Happy belated Easter! Hope you had a chance to spend some time with family or loved ones this past weekend. I took a few days off and visited with friends in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Great news announced yesterday that Chicago has won the USOC's nod to represent the United States bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Should we win the IOC's approval, this would be the first time Chicago will host the Olympic games. Technically, Chicago won in 1904, but the games were moved at the last minute to St. Louis instead. Ouch! Even if we ultimately don't win at the international level, the improvements that will be made in the infrastructure of the city over the next couple of years to maximize our bid attempt will benefit Chicago regardless. If we do in fact win the competition, the impact will be enormous locally and on a global scale. If people in the rest of the world didn't know how great a place Chicago was prior to this, they certainly will after we're done showing our stuff!

In the meantime, we here in Chicago have another distinction to add to the stack. Genesis just announced a 3rd Chicago show on October 4th to meet ticket demand. Chicago is the only city on the world-wide reunion tour world to be getting 3 shows. New York, London and Paris will each have one night, Los Angeles, Rome and Philadelphia two each. Just as was with the latest Rolling Stones and Who jaunts (and Led Zeppelin and the Beatles in the past), Chicago music fans appetites are unmatched. This recurring phenomenon says volumes about how important music is to Chicagoans and how supportive we are here of the arts. Salute!