Classic Rock 93.9

The Black Crowes and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne are confirmed to play the 2026 Mad Cool Festival, happening July 8-11 in Madrid, Spain.

Both artists are booked to play the final night of the festival, which also features headliner Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Pulp and The National’s Matt Berninger.

The festival’s other headliners include Foo Fighters, Florence + the Machine and Twenty One Pilots, with the lineup also featuring Kings of Leon, Halsey, Dogstar, Lorde, A Perfect Circle, Charlie Puth and more.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Mad Cool. After various presales, tickets go on sale to the general public on Nov. 20.

A complete lineup can be found at madcoolfestival.es.

Byrne is currently on tour in support of his latest album, Who is the Sky?, and is set to play three nights in Seattle starting Tuesday.

The Black Crowes will release a super-deluxe box set of their third studio album, Amorica, on Friday. They also just announced a tour of Australia that kicks off April 3 in Melbourne and includes an appearance at the Byron Bay Bluesfest. 

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Freddie Mercury’s debut solo album, Mr Bad Guy, is being reissued in celebration of its 40th anniversary.

The album will be released Dec. 5 on 180 gram translucent green vinyl featuring a 2019 mix by Queen’s longtime sound team, Justin Shirley-Smith and Joshua J. Macrae. The mix originally appeared on the Mercury box set Never Boring. The album will also be reissued on picture disc.

“We went back to the original multi-track tapes,” Shirley-Smith says. “It’s a great collection of songs and Freddie’s vocal performance is absolutely extraordinary.”

He adds, “The idea wasn’t to try to make it sound like they would make it now, it was to make it sound like it would have then if they’d had better technology and more time. And of course, it’s a massive honor to work on anything Freddie did, and we always treat it with the utmost respect.”

Originally released in April 1985 during a Queen hiatus, Mr Bad Guy was made up of 11 songs written by Mercury, featuring more of a dance-pop sound than the music he recorded with Queen.

“I had a lot of ideas bursting to get out and there were a lot of musical territories I wanted to explore which I really couldn’t do within Queen,” Mercury said at the time.

Although not a hit in America, the album hit #6 in the U.K. The lead single, “I Was Born to Love You,” was later reworked by Queen after Mercury’s 1991 death and appeared on their 1995 album Made in Heaven, which was their 15th and final studio album.

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KISS drummer Eric Singer has been added to KISS Kruise: Landlocked in Vegas, happening Nov. 14-16 at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.

Singer is set to join Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Tommy Thayer for the event’s two unmasked KISS performances, marking the first performances of the most recent KISS lineup since they wrapped their End of the Road World Tour at New York’s Madison Square Garden in December 2023.

In addition to the performances, the foursome will take part in a Q&A session with fans, while Singer and Thayer will host a “Name that Tune” guitar and drum riff event with Thayer.

Originally announced as KISS Army Storms Vegas, KISS Kruise: Landlocked in Vegas will also include performances from former KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick; Stephen Pearcy and Warren DeMartini performing the music of Ratt; former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach; Quiet Riot; Black N’ Blue; and several KISS cover bands.

More information can be found at KissKruiseVegas.com.

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Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings have announced their first tour as The Guess Who in 23 years.

The duo is set to hit the road on a Canadian tour that kicks off May 26 in Moncton, with stops in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and more. The Takin’ It Back tour, featuring former Eagles guitarist Don Felder as special guest, includes an appearance at the Ottawa Bluesfest on July 19, with the tour wrapping with a show at The Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver on Aug. 23.

“Randy and I are thrilled that our songs have never gone away. That people still want to hear us perform them live. We are going to go out and honor the music,” says Cummings. 

Bachman adds, “I’m looking ahead and very excited to be joining up with Burton and touring as The Guess Who again. Together we created decades of incredible songs and memories that still stand strong today. Can’t wait to sing them with you all soon!”

The tour is the first trek for the duo since winning their fight to reclaim the band’s name.

In October 2023, Cummings and Bachman filed a lawsuit accusing former bandmates Jim Kale and Garry Peterson of tricking fans into thinking Cummings and Bachman were still performing with The Guess Who, when they were actually getting a “cover band.” They settled the suit in September 2023, with Cummings and Bachman acquiring the trademark for the band’s name.

In addition to the tour, Bachman and Cummings are booked to play the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Jan. 31, and are set to take part in the Rock Legends Cruise XIII, scheduled for Feb. 23-27.

A complete list of dates and ticket information can be found at TheGuessWho.com.

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The Eagles have extended their residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers have announced what they say are their “final shows” of 2026, adding four more shows on March 20, 21, 27 and 28.

Registration is now open for an artist presale that begins Nov. 19 at 10 a.m. local time, with tickets going on sale to the general public starting Nov. 21 at 10 a.m. local time.

The Eagles launched their Sphere residency on Sept. 20, 2024, and the new dates bring the total shows to 56, extending their reign as the longest-running residency at the venue. Dead & Company previously held that honor, with 48 shows.

The Eagles wrapped their 2025 dates on Nov. 8. Their next show is happening Jan. 23.

A complete schedule can be found at Eagles.com.

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On This Day, Nov. 10, 1975 …

Fifty years ago, Patti Smith released her debut album, Horses, considered one of punk rock’s seminal albums.

Recorded at New York’s Electric Lady Studios, the album was produced by Velvet Underground’s John Cale.

While it was only a modest commercial success, Horses was a critical darling and has often appeared on lists of the greatest albums of all time. It is often cited as a major influence for new wave, alternative rock and grunge artists.

In 2009, Horses was chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

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Foo Fighters have announced a European leg of their 2026 Take Cover tour.

The international outing launches June 10 in Oslo, Norway, and includes headlining stops in Sweden, Poland, Germany, France, England, Austria and Italy, plus sets at festivals in Spain and Portugal.

Openers include Royel Otis, Inhaler and IDLES, depending on the date.

Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. local time. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit FooFighters.com.

As previously reported, the North American leg of the Take Cover tour launches in August and features support from Queens of the Stone Age.

The most recent Foo Fighters album is 2023’s But Here We Are. They’ve released two new singles in 2025: “Today’s Song” and “Asking for a Friend.”

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We lost a lot of great musicians in the past year, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opened Saturday’s induction ceremony with a tribute to one of them, Sly Stone, who passed away in June at the age of 82.

The Sly tribute kicked off with Stevie Wonder performing “Dance to the Music.” He was backed by The Roots’ Questlove, who directed the doc Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius), on drums and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea on bass, with Beck on guitar and backing vocals.

The all-star tribute also featured R&B stars Leon Thomas and Maxwell performing “Everyday People” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” with Jennifer Hudson joining the lineup for the “Higher” finale.

But Sly wasn’t the only one remembered. Ahead of the in memoriam segment, the Rock Hall remembered the late Ozzy Osbourne, a two-time Hall of Fame inductee, with a montage of clips, including footage of his 2024 induction as a solo artist.

The in memoriam ended with footage of the late Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson, followed by a performance of “God Only Knows” by Elton John, who inducted The Beach Boys into the Rock Hall in 1988.

Elton recalled meeting Wilson for the first time, noting he was scared because Wilson was his idol.

“He was the one who influenced me more than anyone else when it came to writing songs on the piano,” Elton said. “Meeting someone who’s a true genius doesn’t happen very often.”

Highlights from the 2025 Rock Hall induction ceremony will air Jan. 1 on ABC.

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Joe Cocker was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Saturday night in Los Angeles with an all-star tribute that closed the ceremony.

Bryan Adams welcomed Cocker into the Rock Hall. He noted that the late singer, who passed away in 2014, had many hits covering tunes originally recorded by other artists, like The Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends,” Dave Mason’s “Feelin’ Alright” and Billy Preston‘s “You Are So Beautiful.”

“It’s one thing to cover a song, but it’s another to make it your own. And that’s what Joe could do,” Adams said. “Even Paul McCartney acknowledged how Joe had transformed his Beatles classic into a soul anthem. And the list of songs Joe did that to is mighty.”

Several musicians were on hand to celebrate Cocker’s music, with Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks of Tedeschi Trucks Band and Nathaniel Rateliff kicking things off with a performance of “The Letter,” which was Cocker’s first top-10 hit. Teddy Swims then joined them for a performance of Mason’s “Feelin’ Alright,” which Cocker covered in 1969.

The night wrapped with an all-star closing jam, featuring Tedeschi Trucks Band, Swims, Adams, Rock Hall inductee Cyndi Lauper and The Black Crowes‘ Chris Robinson performing Cocker’s version of “With A Little Help From My Friends.”

Highlights from the 2025 Rock Hall induction ceremony will air Jan. 1 on ABC.

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Warren Zevon was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the Music Influence category Saturday night, with his good friend David Letterman doing the honors.

“In music many pretend, but Warren is a poet, leaving few of life’s vagaries unaddressed,” he said. “Warren’s music is dense with historic illusion, love and sadness tinted with unexpected whimsy, delivered with third rail voltage rock ‘n’ roll or sweet, heartbreaking, lush, symphonic melodies. Either version of the man’s music is classic rock ‘n’ roll.”

Letterman also recalled Zevon’s last appearance on The Late Show, which happened 22 years ago, just months after Zevon announced he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Letterman noted Zevon’s comments that what he learned about life following his diagnosis was to “enjoy every sandwich.”

“That’s easy but it’s deeply meaningful and there’s not a person in this room who hasn’t considered that, but nobody can hang on to that on a daily basis,” Letterman added. “But by God isn’t that true of life around the planet.”

He ended his speech mentioning the guitar Zevon gifted him on that night, noting it was the guitar that had been displayed right beside him throughout his speech. He then said the guitar was “going back to work” and handed it over to The Killers guitarist Dave Keuning.

The band, along with legendary session guitarist Waddy Wachtel, a longtime Zevon collaborator, then paid tribute to Zevon with a performance of his hit “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

Highlights from the 2025 Rock Hall induction ceremony will air Jan. 1 on ABC.

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