1st Midwest Bank Amphitheatre Vip Club

First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre's 2011 season

The lineup slated to take the stage this summer in Tinley Park reads like a who’s who of music.

From the most recently announced tour — Blink-182 and My Chemical Romance (Aug. 20) — and Southland native band Disturbed headlining Rockstar Mayhem Festival 2011 (Aug. 5) to Kings of Leon (Aug. 26) and Tim McGraw (July 16), First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre’s 2011 season already has live music fans buzzing.

“This season’s lineup is extremely strong,” said Jon Reens, regional marketing manager for Live Nation, which operates FMBA, 19100 S. Ridgeland Ave.

“We’re starting out this Saturday (June 4) with the Q101 Jamboree event, but then as we go through the summer we’ve got great talent on numerous days.

“We’re filling every month with a good amount of talent, so I’m feeling very good about how this summer shaped up.”

THE SCHEDULE

Although there have only been 14 shows announced thus far, compared with the 21 that took place during the 2010 season, more shows could be announced soon.

“The booking team is continuously looking to add more talent to the year,” Reens said. “There’s always something else out there. Whether or not it confirms always remains to be seen.”

Already confirmed for 2011 is a collection of country acts, festivals, powerhouse 1980s bands and old favorites.

“Motley Crue is coming back with Poison (July 1), so that’s a strong lineup. Def Leppard is coming with Heart (July 15) and Journey with Foreigner and Night Ranger (July 30), those are all in July,” Reens said.

“We do have Jason Aldean (Aug. 27), who is like one of the big up-and-comers in country music. We’ve got Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow (Aug. 19), so that’s the first time in a while that he’s been at the building.

“Then we’ve got Warped Tour (July 9) and Mayhem Festival. We’ve got a round of country shows — Toby Keith (Sept. 24), Rascal Flatts (June 25), Brad Paisley (Aug. 6) — coming, so we’ve got a full lineup of things that run the gamut.”

Q101 JAMBOREE

While FMBA has kicked off its season with a country act in recent years, Q101 Jamboree 2011 will be this season’s opener due to tour schedules.

DEF LEPPARD HIATUS ENABLED NEW VAULT PROJECTS | Music News | 93.3 ...

Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott told us that finally having a break from current band duties enabled the group to finally start dealing with their past. In addition to the band's newly-released Mirrorball collection -- marking the group's first-ever live album, they've also published Def Leppard: The Definitive Visual History . The book features 450 classic and unseen photos, with text from legendary rock photographer Ross Halfin , and commentary by the band. Def Leppard and Heart kick off their joint tour tomorrow night (June 15th) in West Palm Beach, Florida at the Cruzan Amphitheatre.

Elliott admitted that had the band not been enjoying a prolonged hiatus, neither project would've happened: "Having just done, kind of five solid years on the road on two albums; we decided to take the year off, which has basically turned into 18 months, really. It gave us just a little bit more time to decompress, y'know, and make it less painful to be looking over your shoulder. Consequently, we've put together a coffee table book of photographs from the bygone days, if you like. And it gave us the opportunity to cherry pick some stuff for a live album that I dare say we would've said no to had we been going straight into doing a studio record when we came off the road in 2009."

The tracklist for Def Leppard's Mirrorball is: