20 highlights from the 2017 summer concert season

The last time Kid Cudi made a major announcement, it was a heartbreaking divulgence of his internal struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, which prompted him to enter rehab and put his music (and everything else) on hold.

That was on October 4, 2016.

On Tuesday, August 15, Cudi announced a 27-city tour titled after his sixth studio album, "Passion, Pain & Demon Slaying" (dropped December 2016). Given the battles he's been fighting away from stage, it's probable that he is to view his time on stage with new appreciation and will give fans a show like never before. The tour kicks off on September 30 in Philadelphia, obviously outside of the summer concert season, but the announcement itself gave us something to look forward to as summer ends.

Frank Ocean is a very emotive guy. We hear this through every one of his songs, but more rare than other artists do we get to see this through live performance. He is often dubbed pop's "most enigmatic superstar."

This summer, Frank has been hitting the festival trail (with several cancellations). Until July of this summer, he had not performed at all in the United States since 2014.

Most notably, he did a full set at Panorama NYC on July 28 at Randall Island that was reviewed as a transmitting of intimacy on a grand scale with the "feel of a livestream on Instagram."

Chance is Chicago's boy. It's evident in everything down to Chance The Rapper's Twitter name, "Lil Chano From 79th."

Perfect then that Chance The Rapper shut Chicago's Grant Park down at Lollapalooza. According to USAToday, it was his "biggest hometown show of his career, and possibly the biggest audience in Lollapalooza history."

Bruno Mars has been touring worldwide on his 24K Magic World Tour since March 28 in Antwerp, starting abroad and now throughout the United States. 

The 85-date tour will end not until November 11, but in Detroit on August 12, Mars announced mid-show, "You guys showed me this much love and support tonight, I want to do something special. Tonight I'm going to donate $1 million to our brothers and sisters in Flint, Michigan."

On May 19, Harry Styles performed to a much smaller and "secret" crowd at L.A.'s Troubador than he is accustomed to in his One Direction days. Oh, yeah—he brought out Stevie Nicks to duet "Landslide."

This was Styles' introduction as a solo artist, as his self-titled album debuted on May 12. 

Kendrick Lamar has a platinum album—"DAMN." On July 12, he began his DAMN. Tour in Phoenix, Arizona. (It was crazy.) He is still currently touring and will be in the U.S. until September 2 at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami. See the greatest rapper going at any cost, if you can.

Throughout the tour, Kendrick has announced on Twitter exclusive DAMN. merchandise pop-up shops in select cities.

The Gaga train arrived much before summer with Lady Gaga performing in February at halftime of Super Bowl 51. That night, Feb. 5, she announced her 2017 Joanne World Tour, named after her fifth studio album.

The tour began in Vancouver just this month, on August 1, and will continue around the world until December 14. This is the tour to help us all through the impending seasonal transition.

It's only a matter of time before England dubs Ed Sheeran a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order, and then it will be not only accurate but required to call him Sir Smash.

Sheeran is in the thick of the North American bout of his Divide Tour (ending on October 7 in Nashville). Before North America, he toured Europe off of his extremely successful third studio album, Divide. Forbes reported this summer that, so far, Sheeran's Divide is the best-selling album of 2017. This is his third world tour. 

And if you couldn't catch him this summer or won't be attending a Divide Tour gig in the fall, there's always next year. Sheeran announced a stadium tour in the U.K. and Europe next spring and summer.

On August 14 in Las Vegas, The Weeknd performed at his own collection launch party, PUMA x XO. He unveiled his first ever signature sneaker, the Parrallel with Puma.

This is just a snapshot of what he's been up to. The Weeknd has been on the road for much of 2017 performing mostly off of his No. 1 Billboard 200 album, "Starboy." This summer, he has been and continues to be on Starboy: Legend of the Fall Tour. In fact, he just released a new line of accompanying merch.

Khalid is a 19-year-old music prodigy who has skyrocketed to fame in the last year, give or take. Partnered with his debut album, "American Teen," which dropped on March 3, is an American Teen Tour. And what's more American teen than embarking on your first headlining tour (which began on July 12 and will end on September 21) in the summer while the rest of your friends are getting ready to go back to college? 

Shawn Mendes is all grown up, guys. And he is proving it on his summer headlining tour (off of his sophomore album "Illuminate"), The Illuminate World Tour. Maybe the most appropriately titled tour this summer given what this symbolizes for Mendes's career moving forward.

The tour began in the U.K. in April and has continued on throughout this summer (beginning in North America on July 6). The tour concludes on August 23 in Boston's TD Garden.

Highlights include a guest appearance and "Mercy" duet with Ed Sheeran in Brooklyn on August 16 and, most important to Mendes, who grew up idolizing John Mayer, a duet mash-up ("Mercy" and "In Your Atmosphere") with Mayer back on April 3 in Toronto's Air Canada Centre. 

In May, Bryson Tiller gave us his sophomore album "True To Self" to enjoy as a summer soundtrack. And then, to end May, he announced that the North American leg of his Set It Off Tour featuring H.E.R. and Metro Boomin’. That leg started August 3 in Atlanta. 

Then, this fall, again giving us something to look forward to, Tiller will take SZA to Europe beginning October 13. The two share musical narratives and styles, so the show should be amazingly coherent. 

EDM is pop in 2017, which makes EDM shows very relevant. Lucky for us, they are happening somewhere literally every day.

DJs such as Martin Garrix seem to be playing another show in a new country every night by the looks of social media. But the headliner here is The Chainsmokers first ever headlining tour, the Memories...Do Not Open Tour, which snaked through 40 North American cities through April, May and early June.

British Summer Time is an annual concert bonanza held over two weekends at Hyde Park in London. This year, the festival served as the unexpected last stop on Justin Bieber's Purpose World Tour. 

Bieber performed on Sunday evening, July 2. He was then scheduled to perform 14 more stadium dates in the U.S. and Canada but abruptly cancelled those on July 24.

Bieber's Purpose World Tour began on March 9, 2016, in Seattle and grossed at least $200 million in revenue over six continents and 150-plus shows.

J. Cole's first stop on his ongoing 4 Your Eyez Only Tour was a spectacle for obvious reasons, as is any first show on a tour, but especially because of his entrance. 

On July 6, J. Cole walked through the aisles of Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix flanked by police officers while wearing an orange prison jumpsuit (which he performed in). He does this at every show.

The rapper's fourth studio album "4 Your Eyez Only" went platinum four months after its release in December 2016. Three of Cole's four albums have hit No. 1 on Billboard 200. 

The tour in total spans 57 cities and will end December 9 in Perth, Australia.

So, the guys that everyone made fun of at Super Bowl 50 in February 2016 are actually a really epic alt-rock band. Coldplay was overshadowed during that halftime performance by the previously mentioned Bruno Mars and Beyonce, but who wouldn't be? And actually, the only reason Mars and Beyonce were there was because Coldplay frontman Chris Martin convinced them to.

But anyway, this summer: Coldplay isn't slowing down. The British band has been an icon since its debut in 1996 and in 2017, it's a worldwide Head Full of Dreams Tour. 

Also this summer: Coldplay collaborated with The Chainsmokers on "Something Like This."

For the first time in seven years, Gorillaz have descended on North America with a tour. The Gorillaz, an English virtual band (which makes it all the cooler to see them live) dropped their fifth studio album, "Humanz," in April 2017.

The Humanz Tour began on July 8 in Chicago and will end in North America with an October 13-15 showing at Miami's III Points Festival. 

If this slideshow were compiled last year, this particular slide would be all about Future's co-Summer Sixteen Tour with Drake, which dominated Summer 2016.

But this year, Future headed back out on the road as the headliner on his Future Hndrxx World Tour and surrounded himself with a younger supporting cast: WizKid, Ty Dolla $ign, Post Malone, Zoey Dollaz, A$AP Ferg, Lil Yachty and Rich The Kid. 

Prior to that, Future was on the road for 37 dates on his Nobody Safe Tour from May 4 to June 30, accompanied along the way by Migos, Tory Lanez and A$AP Ferg (originally Kodak Black before he was found guilty of violating house arrest).

As an aside, Future headlined (the inaugural) Summerfest Cruise from June 30 to July 3, which also included DJ Khaled, Lil Wayne, A$AP Rocky and Migos.

This is where the wording gets tricky. In no way was what happened on May 22 during Ariana Grande's Manchester stop of her Dangerous Woman Tour a "highlight" of the summer. In every single way, it was a lowlight. But you can't talk about the 2017 summer concert roster without mentioning this.

Of course, on May 22, shortly after Grande had finished her show at Manchester Arena, a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed 22 and over 100 injured.

I guess this would be what you call the highlight of the worst thing that could possibly happen at a concert: a grand benefit concert in the same city in which tragedy struck. Ariana Grande announced her intentions to hold a benefit concert in Manchester via Twitter on May 26. 

On June 4, Grande plus music's biggest stars such as Coldplay, Justin Bieber, Niall Horan, Miley Cyrus, Mac Miller, Pharrell, Katy Perry and others performed for 50,000 people and raised $3 million.

At the time, it was the largest television audience of the year.