The Velvet Rope Backstage (meet Jewel!) and Preferred Tickets for some of Jewel's June show dates go on presale to UNEDITED TODAY, March 19 at 12:00 noon local time.
These shows include: Sacramento, Reno, Las Vegas, San Diego, Saratoga, Jacksonville, and Bend.

June 21 - Les Schwab Amphitheatre - Bend, OR

UNEDITED Presale: General, presale tickets for Bend, OR, go on sale to UNEDITED subscribers TODAY, Friday, March 19 at 9:00 am local time.

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Pre-sale for the Clio, MI show July 18 have start today at 1pm EST.

I'm recovering from a hard drive failure. Not everything was backed up. The news database was backed up in early january and the guestbook and message board were not backed up. In fact, i lost the source code for them.

I've uploaded most of the static content. The download area has seveal files missing still. I'll try to get that fixed by early next week.

If you tried to email me between tuesday and friday i might not have received the emails. (i.e. they could have bounced!) Please send your e-mails again.

Hi Angels,

Jewel did her first show of her Australian tour last night, and her 2nd
show in Hobart (a good 1200 km to the south) is at present well under way .
I've been waiting almost five years to see her again live and it was well
worth the wait. She was wonderful. And she was stunningly beautiful! She
wore a diaphanous pink top closed only at the bustline, with a red bra
underneath, and jeans. Her hair was blown by the wind throughout the show,
which created a lovely effect. She said at the beginning she was very tired
and still jet-lagged, but it didn't really show. She did have some trouble
with her guitars, which kept going out of tune. It was a hot day -- mid-30s
-- and humid; a thunder storm threatened for a while but luckily passed
us by.

It was an outside venue, set in a vineyard and winery in the Hunter Valley,
about 250km north of Sydney. I drove with my daughter and her partner from
Canberra, over 600 km away. My daughter's partner was not a fan, but was
very impressed by what he saw and heard. How could anyone not be?

Jewel presented a fairly conservative setlist, almost all the songs coming
from her CDs, especially POY. Here is what she did:

1. Near You Always -- a "traditional" opening
2. You Were Meant For Me
3. Little Sister

-- "Bob Dylan must be gay" story

4. Sometimes It Be That Way
5. Hands
6. Life Uncommon -- she gave up half way through the song as the guitar was
out of tune
7. Cold Song

-- "Can I see your boobs?" story

8. Race Car Driver
9. Stand
10. 2 Become 1
11. Who Will Save Your Soul -- with a great scat section

Encores:

12. Foolish Games
13. Break Me -- the highlight of the show for me, but I just love this
song, acoustic
14. Morning Song
15. Down So Long -- This was requested. Jewel said she couldn't remember
it but spent some time with a guy trying to get the words. Finally she
gave up on him and got a girl to come up on stage; this girl, whose name
was Sarah, said she could play it and knew the words. So Jewel gave her the
guitar and they did the song together, a duet towards the end. Sarah played
it very well and really did know all the words. It was great and the
audience -- about 6000 of them -- loved it. Then Jewel asked the audience
if Sarah could sing one of her own songs, since she was a songwriter too.
Naturally the they roared their approval, and Sarah sang a song called
"Butterflies", which was quite Jewelesque. She was terrific and got an ovation.
16. Intuition -- Jewel asked for 5 girls to come up on stage to dance while
she did "intuition". There was a mad scramble and about 15 ended up on
stage, despite the efforts of the security people to keep the numbers down.
I guess many of the girls were at least tipsy if not drunk -- we were at a
winery that was promoting its product after all. Jewel had all these girls
dancing around her, many trying to get as near to her as possible. But she
kept on singing. At the end they mobbed her, all wanting to hug her. And
Jewel kept smiling all the while. Then she was gone and the show was over.

Fifteen and a bit songs -- about 90 minutes. Singles from the albums were
the core, with Race Car Driver as the only non-album song ("Sometimes It
Be That Way" was on "This Way" and "Cold Song" was on the 2 CD POY and the
vinyl POY). Jewel was surprised when someone requested Violet Eyes, amazed
that anyone knew the song. I heard calls for Emily and Nicotine Love -- my
two favourites -- but as you can see she didn't do them. Maybe in Sydney,
where I shall see her again on Wednesday, and on Thursday and on Friday.

Take care,
Barry Howarth

The stand single is available in iTunes (applemusic.com) and includes remixes. The price is around 8 dollars. In addition, Apple has added all of the full albums to the store. Originally, This Way was not imported.

Shot in 2001, Jewel's first-ever live DVD, LIVE AT HUMPHREY'S BY THE BAY, showcases her folk rock style at its absolute finest. Bonus features included on LIVE AT HUMPHREY'S BY THE BAY include a photo gallery, 3 bonus live songs at various stops on the road to San Diego, an "On The Road" video which captures the lighter behind the scenes moments, a previously unseen interview, as well as a discography.

The DVD will feature a a recording of Jewel in concert. The DVD hits stores March 23, but you may also pre-order it on jeweljk.com to guarantee a March 23 delivery date.

1. Per La Gloria d'Adorari
2.Near You Always
3.Kiss The Flame
4. Rosy And Mick
5. Everything Breaks Sometime
6. Sometimes It Be That Way
7. Grey Matter
8. Break Me
9. New Wild West
10. You Were Meant For Me
11.Hands
12. Everybody Needs Someone Sometime
13. Who Will Save Your Soul

The track listing indidates this was recorded around "This Way." In fact, this might be the "test" concert that was performed right before the CD came out. I would guess it was recoreded around spring/summer 2001.

Stephen H. via e-mail:

This is from the Australian paper "The Daily Telegraph":


I won't pretend: Jewel
By Nui Te Koha
February 12, 2004



JEWEL has a reputation. She's a hard arse. She's difficult. She's a
bitch. Her record label is always advising her to "be nice".


"But, God, I hate it when I pretend, and I used to do that a lot in my
life," she says.


Jewel Kilcher stopped pretending 10 years ago. She quit a string of
nowhere jobs to follow her creative heart, even if it meant poverty. And
initially it did.


Jewel was homeless, living in a car as she fought to have her songs
heard in a small cafe near San Diego."As I get older, I am happier,"
Jewel, 29, says. "I really feel I have love in my life. My only focus
isn't just trying to get out of my car to make a living.


"I can finally say: 'Jewel, enjoy yourself, you don't have to fight
every day the way you used to'. I was fighting for the most basic thing:
survival. I couldn't afford water or to go to a movie or buy a new dress
or medication. I was trying to get by in a world that just sucks."


Even the mad scramble by record companies to sign Jewel for her 1997
breakthrough album, /Pieces of You/, meant an artistic fight. "I was
fighting every day to make a folk record at the height of grunge," she
says. "But I don't have to fight like that any more. And for me that is
an amazing, amazing thing."


Amazing, too, that in a culture of fallen pop tarts, Jewel has followed
her instincts for nearly a decade and won every time.


Her latest album, /0304/, is a perfect example. It was a dance-pop
record at a time when most observers felt the genre had imploded, yet in
Jewel's left-field hands, the possibilities were curiously expanded.
Intuition, the first single, blended dance, urban, folk, pop and an
iron-fisted message to sellouts. Elsewhere on /0304/, it was Jewel in
flip mode, juxtaposing sweetness-and-light lyrics to darker, menacing
electronic sounds.


That America's favourite folk girl next-door dug a hole into the
electronica underground was not lost on critics either. Suddenly, it was
all about the transformation of Jewel. Naturally she finds the
commentary hilarious.


"Racism and fascism in the music industry are still rampant," she says.
"Open-minded people suddenly become closed-minded when a folk artist
uses a dance or urban beat. That is stupid. It is like telling an artist
not to use yellow."


Jewel says the ideas on /0304/ are truthful. "There is nothing phony
about what I'm doing. There is nothing underhanded. I'm rich. I don't
need a hit. I am doing things I think are right," she says.


"I know a lot of artists who stay and do the same things because they
are afraid that, if they change, they'll be called sellouts. This is
retarded. Everybody changes, everybody evolves.


"Today my music shows all the influences I've had in my life, from The
Cure to Run DMC to Bob Dylan."


Besides, Jewel has already told her record label she'll never write
another /You Were Meant For Me./


"To stay authentic," Jewel says. "That is a vow I took when I started my
career and it's what I've stuck to."


In that way, Jewel is proudly old-fashioned. Word is bond. Say what you
mean. Her longtime boyfriend, rodeo star Ty Murray, insists on those
values.


"He is very Old West. Right is right, wrong is wrong. You choose what's
right and you have character. You make amends for your mistakes and you
have character. I really value that. It's a good kind of old-fashioned,"
she says. "I do love belonging to him and I enjoy serving him. And I
think he enjoys the same. It's a mutual give."


Jewel shrugs when asked about the secret to a strong and viable career.
She is not the ideal case study, she says. She hates the recording
studio and in 1998, after increasing boredom with the music industry,
there was a two-year hiatus.


"In this business, you could be obscure tomorrow but I just don't care,"
she says. "Will I always be in the spotlight? Probably not. But those
things have never been interesting to me. Expressing myself, provoking,
saying something with layers - that is interesting." And change?


"Ah, yes," she laughs. "That transformation of Jewel thing. People have
strict ideas on what a sellout is. Sometimes you can do something that
is perceived to be a sellout but it's actually quite authentic.


"I know a lot of rock bands that want to change their music. They want
to create and explore but don't because they will be called sellouts.
The fact that they won't change makes them sissy-hearted sellouts. The
thing is, nobody knows you better than you. Maybe your mum, if you're
lucky."


Is sexuality in music a sellout?


"Contrived sexuality is a card that is used very commonly. But I don't
think anybody has the right to sit back and say how anybody else should
make a living.


"But sexuality is something that should not be separated out of you,
like a lobotomy. Every other artist in every other genre, from sculptors
to painters and poets, a woman's sexuality in these fields is really
intrinsic to what they do.


"But somehow in music, you fall into two categories: you are either
sexually exploitative or lyrically exploitative."


Her /0304/ attempts a balance: "Sexuality and intelligence can
co-exist," she says.


Jewel performs at A Day on the Green, Bimbadgen Estate, Hunter Valley,
on Saturday and Sydney Opera House on February 18 to 20.

/The Daily Telegraph/