Bob Dylan played his first professional live gig at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village, New York. He was the opening act for blues singer John Lee Hooker.
Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, came to New York in January of that year to visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie.
The early days of Dylan’s career were the focus of the recent biopic A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet as Dylan. The film earned eight Oscar nominations, including best picture and best actor. It is currently streaming on Hulu.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono are the subject of a new documentary, One to One: John & Yoko, which opens exclusively in IMAX theaters on Friday.
The film features a treasure trove of archival material of the couple in New York in the early ’70s. The film’s director, Kevin Macdonald, tells ABC Audio the footage helped him realize the story he wanted to tell.
“I thought, actually, this is gonna be a film about the times,” he says, “about this year which John and Yoko spent living in New York in this tiny apartment in the West Village, as much as it is a sort of story of just them.”
That archival material includes audio recordings the couple made of themselves when they feared the FBI was listening in to their phone calls, and Macdonald says it gives fans a new perspective on the rock star couple.
“I think there’s something just about hearing their voices in this very casual way when they’re not … being interviewed,” he says. “I think you get a different feeling for who these two people are as people.”
Macdonald notes the real “center of the film” is footage of John and Yoko’s One to One concerts, which took place at Madison Square Garden in August 1972; they were the only full-length concerts Lennon gave after The Beatles‘ 1970 breakup.
“We had access for the first time to this concert,” he says, noting everything else in the documentary is “really giving context to that concert.”
And Macdonald hopes that after seeing the film, fans “feel like they get more intimate with John than they ever have before” and get to appreciate him as a performer.
“I think that you can’t underestimate how rare and special it is to see John performing live,” he says.
Bon Jovi is set to perform together for the first time since 2024.
The New Jersey rockers are set to play an “intimate private performance” as part of a tour package in Nashville from June 13 to June 15. The performance will be held at a “secret location” in Music City and will be for anyone who purchases what’s being called an “ultimate fan experience.”
Those booking the three-day weekend event will be put up at the JW Marriott Nashville. The package also comes with a party at Jon’s Nashville bar, JBJ Nashville, an autographed photo of Jon, a trip laminate, custom lanyard and more.
More info can be found at runawaytours.com. Reservations open Monday at 12 p.m. ET.
Bon Jovi’s last major performance took place in February 2024 at the MusiCares Person of the Year celebration for Jon. It was the first performance from the band since Jon underwent vocal cord surgery in 2022. In June 2024 they also performed a short set at the opening of JBJ Nashville.
Sammy Hagar is getting ready to launch The Best of All Worlds Tour Stays in Vegas – The Residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM Las Vegas, and he’s giving one lucky fan a chance to win what he’s calling the Ultimate Red Rocker Rockstar Experience.
Fans can enter Sammy’s new sweepstakes now. The grand prize winner will nab two VIP tickets to the May 9 show, along with two roundtrip tickets to Vegas and a two-night stay at the Park MGM.
It also comes with a red Les Paul guitar and tour jacket, both signed by Sammy and the band: Van Halen’s Michael Anthony, guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Kenny Aronoff. There’s alsoa meet and greet with Sammy before the show and a VIP table at The Barbershop at the Cosmopolitan in Vegas.
Fans have until April 21 to enter the sweepstakes, with the winner to be announced on April 22.
The Best of All Worlds Tour Stays in Vegas – The Residency will have Sammy performing a career-spanning set that includes songs from his solo career, Van Halen, Montrose and Chickenfoot. It kicks off April 30 and runs through May 17. A complete list of dates can be found at RedRocker.com.
Rocker John Mellencamp’s daughter Teddi Mellencamp is battling stage 4 cancer, and during her Two Ts in a Podpodcast, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star revealed that her dad has already made plans for her burial in Indiana.
Teddi explained to co-host Tamra Judge that her dad recently tried calling her multiple times to talk to her about his plans. She said, “Finally I answer, I’m like, ‘I’m in the bath. Let me live a little.’ He goes, ‘I just want to make sure you’re going to be in our group family mausoleum.’”
After she expressed concerns about whether there’d also be room for her three children, the “Small Town” singer let her know he had everything worked out.
“He’s like, ‘Well, there’s going to be the top five and then we’re gonna have little areas around it, and then that’s where everyone’s going to get buried,’” she said.
She noted that she asked him if she has to make that commitment right away. “He goes, ‘You’re doing your will right now, so you may as well put it in there.’”
The conversation made it appear as though Teddi gave her dad the OK, with Teddi joking to Tamra that she’d have to travel to Indiana to visit her grave. Teddi then added that a stranger gave her an idea for what she’d want written on her tombstone: “Hot girls never die.”
Teddi is John’s daughter with his second wife, Victoria Granucci, who he was married to from 1981 to 1989. She was diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma in October 2022 and recently revealed that it had progressed to stage 4.
Elton John recently launched two musicals, one of which was a success and the other of which was a flop. That may or may not be why he’s giving them up for good.
The stage version of The Devil Wears Prada, for which Elton wrote the music, is currently playing at London’s Dominion Theatre with Vanessa Williams in the starring role. His other musical, Tammy Faye, closed last year after just 29 regular performances on Broadway due to bad reviews and poor ticket sales.
Elton, who’s won one Tony Award and has been nominated for several more, tells The Evening Standard, “I don’t think I have another musical in me.”
But while musicals will now join touring on the list of things that Elton isn’t going to do anymore, he says recording is still a going concern. In fact, he’s already working on the follow-up to Who Believes in Angels?, which came out April 4.
“My next record won’t be anything like this one,” he says of the collaborative project with Brandi Carlile. “I really want to do another dance track … I’ve got two songs already written that are pretty damn good.”
And Elton’s husband and manager, David Furnish, tellsMusicWeek, “I think we would like to find more opportunities for Elton to work with young artists, in terms of future collaborations.”
“I know there’s lots of people he would love to work with, people that he admires, and also to find a way to do that in a more official capacity. … [F]or that to become, not just a hobby, but something that is a little bit more official.”
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts and Santana are both booked to play the 59th edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival, which will be held July 4 to July 19 in Montreux, Switzerland.
Both artists will perform on the festival’s Lake Stage: Young and his band will headline on July 6, while Santana will headline on July 18.
Other artists booked for the Montreux Jazz Festival include Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, Lionel Richie, Alanis Morissette, Noah Kahan, Sam Fender, The Black Keys and Brandi Carlile. On opening night there will also be a tribute to the late Quincy Jones featuring Khan “and friends.”
Tickets go on sale to the public starting Friday at noon.
Both Young and Santana’s appearances are part of larger European tours.
Young’s tour kicks off June 18 in Rättvik, Sweden, and runs through July 13 in Paris. A full list of dates can be found at NeilYoungArchives.com.
Santana’s tour kicks off June 9 in Lodz, Poland, and runs through Aug. 11 in Copenhagen. More tour dates can be found at Santana.com.
The 50th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen‘s first U.K. tour will be celebrated with some special Springsteen programming on the BBC, including a new documentary.
When Bruce Springsteen Came To Britain is a one-hour doc that will feature a new interview with The Boss talking about his first U.K. show: a sold-out concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in November 1975 promoting his album Born to Run. In the interview he shares previously unheard stories about the tour, including how disappointed he was with his own performance at that first show.
“(After the show) … I went to a party that was supposed to celebrate my triumph, but I felt I’d been terrible and so I was embarrassed to even go in,” he says. “I had PTSD from the first Hammersmith show!”
The doc will also cover Springsteen’s 1985 Born in the USA tour, which was the first time he played huge outdoor venues, and continues on to his most recent U.K. tour in 2024.
In addition to Springsteen, the doc will feature new interviews from E Street Band guitarist SteveVan Zandt, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Bruce’s manager Jon Landau and others.
So far no exact date for the Springsteen programming has been announced.
The doc comes as Springsteen and the E Street Band are getting ready to launch a new U.K. and European tour. The trek kicks off with a three-night stand in Manchester, May 14, May 17 and May 20. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.
The upcoming Apple TV+ documentary about Bono’s Stories of Surrender book tour will get its world premiere at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, taking place May 13 to May 24.
Bono announced the news on social media with the caption, “From the intimacy of the Beacon Theater [sic] to the bright lights of the Croisette.”
Bono: Stories of Surrender will feature what’s described as a “reimagining” of the U2 frontman’s one-man stage show, Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief. Thatcoincided with the release of his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, released in November 2022.
The doc will feature footage from one of his shows at New York’s Beacon Theatre, which had him sharing stories about his life, family, friends and more, along with performances of some U2 songs “that have shaped his life and legacy.”
Bono: Stories of Surrender is set to debut on Apple TV+ on May 30. For those with Apple Vision Pro, Bono: Stories of Surrender (Immersive) will also premiere on May 30, giving viewers an immersive experience of the film. It will be the first feature-length film available on Apple Vision Pro.
The upcoming Bruce Springsteen film Deliver Me From Nowhere is based on Warren Zanes’ 2023 book Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Zanes discusses how the film came to be.
Zanes says when he was first approached, he knew they’d have to get Springsteen onboard, so he and the film’s director, Scott Cooper, sent Bruce and his manager, Jon Landau, a one-page description of the project. Then they waited for their response.
But Zanes initially didn’t hear back, because Springsteen was dealing with peptic ulcer disease.
“Later, I was driving, and got a call from Bruce, totally unexpected,” Zanes shares. “At the end, I said: ‘Hey, did you get a chance to look at that description?’ While I was on the phone, he pulled it up. We hung up. Five minutes later, he texted: ‘I’m into this.’”
Zanes spent time on the film’s New Jersey set when production began, as did Springsteen, and Zanes noticed the experience wasn’t an easy one for The Boss.
“There was no hiding the fact that he was there on a regular basis. And there are difficult passages. He was going through some hard stuff, and here he was, watching his life being enacted, reliving it,” Zanes says. “I asked him, ‘Is this as intense for you as it appears it might be?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’”
Zanes wants fans to know Deliver Me From Nowhere will be different from other biopics because “it doesn’t start before success — it starts in the middle.”
“It’s a story about family history, mental health, and an already-successful artist facing a crisis,” he says. “There’s nothing about him making it. No ‘Born to Run’ moment. None of that. We see what he’s haunted by.”
