Classic Rock 93.9

The 40th anniversary version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” is here — along with a video featuring clips of all the artists who’ve sung on the various iterations of the all-star Band Aid charity single over the years.

U2‘s Bono, Sting, Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Duran Duran‘s Simon Le Bon, Paul Young, the late George Michael and the late Sinead O’Connor are all featured in the video, which begins and ends with a 1984 plea from the late David Bowie asking people to help by buying the record. In addition, the new song and video feature changes to many of the song’s problematic lyrics, which have earned it much criticism over the years. 

The video and song also feature excerpts from a famous 1984 BBC News report about famine in Ethiopia that spurred Irish singer Bob Geldof to create the original Band Aid project and the Live Aid concerts. The original song initially raised millions for famine relief and, according to the BBC, the Band Aid Charitable Trust has raised nearly 150 million pounds to date. 

Geldof, meanwhile, is defending the song after pop star Ed Sheeran recently wrote on Instagram that if he had known about the remix, he would have denied Geldof permission to use his vocals. He cited an Instagram Story by Ghanian-English musician Fuse ODG, in which Fuse wrote that such all-star charity projects “perpetuate damaging stereotypes.”

Geldof told The Times of London, “This little pop song has kept millions of people alive …why not keep doing that? … [T]here are 600 million hungry people in the world — 300 million are in Africa. We wish it were other but it is not. We can help some of them. That’s what we will continue to do.”

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Ringo Starr appears to have confirmed the rumors that Saltburn star Barry Keoghan is going to play him in Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles movies.

Back in February, Mendes announced plans to make four separate Beatles movies, one for each member — Ringo, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison — and almost immediately speculation began as to who’ll play the Fab Four, with Keoghan’s name mentioned for Ringo.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, the 84-year-old Ringo appeared to let it slip that the rumor is true.

When asked how he feels about Keoghan playing him, Ringo shared, “Well, I think it’s great. I believe he’s somewhere taking drum lessons, and I hope not too many.”

So far there’s been no official announcement about the casting.

Mendes’ films will be made by Sony Pictures, and will mark the first time Apple Corps Ltd. and The Beatles have granted a studio the rights to the life stories of band members and their legendary catalog of music. Each film will be told from the point of view of one of the band members.

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Bob Dylan recently took to social platform X to share his feelings about seeing Nick Cave perform the song “Joy” in Paris, and now Cave is responding to the legendary artist.

“Saw Nick Cave in Paris recently at the Accor Arena and I was really struck by that song Joy where he sings ‘We’ve all had too much sorrow, now it the time for joy,'” Dylan shared. “I was thinking to myself, yeah that’s about right.”

In his response, Cave shared on his website that he didn’t know Dylan was at the show, but called his post “a lovely pulse of joy that penetrated my exhausted, zombied state.” 

He also noted that he was happy to see Bob still on X, despite many people leaving for Bluesky.

“It felt admirably perverse, in a Bob Dylan kind of way,” he wrote, “I did indeed feel it was a time for joy rather than sorrow. There had been such an excess of despair and desperation around the election, and one couldn’t help but ask when it was that politics became everything.”

He added that he thinks the current obsession with politics has kept people from experiencing “the presence of anything remotely like the spirit, the sacred, or the transcendent – that holy place where joy resides.”

“I was elated to think Bob Dylan had been in the audience, and since I doubt I’ll get an opportunity to thank him personally, I’ll thank him here,” he concluded. “Thank you, Bob!”

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Sammy Hagar has shared how he’s feeling after his former Van Halen bandmate Alex Van Halen released his memoir, Brothers, and didn’t even include him in Van Halen’s history.

Alex’s book suggests that Van Halen ended when David Lee Roth left the band and steered clear of mentioning Hagar’s name in interviews, which Sammy tells Rolling Stone is just “sad.”  

“Why he left me out,  I would like to hear him explain that someday, because I don’t get it completely,” Hagar said. “I know that he’s bitter about some things, whatever that is. … It’s like, ‘If you don’t want that era, that even gives me more justification to say I own it then.'”

But Hagar would like to bury the hatchet, telling the mag it’s on his “bucket list” to make peace with Alex.

“I will not take this to my grave, and I don’t want Al taking it to his grave,” he says. “I’ve put the olive branch out there many times, and I just put it out again to (manager) Irving Azoff.”

“I want to be friends, though,” he adds. “I don’t want to play in a band with Al. I’m not asking for that. I can see that he’s not capable of doing that. If he was, I’d be happy to play with him, but it’s not what I’m looking for. I just want to friends again.”

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Back in September, Elton John revealed that he lost vision in one of his eyes, and he now tells Good Morning America his condition has interfered with his attempts to put out a new album.

Elton revealed he had a new album in the works at the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, then said it would be out in 2024 during his year-end message to members of his fan community. 

When asked by Robin Roberts for an album update, Elton said, “I don’t know. It’s been awhile since I’ve done anything and I just have to get off my backside,” explaining the issues with his eye delayed things.

“I unfortunately lost my eyesight in my right eye in July because I had an infection in the south of France,” he said. “And it’s been four months now since I haven’t been able to see. And my left eye’s not the greatest.”

Elton said “there’s hope and encouragement that it will be OK,” but he really hasn’t been able to work on music. “I’m kinda stuck in the moment … going into the studio and recording, I don’t know, because I can’t see a lyric, for start.”

“We’re taking an initiative to try and make it better, but at the moment that’s what we’re really concentrating on,” he said. “And it kinda floored me, and I can’t see anything, I can’t read anything, I can’t watch anything.”

But even with all the challenges he’s faced, Elton, whose new documentary Never Too Late debuts Dec. 13 on Disney+, still seems to have a positive attitude. 

“I’m so lucky, I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he said. “I’m proud of my attitude towards myself and what’s going on. I’m just very lucky and very grateful.”

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On This Day, Nov. 25, 1976 …

The Band — Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel — played their final show ever at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.

Billed as their “farewell concert appearance,” the show featured guest appearances by a whole host of musicians, including Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Dr. John, Ronnie Wood, Muddy Waters, Neil Diamond, Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison. 

The concert was filmed by director Martin Scorsese and released in April 1978 as The Last Waltz, considered one of the greatest concert documentaries of all time.

The film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2019.

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The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band both earned nominations for the 2024 Billboard Music Awards.

Being that both artists are known for their live shows, it seems fitting they’re nominated in the Top Rock Touring Artist category, with their only other competition being Coldplay.

Both The Rolling Stones and Springsteen were on tour this year. The Stones launched their Hackney Diamonds tour in April in Houston, while Springsteen and The E Street Band returned to the road in March in Phoenix.

Also earning BBMA nominations this year are Pearl Jam, in the Best Hard Rock Album category for Dark Matter, and Dolly Parton, in the Best Rock Album category for Rockstar, which featured collaborations with such artists as Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Stevie Nicks.

The 2024 BBMAs will air Dec. 12 at 8 p.m. ET on Fox, Fire TV channels and on-demand on Paramount+.

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Pearl Jam wrapped their Australia and New Zealand tour in Sydney Saturday night and broke out the Temple of the Dog song “Hunger Strike” for the first time in over 10 years.

The last time the band played the song in full was in October 2014, at Neil Young’s Bridge School benefit, where they were joined by Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, who appears on the original recording of the track. 

For the Sydney performance, fan-shot footage posted to YouTube shows frontman Eddie Vedder taking on both his and Cornell’s parts of the song, with the audience helping out with Cornell’s high harmonies.

“Hunger Strike” was the first single off the album Temple of the Dog, which was released in April 1991. It was a tribute to the late Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood, who died March 19, 1970, and it featured members of both Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

The performance of “Hunger Strike” was the first time Pearl Jam has played the song in full since Cornell’s 2017 death. In addition to performing it with Cornell, in the past they’ve performed the song with guest singers, including Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker and Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell.

But that wasn’t the only rarity played at the Sydney show. Vedder opened his solo encore with Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender,” and the band performed the Vs. track “Dissident” for the first time on this tour — and the first time since September 2022.

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The new Disney+ documentary Beatles ’64, which captures the Fab Four’s first trip to the U.S., had its premiere in New York City on Nov. 24, and in attendance was one of the film’s subjects: Sir Paul McCartney.

In addition to Sir Paul, John Lennon‘s son Sean Ono Lennon and George Harrison‘s widow, Olivia Harrison, were in the theater for the premiere, along with E Street Band guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt, Elvis Costello and the film’s producer, Martin Scorsese. 

The movie is built around the footage captured by late filmmakers Albert and David Maysles, who were with The Beatles constantly during their 14-day trip to America. During that time, they traveled to New York, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show and at Carnegie Hall; Washington D.C., where they did their first U.S. concert; and Miami. Seventeen minutes of footage is previously unseen.  New interviews with Paul and Ringo Starr are included, plus archival interviews with Harrison and Lennon.

The musical performances in the film have all been restored and remixed using the same technology that was used on the Get Back documentary and on The Beatles’ Grammy-nominated single “Now and Then.” At several points during the premiere screening, the audience spontaneously burst into applause at the end of some of the performances.

Following the film, Scorsese and director David Tedeschi did a Q&A with actor/director Ethan Hawke.

Beatles ’64 will stream exclusively on Disney+ starting Nov. 29.

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The Beatles‘ George Harrison’s love of gardening will be explored in a new exhibit in Sarasota, Florida.

George Harrison: A Gardener’s Life will run from Feb. 9 to June 29 at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus, part of a series that “examines the work of major artists through the lens of their connection to nature.”

According to a press release, the exhibit will look at Harrison’s connection to gardening, which is described as his “greatest passion.” In fact, during a 1979 Rolling Stone interview, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer actually described himself as “just a gardener.”

In addition to the horticultural aspects of the exhibit, it will include a selection of Harrison’s music and lyrics, along with excerpts from wife Olivia Harrison‘s poetry book, Came the Lightening. The exhibit promises to “highlight George’s connection to nature and celebrate his life and legacy through the power of plants.”

“Selby Gardens is thrilled to explore George Harrison’s love of gardening and the inspiration he drew from it,” Jennifer Rominiecki, president and CEO of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, shares. “We are honored to present this exhibition to our visitors, demonstrating the many ways Harrison connected with nature.”

The exhibition will include a special program featuring legendary artist Patti Smith, Selby Gardens’ Artist in Residence. An Evening with Patti Smith Dedicated to George Harrison will take place Feb. 12 at Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus.

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