. Helix and Payday Records have offices in Los Angeles, New York, and London with 36-member team covering marketing and promotions in Canada, Sweden, Germany, France, and Australia.

New Zealand-born Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik might be on the precipice of a banner year. His long-awaited Marilyn Monroe film starring Ana de Armas, “Blonde,” just received an NC-17 rating from the Film Ratings board, something of a first for Netflix, and should make its world premiere later this year (likely Venice, since Netflix avoids Cannes).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe New Zealand International Film Festival will return to an in-person event this year, but in a scaled-down format. It will operate in multiple cities between July 28 and Sept.

Ed Sheeran has teased his next “curveball” project, confirming that it’s coming very soon.Speaking to The Project NZ about his upcoming Australia and New Zealand stadium tour, the singer-songwriter explained the reasoning behind naming his albums after mathematical symbols.“I was like, ‘I don’t really want to be a poster boy’,” Sheeran said. “So I had sort of figured out a way [to do] it with colours and symbols.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorCrunchyroll is inviting fans of the Dragon Ball anime franchise to hop on their Flying Nimbus cloud — and stream more than 500 episodes of the fan-favorite series that were previously available only on Funimation.For the first time, Toei Animation’s “Dragon Ball,” “Dragon Ball Z” and “Dragon Ball GT” are now available to watch on Sony’s Crunchyroll streaming service in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.The three series come to Crunchyroll as part of another wave of new content from Funimation, after Sony on March 1 announced that the two services would merge into a single unified Crunchyroll service. The trio of shows joins “Dragon Ball Super,” which has been available on Crunchyroll with English subtitles.

Ed Sheeran has announced the Australia and New Zealand leg of his ‘+ – = ÷ x Tour’ – find tickets here.The singer-songwriter will embark on the run of dates in February 2023 in support of his most recent studio album, ‘=’, which came out last October. It’ll mark his first trip Down Under since the record-breaking ‘÷’ tour in 2018.Sheeran will kick off the stadium stint in Wellington, NZ on February 2 before making stop-offs in Auckland (February 10), Brisbane (17), Sydney (24), Melbourne (March 2), Adelaide (7) and Perth (12).Tickets go on general sale next Wednesday (March 23), with a pre-sale due to go live on Monday (March 21).

Aitch has shared a brand new single – watch the video for ‘Baby’ below.The track, produced by Fred Again…, is the Manchester rapper’s first solo single of the year and the latest preview of his forthcoming debut album.‘Baby’ samples Ashanti‘s ‘Rock Wit U (Aww Baby)’, with Aitch adding a contemporary rap feel to the R&B classic.The accompanying video, directed by Zain Alexander Shammas, sees the rapper in Malibu, going through the highs and lows of a relationship. The sun-tinged video features VHS clips of intimate moments, plus a cameo from the rapper’s current girlfriend, Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia Dimoldenberg.Aitch, who presented the award for Best Solo Act In The World with Big Zuu to Burna Boy at the BandLab NME Awards 2022 spoke to NME on the red carpet about the single.“I think everyone’s gonna love it,” he said of the track.

Sam Heughan teased his relationship status on the Drew Barrymore Show this week after being spotted locking lips with a mystery brunette.

This week, Outlander star Sam Heughan was spotted in New York locking lips with a stunning mystery brunette and many have been left wondering who the lucky lady is.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Noting the rapid changes taking place in how people consume news and entertainment, New Zealand's government on Thursday said it would merge its public television and radio broadcasters into a single new organization it hopes will be better placed to reach younger audiences.The merger represents a major shakeup to the nation's media landscape, potentially affecting about 1,000 employees across TVNZ and RNZ. The two broadcasters have been dominant players for decades, often setting the news agenda and providing shared cultural moments.But they've also served different roles, with TVNZ selling ads and following a commercial model, while RNZ has run ad-free and acted in more of a public service role, notably in crises like earthquakes.The new organization is likely to have an increased focus on growth areas like on-demand video, online news and podcasts.