Luke Bryan is a country star that is difficult to dislike. His contemporary country sound touches all the key country subjects – celebrating rural life, penning romantic ballads, and putting forth a pretty clean image. Now, he is only on his second headlining tour, but it already has a cultivated a festival atmosphere. Essentially, he has quickly gone from a beloved opening act to a multi-platinum mega star.

That reality, even though it has been confirmed by an Entertainer of the Year Award at the ACM Awards and the Artist of the Year Award at last year’s American Country Awards, has not changed his character. At least that is how it appears to his thousands of fans in the stands.

Amanda St. Amand, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, wrote what feels more like an ode than a review after the June 14^th concert at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. Apparently he does not show an ounce of cockiness or self-awareness of his fame while performing. Otherwise he may not play an hour and a half set before coming back out for an encore and he may have preferred to force deep cuts on his audience instead of playing the hits those who paid good money for Luke Bryan tickets expect to hear and sing along with.

Of course, this attitude may show that he is very much aware of his fame and the fleeting nature of such success. He is not alone in the contemporary country sound. Luke Bryan belongs to a class of performer that includes performers like Kenny Chesney, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, and many more.

Luckily, it appears his humility will remain intact, at least until the end of this tour. That tour ends on October 26, 2013 and the same bands that began the concert schedule with him, Thompson Square and Florida Georgia Line, will finish it opening for the singer-songwriter.

Three weeks. Andrea Bocelli Tickets will be available in the United States for a total of three weeks in 2013. The man whose signature timbre has served him well over the course of two decades and has made huge fans of world leaders like Queen Elizabeth and Hollywood celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, is sparingly back on the road in support of the album Passione.

Now, he may just accrue as many appearances on reality television programs as he has live shows (12). Bocellli seems to make appearances on an American Idol, The Voice, or a televised talent show in just about every nation. This is a testament to his popularity and the increasing popularity of the classical-pop genre in the United States.

This fusion of contemporary and classical has been a mainstay in Europe since Bocelli began his career back in the early 1990s. It has been lurking in the United States on the adult contemporary and world charts since that same time. But, it is only now that Bocelli and singers like him are getting their due respect.

Yes, the very programs mentioned above, such as American Idol, are the reason he is a chart and commercial success. For instance, My Christmas, went double-platinum and that year he made television appearances on this side of the pond acting as a mentor or coach.

Passione, the new album, has yet to go gold in the United States, but it will get their as it has Jennifer Lopez and Nelly Furtado are featured on the album and he has plenty of opportunity to coach a new talent for the televised audiences in 2013. Perhaps that aspiring star he aids will join him on the road filling in for Lopez and Furtado to bring the album’s duets to life.

The end of the NHL season is nearly here and a few teams are on the cusp of losing their playoff spot. These clubs include a couple of New York-based teams (Islanders and Rangers) in the Eastern Conference and the St. Louis Blues and the Columbus Blue Jackets in the Western Conference.

The Islanders are going to have to protect their slight point lead and their sixth seed over the course of four road games. Luckily, the Islanders have thrived on the road (and conversely struggled at home). So, winning two out of four against the Winnipeg Jets, Carolina Hurricanes, Philadelphia Flyers, and the Buffalo Sabres should not be too difficult.

The Rangers were not supposed to have nearly as difficult a season in 2013. They were supposed to be fighting for one of the top spots in the Atlantic Division. They were certainly not supposed to be hoping to hold on to the eighth seed. They cannot even blame this on injuries or a struggling netminder. Instead, the addition of Rick Nash has not made the offense any more potent (they may be even less!). Still, four of the final five games should be easy wins.

The Blues seem to be pretty set in the seventh spot. They only have a three point lead over the first team out of the postseason, but they have five games remaining when most other clubs have four. Also, with three games left against Western Conference bottom feeders (two against the Avalanche and one against the Flames) St. Louis should have little issue getting into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Blue Jackets have overtaken the Red Wings for the eighth seed, but they play one less game than a now very desperate and talented Detroit hockey team. Unlike the other teams mentioned, Columbus has a difficult schedule ahead. They have to play Anaheim and Los Angeles, two strong playoff teams, and Dallas, a club with a winning record and an outside shot of taking the B. Jackets playoff spot.

Of course, plenty of other teams are working hard to improve their seeding, so NHL tickets should be very popular throughout the United States and Canada.

Make no mistake about it, the Denver Nuggets 13-game winning streak is not an aberration. This is a team that has won 36 of the last 46 games. The Nuggets are a dangerous basketball team.

Yet, there is not a single identifiable star on roster and the defense is far from “lock-down” status. But, the team has managed to win by coming together as a team and putting on such an impressive offensive display that it is difficult to image the Nuggets being stopped in the postseason.

The Nuggets are currently third in the NBA in scoring as a team, pouring in 106.1 points per game, and has the fifth seed in the Western Conference. Denver has been able to put up those kinds of numbers in years past and has been an even better seed in the past, but that was when Carmelo Anthony was the focal point and the offense was little more than isolation play after isolation play. Come playoff time all the opposing defense had to do was amp up the half-court defense and clamp down on Melo to force a first round exit.

This team is different. Denver scores in two ways. The first is quite predictable for a team with so many young athletes, pushing the basketball. Come the postseason the competition is going to slow the game down. Luckily, George Karl’s rotation is equally capable of scoring in the half court.

The players without the ball make great cuts to the basket and the players with the ball are unselfish enough to find those players dashing to the rim. Add a couple solid three point shooters and this is a difficult crew to stop. As a result, the stat sheet shows six players averaging more than 10 points a game and three players averaging more than 5 assists a game.

This group has been able to beat the Thunder, a team with most of the offense taken care of by two players, twice this month with this offensive formula. The Nuggets also have big wins against the Grizzlies (a methodical half court team) and the Clippers (one of the best teams in the NBA) during this streak. With wins like these it is simply becoming more and more difficult to imagine Denver Nuggets tickets not being available available up through at least the second round of the 2013 playoffs.

Nothing comes easy in Philadelphia. This sports city seems to spend the year wishing they were playing in less competitive division. For those with Philadelphia Flyers tickets to Wells Fargo Center, this remains just as true a statement. The team has a shortened regular season to build chemistry after an offseason witnessing a rush to replace those players who fled town or whose medical conditions have simply become too perilous for them to consider taking the ice once again.

The forwards need time to time to incorporate a trio of young guns. Brayden Schenn, Sean Couturier, and Matt Read are most definitely talented, but they are inexperienced and this regular season they cannot afford to be with seeding in the NHL playoffs demanding near perfection from them. They are not the stars, thankfully. The Flyers prized possession is Claude Giroux. Giroux will not break the 100-point barrier this season but he should in the next few seasons. Instead, Philadelphia will continue to chant his name in the face of utter lack of respect from the rest of the hockey community.

The center and his love of the assist will make right wing Scott Hartnell a happy man and will make whoever emerges as a serious option on the left wing an equally thrilled component. Center Danny Briere leads the second line with Sean Couturier or Matt Read likely to make the jump to the left side. Whoever remains will be manning the third line. So, while the Top Six may not be the very best in the NHL, this roster has a rich talent pool of forwards that go almost 9 deep.

The defensemen are a veteran unit enjoying the addition of Luke Schenn. Schenn arrives because Chris Pronger endured a horrific concussion that should lead straight to retirement. Schenn is young, but talented and is a good offensive-oriented blueliner to help bring the puck up while Andrej Meszaros and Kimmo Timonen lock it down. They are protecting Ilya Bryzgalov, the supposed answer at goal. Last season he had a terrible season and this season he needs to prove it was an aberration, lest he want to face a truly angry Philadelphia Flyers crowd, the kind that will find Flyer Tickets just to throw something at the player they choose to hate.

The New York Rangers have a condensed regular season to turn an exciting offseason into a Stanley Cup. It is not that the front office made drastic changes, but the few they did are big ones. Specifically, the addition of Rick Nash to the front line has hockey experts certain this team will dominate the NHL and fans are not willing to accept anything less than a fifth Stanley Cup. New York Rangers Tickets to Madison Square Garden are certainly being snapped up with the intention of enjoying a championship run.

Nash joins a phenomenal Top Six. He and Marion Gaborik are wings who can score with the best in the league. Brad Richards and Derek Stepan are centers with a knack for distributing the puck. Richards is also an adept scorer, while Stepan is a speedster who is not of the scoring caliber. The New York Rangers also will feature wings Ryan Callahan and Carl Hagelin. Most teams would already have these guys set in lines, but Coach John Tortorella is one who likes to tinker. Fans will be upset with this kind of behavior as they are well aware the lines need time to coalesce and this means plenty of time on the ice together.

If the Rangers were nothing more than a front line, then these expectations would be lofty. Thankfully, New York does not suffer from such a lack of talent elsewhere. It begins with the goalies. Henrik Lundqvist is coming into his prime but will not be overplayed with Martin Biron a very capable netminder.

The blueline is set, unlike the forwards. Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh are the first line of defensemen. McDonagh is only getting better and he happens to be doing this as the Rangers are the top contender in the Atlantic Division, the Eastern Conference, and perhaps the entire NHL. In addition, a healthy Marc Staal and an offensive minded Michael Del Zotto bolster the effectiveness of the second line.

The Minnesota Vikings are playing amazing football at just the right time. The team managed to tighten the defense and let Adrian Peterson run them into the NFL playoffs, where the team begins the postseason with Minnesota Vikings tickets against a team they cost home field advantage in Week 17. This will be a game marked by rivalry as well as Super Bowl aspirations.

Adrian Peterson fell short of breaking Eric Dickerson’s regular season record by eight yards, but he is coming into the playoffs having run for 210, 154, 212, and 199 yards in four of the last five games of the regular season. He has scored 5 touchdowns in the same time span. It is not as if opposing defenses are worried about Chris Ponder throwing, so these numbers are really quite incredible. He is beating eight- and nine-man fronts. There is little reason to believe he will not continue to do so against the kind of elite run defenses he saw when he accomplished those feats described earlier.

The Minnesota Vikings would be thrilled if Chris Ponder could recreate his game against the Packers. He did not excel so much as find the opportunity to throw three touchdown passes. Previous to this game, Ponder had not thrown for more than 200 yards since early November. He is obviously going to be a game manager during these playoffs and Coach Leslie Frazier would be wise to use him as such. Fans who saw him play at the Metrodome will second this.

The Vikes defense is not the Purple People Eaters of old, but they have been playing like a dominant unit that stops the run and creates turnovers while putting pressure on the quarterback. Minnesota’s top tacklers are linebackers Chad Greenway and Jasper Brinkley, safety Harrison Smith, and cornerback Antonio Winfield. Yet, it is up to defensive ends Jared Allen and Brian Robinson to keep the defense in the postseason. This veteran unit has demonstrated they can play at a high level in the past, so the regular season numbers can go out the window for this new season.

The Denver Broncos barely made the playoffs last season, but this season they dominated the entire season through and enter the 2013 NFL playoffs a team with a real quarterback and a Top 6 scoring defense. There will be at least a few home games at Sports Authority Field at Mile High and a trip to Super Bowl 47 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome is very much in play. There is reason to believe the Denver Broncos tickets this season and this time it has nothing to do with a wild card like Tim Tebow.

This time the reason for hope is significantly more tangible on the field. His name is Peyton Manning and he chose to play in Mile High despite being better suited for one of the other suitors. The result has been one of the best seasons of his career. Manning had the second year of his 15-year career. He managed to do so with a very young receiving core. Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker took up the outside and Brandon Stokely ran the slot routes. The Denver Broncos offense was not pass heavy though. In addition to averaging 280 yards through the air, a complement of running backs managed to run for 110 yards.

While the offense has been enough to take the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC West, which is not too difficult task, the Broncos defense is going to carry the football team beyond the division playoff round. Denver managed to sport a Top 5 scoring defense. The team gives up passing yards, but they play the bend and not break game, tightening up in the Red Zone.

Even if Peyton is not able to recreate the success of the brief Tebow era, Bronco fans are well aware that the future is far from over. Manning may only have a few seasons until he retires, but the Broncos are going to be Super Bowl contenders until then.

It’s a rare thing these days that the best game of the week would actually fall on Monday night. Well, here in Week 14, it has come true for the first time in a long time. The 11-1 Houston Texans are traveling north to Foxboro, Massachusetts to play the 9-3 New England Patriots. These are the division leaders in their retrospective divisions (the AFC South and AFC East) are playing what should be one of the best games of the season.

The Texans arrive an absurdly good road game (6-0 to this point), but they have yet to play in truly cold weather. And…once again they will avoid the bitter chill as they travel north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The forecast calls for mid-50s and rain. The rain is hardly going to be an issue as Houston runs a balanced offense, boasting the sixth most rushing yards (142.5) and the 10^th most passing yards (247.1) per game.

New England is no slouch in the balanced offensive game. They used to rely solely on Tom Brady to find Wes Welker underneath and Rob Gronkowski down the seam. This season the Patriots are averaging the 8^th most rushing yards (140.8) and the 6^th most passing yards (285.5) per game.

A look at recent games shows the Texans dominance to be slipping. Two of the three last wins have been overtime wins against sub-.500 football teams. The last truly big win came in Week 10 in a win against the second-half Cutler-less Chicago Bears. The Pats decimated the Colts and the Jets in two of the past three weeks but last week’s seven-point win over the Dolphins is hardly something to brag about.

Yet, this game remains the best on the schedule because all of the recent woes will be left behind a game not perceived to be over before the first quarter even begins. These teams are playing for pride and a possible bye in the first round. The Texans can afford to lose this one, but this would put them within reach of the Denver Broncos and the Baltimore Ravens. Those two other AFC division leaders have the same record as the Pats, so this game is perhaps even more important for them. No matter which team decides to care more, these Texans-Patriots tickets are going to be an amazing experience.

Hard rock fans get to end the year with a co-headlining tour for the ages. From the middle of November to the middle of December 2012, 3 Doors Down and Daughtry will be co-headlining with late 1990s legends P.O.D. showing up to open for 19 glorious nights of rock at venues across the nation.

These 3 Doors Down and Daughtry tickets have these three bands crisscrossing the U.S. in a manner that hardly makes rhyme or reason. It begins with a trip across the Deep South heading into Texas, moves northeast into New York State, takes a hold of the westward winds and comes through the Great Lake States before heading north to St. Paul, Minnesota and taking on shows in Colorado and California just in time to avoid what is supposed to be one of the coldest winters in recent years. It must be nice to be a trio of rock gods.

3 Doors Down is heading out to support a Greatest Hits album, which means fans will get to enjoy the charting basics (“Kryptonite” and “Here Without You”) with a couple new tracks like “One Light”. Daughtry is still touring in support of Break This Spell. Fans may be expecting to have new material soon, but with just how often this group is on the road new material may be limited to a new single or two every few months. P.O.D. is out with a new album, Murdered Love. The album marks a return to the genre mashing that defined the beginning of the group’s success.

New material or old, this three headed serpent is going to be dominating venues across the country, proving that despite the popularity of country music and the rise of indie pop, hard rock has a big place in the modern American music scene.