Downtown businesses are showing their support of the Indianapolis Colts by serving up true Blue specials and events this weekend.  The Colts square off against the New Orleans Saints in Miami Sunday, Feb. 7 at 6:28 p.m.  Come Downtown with friends and family to cheer the Colts on to victory!

Mayor Ballard has declared this week Super Blue Week for the City of Indianapolis. All residents are encouraged to wear BLUE the entire week. Also be sure to check out the Central Canal.  Mayor Ballard and the Colts dyed the Canal BLUE Monday!

Downtown restaurants and bars (alpha order) showing the game Feb. 7:

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Indianapolis Star & Metromix music critic Dave Lindquist reports tonight “Lady Gaga fans responded with tears and anger after an undisclosed illness forced the pop star to postpone her Thursday concert on the campus of Purdue University.”  Jason Derulo and Semi Precious Weapons, opening acts on tonight’s bill, performed before Purdue officials announced Lady Gaga would not.  The singer was apparently struck by a sudden illness which caused paramedics to advise her take the night off.

The show has been rescheduled for January 26; current tickets will be honored, no refunds will be offered.

Read more from Lindquist here.

Lady Gaga is known for her pop hits Poker Face,” “Paparazzi,” “Just Dance,” & “Bad Romance.”

The staff at Z99.5 energetically sat through a video conference on the Future of Radio. Who knew the future of radio was so exciting?

Billy Squier, Puddle of Mudd, Candlebox, Night Ranger, Morris Day & The Time, Loverboy, Cowboy Mouth, The Elms, Jennie DeVoe, Stereo Deluxe, Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, ten award-winning BBQ teams from around the country, and more … all part of the 14th Annual Rib America Festival downtown next weekend. 

Rib America is held in Military Park at the crossing of New York & West Streets from September 4-7.  Admission is free before 5:00pm and just $5.00 after; plus, admission includes the concerts!  A limited number of reserved tickets are available for $25.00-$30.00 through Ticketmaster outlets.  Children 12-under, free.

Are you going to Rib America?  Comments from past years?  Share them here on the blog and Follow Us on Twitter.

*Appearing on the Budweiser Music Stage: 

I just wanted to let you know about a couple new songs you’ll hear starting this week on Z99.5:

• Michael Franti & Spearhead with “Say Hey (I Love You)” from their CD All Rebel Rockers, recorded nearly a year ago in Jamaica.  Franti is a part-time political activist and part-time musician who blends funk, reggae, jazz, soul, pop, and rock into his art.
• Bon Jovi is back with “We Weren’t Born To Follow.”  Bon Jovi has already sold 120-million records worldwide and became the top grossing tour act of 2008.  Their new CD, The Circle, is due in stores November 10.  Hear a clip of the single here, or listen for it on Z99.5!

Aerosmith has cancelled the remainder of their summer tour, including their planned August 30 stop at the Verizon Wireless Music Center.  Ticket refunds will be available through your original point of purchase.

The cancellation follows Steven Tyler’s fall off a stage last week in Sturgess, which resulted in a broken shoulder and stitches on his head.

If you’re one of the millions of “smart phone” owners, I want to make sure you know about this app!  FlyCast allows you to listen to hundreds of radio stations from around the country in real-time, including Z99.5!  The quality is fantastic, especially for mobile phone streaming.  But, there are some other cool features that make FlyCast worthy of download.  Oh … and, did I mention it’s FREE?  Some of those features:

• FlyCast displays the title/artist/CD of every song we play.
• You can buy the song playing with a click and download it to your smart phone.
• You can share the song or the show you’re streaming to your friends through Twitter or Facebook.
• You can “rewind” the live stream to “go back” and listen to a song again, or even go back and listen to the past two hours and fast-forward through what you don’t want to hear.

FlyCast is a free download; but, premium versions are also available that let you record up to 20 hours of programming to listen on demand.

Check it out, and take Z99.5 To Go on your BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android smart phones.

Find out how to download FlyCast here.

It’s time for me to let you know about two new songs we’ve recently started playing on Z99.5:

• “I Gotta Feeling” is the second release from the new Black Eyed Peas CD The E.N.D. Personally, I think it’s a new sound for the band – it came up twice on my iPod playlist today and I had to look to find out the artist.
• Linkin Park is back with the release of “New Divide” from the Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen soundtrack.  It rocks!

We’re excited about our new website! Check here for the inside scoop on giveaways, contests, events, and more!

Listen all weekend long to win 4 tickets to Kings Island!

Check the Contests page this week to win tikcets to see King Tut at The Children’s Museum! 

Why am I using so many exclamation points?!?

Freeloaderz will win tickets to see the new movies Harry Potter or Funny People, Indians tickets, or Grand Slam Tennis games for Wii.

Special congrats to Brittany Antonacchio, David Burch, Alisha Burman, Tina Sellars, and Diana Weaver who are just a few of the MANY listeners who won tickets to see Stereo Deluxe, Howie Day, and Jessie James at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on August 11th!

Welcome to the brand-spankin’-new Z99.5 website.  We’ve put an emphasis on delivering internet only content while becoming even more interactive. 

You will immediately notice all the new features on the homepage like our new Playlist widget, Z-TV box, and poll.  We’ve also simplified the main navigation bar across the top of our page for quicker access to our most popular content and new features. 

Let’s check out the home page first.

• “As Heard On Air” quickly pulls up links to the hottest topics we’re talking about.
• You will also find prominent links on the top right to listen to our live stream, access songs we play, log-in to your Freeloaderz account, and request a song online.
• Our “now playing” widget displays the current song we’re playing, the songs we play most, and the most recent songs played.  You can also watch that song’s music video, read the song lyrics, buy it, see the performer’s bio, or download a ringtone.  The widget is portable, which means you can share it on your personal blog or Facebook page.
• The new Z-TV Video Player is right in the center so you can watch videos of in-studio artist performances, station events you missed, and the latest “Off The Cuff” video with Paul Poteet & Tom Davis.  All the videos can also be easily shared with your friends.
• Across the bottom of our homepage, you’ll see a daily poll and the newest Freeloader rewards available.  We also have a convenient link to our Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, & YouTube pages.

Our new main navigation menu gives you lots of choices on the site:

• Hosts/Shows links you to our programming lineup, deejay bios, links to their Facebook/Twitter/Blog pages, and a look ahead to what is coming up on their shows each week.
• Listen Live is another quick link for you to stream Z99.5 and instructions to listen to our streams on your Blackberry and iPhone via FlyCast.  You’ll also find podcasts from the Smiley Morning Show here, and you can subscribe to them for automatic download through iTunes.
• Watch takes you to all our Z-TV videos and photo galleries, where you can now rate and comment on your favorite pictures.
• Blogs will take you to off-air commentary from all our personalities, as well as Backstage Blogs like mine.  Our new blogs are a two-way street; so, please comment on them!
• Concerts/Events is self-explanatory.  You’ll love our convenient calendar to help plan your social life.
• Contests links you to all the fun stuff you can win for visiting our site, or being a Freeloader.

I’ll tell you more about the new WZPL.com website in the coming days.  Meanwhile, poke around, explore, and let us know if you like it.

Scott