Classic Rock 93.9

Elton John‘s been a superstar for more than 50 years, and during that time, he’s sported endless pairs of glasses, some of which were incredibly elaborate. He recently had to go through them to get ideas for a new signature line of eyewear he’s created for a British company called SpecSavers — which means he finally got a full count on just how many he has.

Elton’s husband and manager, David Furnish, tells Hello! magazine, “We have catalogued and in storage about 15,000 pairs of eyewear.”  He keeps a large part of that collection in his home in Windsor, England, and David says they didn’t realize just how many pairs they had until, “We emptied all the drawers and all of the cabinets and cupboards in the house.”

“They completely filled the dining room table, which seats 14 people,” he adds. “And that was when we started to play around and group them and realized they’re almost like chapters of his story.”

“Eyewear has given him a wonderful opportunity to be so individual, so expressive, and to decide what face he wants to put on the world every time he goes out the door,” David explains. “It’s an integral part of him. He doesn’t feel complete until he’s wearing the right frame.”

Elton used to own far more than 15,000 pairs of glasses, but over the years, he’s auctioned them off in periodic purges of his many possessions.  Last year, just one pair of his glasses sold for nearly $23,000 at auction.

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Pink Floyd has landed a new #1 album in the U.K.

The recently released soundtrack to the band’s 1972 concert film, Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, tops the U.K. Albums chart this week, making it the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band’s seventh U.K. #1 album.

Their previous U.K. chart toppers include 1970’s Atom Heart Mother, 1975’s Wish You Were Here, 1983’s The Final Cut, 1994’s The Division Bell, 1985’s Pulse (Live) and 2014’s The Endless River.

Interestingly their iconic album The Dark Side of the Moon only made it to #2.

Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII was also big on vinyl, with the album landing at #1 on the Official Vinyl Albums chart as well.

Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII is a film of the band’s October 1971 performance at the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Italy, which was the first live concert ever to take place at the site. A remastered version of the movie was released in theaters in April.

The release of the soundtrack marked the first full-length live record of the concert.

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Metallica‘s concert in Blacksburg, Virginia, on Wednesday rocked in more ways than one.

According to ABC affiliate WSET, activity from the performance registered on the seismograph at the Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory. The show took place at Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium, where the school’s college football team plays.

The shaking occurred during two moments: during the very beginning of the concert, and during the night’s closing song, “Enter Sandman.”

“What you’re seeing there is probably four to five times bigger than what we see typically for a football game,” says Virginia Tech professor Dr. Martin Chapman.

While “Enter Sandman” is already one of Metallica’s biggest songs, it has a special connection Virginia Tech and Lane Stadium, which plays it during every home game as the football team’s entrance song.

Metallica’s ongoing U.S. tour continues Friday at Ohio’s Sonic Temple festival.

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Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett is set to release a live recording from his U.K. tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legendary Genesis concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

The Lamb Stands Up Live at the Royal Albert Hall was recorded in October 2024 at the famed London venue, and features select tracks from the 1974 Genesis album, as well as other Genesis tunes and Hackett solo material.

“I was so happy to revisit the Lamb on tour. The Royal Albert Hall evening was particularly memorable,” says Hackett. “It is my favorite London venue and the atmosphere there that night was absolutely electric… I was really pleased that everyone in the band and the performing guests pulled it off with flying colors!”

As a preview, Hackett has released a performance of the classic album’s title track.

The Lamb Stands Up Live at the Royal Albert Hall will be released July 11 as a special edition 2-CD+Blu-ray set, as well as on vinyl as a deluxe 4-LP set. Both are available for preorder now.

Hackett is set to revisit The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway once again this fall when he brings his Genesis Greats, Lamb Highlights and Solo tour to North America. The trek kicks off Oct. 4 in Ithaca, New York, and wraps Nov. 22 in Portland, Oregon. A complete list of dates can be found at hackettsongs.com.

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It was a meeting of two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers in Nashville Thursday night, when legendary guitarist Peter Frampton joined Pearl Jam for their show at Bridgestone Arena.

Fan shot footage posted to YouTube shows Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder introducing the night’s “special guest,” noting, “We grew up, this gentleman was someone we looked up to. Before the Ramones, some of our first guitar heroes, Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend, he was right up there.”

He later added that Frampton “was one of the reasons why you loved live records and later we decided to release bootlegs because of his influence,” noting, “He’s such an incredible human being on top of it.”

Vedder also shared that Frampton had “become a good friend to the group,” and even recorded with guitarist Mike McCready and drummer Matt Cameron.

Frampton then came out to join the band for their classic Ten track “Black,” with Eddie telling the crowd, “Something most people do not know, this song was named after the color of his famous Les Paul guitar.”

The performance included dueling guitar solos between McCready and Frampton, who were both seated for the song, and Vedder even threw in a tag of Frampton’s classic track “Do You Feel Like We Do” at the end.

Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter tour hits Raleigh, North Carolina, for two nights, May 11 and 13, before wrapping in Pittsburgh May 16 and 18.

Frampton’s set to kick off the second leg of his Let’s Do It Again tour on June 13 in Woodinville, Washington. A complete list of dates can be found at Frampton.com.

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Alice in Chains canceled their show Thursday at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, due to drummer Sean Kinney‘s health.

Just hours before the concert was set to begin, Alice announced in an Instagram Story, “After our soundcheck this evening at the Mohegan Sun Arena, Sean experienced a non-life-threatening medical emergency.”

“We unfortunately have to cancel tonight’s show,” the post continues. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Refunds are available at the point of purchase.”

Alice in Chains’ tour is currently scheduled to resume Saturday in Camden, New Jersey. Following their run of shows in May, they’re set to perform at the Black Sabbath reunion/farewell tour in July.

Kinney, 58, is Alice in Chains’ original drummer, and has played on all of their albums.

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NXS is celebrating the 40th anniversary of their fifth studio album, Listen Like Thieves, with a new deluxe box set that is out now, featuring plenty of bonus material.

Founding member and keyboardist Andrew Farriss tells ABC Audio that Listen Like Thieves “was a breakthrough album for us,” both commercially and artistically. He credits the album’s producer Chris Thomas with helping them reach that success.

“We’d had success before in other countries, including the United States,” he shares, “but meeting Chris Thomas was a whole other thing.” He adds that Chris was “really tough on us,” but he was also “good for us.”

“If we thought it was good enough, he’d say, ‘Yeah, that’s all right. You can do better than that,'” Andrew says. He notes they soon realized Chris was “going to play hardball with us to get the best out of us.”

And it was thanks to Chris that INXS wound up with their first major hit in the U.S. and other countries.

“Chris said, look, you’ve made a really good album, but you need just that one more song … that thing that you need, you know, that killer hit,” Andrew says. “And that became ‘What You Need,'” which was a top-five hit for INXS. 

Andrew co-wrote several songs on Listen Like Thieves with INXS’ late frontman Michael Hutchence and says Michael was a unique songwriter because “he never played an instrument, his instrument was his voice.”

Andrew describes Hutchence as an “articulate lyric writer” and says he often deferred to whatever Hutchence felt was best.

“That was my attitude because he wrote the lyric and because he believed in the lyric, it helped him deliver it to the audience,”” Andrew says. “I think that is a really important part of our songwriting relationship.”

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The lineup for the big Black Sabbath reunion/farewell concert is stacked with big names from metal and hard rock, including Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool and Slayer. One name that is conspicuously absent, though, is Rob Halford.

As the Judas Priest frontman tells Metal Hammer, he’s unable to perform at the concert due to a scheduling conflict, having already booked a show with Scorpions on the same day in Germany.

“It all got announced and was a big deal – Scorpions and Priest – and suddenly I get this phone call [from Sharon Osbourne],” Halford shares. “[She said,] ‘Robbie, I know you’ve got this gig with Scorpions, but could you consider coming over to do a thing with Ozzy and the guys, he’d love to see you.'”

While Sharon offered to fly Halford from Germany to the Sabbath show in Birmingham, England, Halford felt that the risk of something going wrong was too great.

“Even with a private plane, there’s a word called ‘technical,’ where something could go wrong, or the weather that time of year could cause problems,” Halford says. “I was absolutely gutted.”

Still, Halford is excited for Ozzy and his metal pals who are playing the show, and that it will celebrate the legacy of Birmingham, where both Priest and Sabbath were founded.

“All my mates are going to be there though, great bands and artists,” Halford says. “It’s a wonderful and epic moment for Sabbath and heavy metal – it re-emphasizes that Birmingham is where metal came from.”

The Sabbath concert takes place July 5 and will mark the final performance by original members Ozzy, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. It’s also set to be Ozzy’s final performance of his career.

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Former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten thinks The Rolling Stones should call it quits after all these years.

Lydon announced his own retirement after his wife Nora’s death in 2023 after a battle with Alzheimer’s, but changed his mind and now has dates planned with his band Public Image Ltd. During an appearance on Good Morning Britain, Lydon joked about his change of heart, noting, “That’s dementia for you, I forgot that bit.”

But then he explained his decision to perform again, which is when he took a dig at The Stones.

“As I indicated before, if I just sat back and retired, that’s not me. I’m not that kind of person,” the 69-year-old said. “By all means, The Rolling Stones should retire. I’m not short of a song idea or two, so there’s a difference.”

He then acknowledged, “I’ve offended music lovers.”

Lydon seems to be suggesting The Stones don’t have any good music left in them, although the band did release a new album, Hackney Diamonds, in 2023. The album went on to win a Grammy for best rock album.

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The Who just announced dates for their farewell tour of North America, but it sounds like the band isn’t too sure folks in the U.K. will get a similar goodbye.

During a press conference announcing the tour, both Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey expressed doubt they’ll bring the tour to the U.K., with Daltrey joking, “Let’s see if we survive this one.”

He then explained that it’s much easier to tour the U.S. than the U.K.

“For some reason or another, the U.K. has decided to make it as difficult as possible to go from A to B. In America, you seem to want to make it as easy as possible. But we are in the land of ‘no,'” Daltrey said. “I don’t want to say that there won’t be, but equally, I’m not confident in saying there will be.”

Townshend agreed with Daltrey’s assessment.

“I really enjoyed the last tour that we did, but it was a strange one. We played a lot of open-air gigs. We’d had an insurance problem, which meant that we couldn’t play some of the more classic places that one plays under a U.K. tour,” he said. “But the door is open to us. We could do a week at the O2, we could do a week, a couple of weeks maybe at the [Royal] Albert Hall, there are kinda things we could do.”

But he and Daltrey noted that they can’t do consecutive shows, which could make things more difficult.

The Song Is Over North American Farewell Tour will kick off Aug. 16 in Sunrise, Florida, and wrap Sept. 28 in Las Vegas. Tickets go on sale to the general public May 16 at 10 a.m. local time.

A full list of dates can be found at TheWho.com.

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