Classic Rock 93.9

Van Halen fans are getting another preview of the upcoming expanded edition of the band’s ninth studio album, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. 

The band just shared a previously unreleased live performance video of “Top Of The World,” recorded at a Dec. 4, 1991, concert at West End Marketplace in Dallas, Texas.

“Top of the World” was a Billboard 100 top-40 hit for Van Halen, peaking at #27. It also hit #1 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart.

Dropping July 12, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (Expanded Edition) will include the remastered original album, along with an album of rarities and live tracks from the Dallas concert. It will include two LPs, with an etching of the Van Halen logo on the fourth side, plus two CDs and a Blu-Ray that will include the Dallas concert, along with the official music videos for “Right Now,” winner of the 1992 MTV VMA for Video of the Year, “Poundcake,” “Runaround” and “Top of the World.”

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (Expanded Edition) is available for preorder now.

Released June 17, 1991, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was Van Halen’s third album with Sammy Hagar. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, where it spent three weeks. The album was the third of four #1s Van Halen had with Hagar, the others being 1986’s 5150, 1988’s OU812 and 1995’s Balance.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The four members of R.E.M. – Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry – opened up about their decision to call it quits in 2011 during their first interview together in nearly 30 years, which aired Thursday on CBS Mornings.

“I think the main reason was at that point, there wasn’t anything we could agree on really musically. What kind of music, how to record it, are we going to go on tour,” Buck said. “We could barely agree on where to go to dinner. And now we can just agree on where to go to dinner.”

“We’re also here to tell the tale, and we’re sitting at the same table together with deep admiration and lifelong friendship,” Stipe added. “A lot of people that do this can’t claim that.”

Buck explained they’re still friends because, “I think we quit at the right time,” noting, “This is a really good place to finish, you know – great tour, great album, go home.” 

Buck, Stipe and Mills all said they have no regrets about their decision to end R.E.M., although Berry, who quit the band two years after suffering a double brain aneurysm onstage in 1995, does have some about his departure.

When asked about it he got emotional, sharing, “That was a weird time for me and I made it weird for these guys, too.” 

But while they may still be friends, fans shouldn’t hold out hope for a reunion. When asked what it would take to get them performing together again, Mills joked, “a comet,” with Buck giving a good reason why it won’t happen.

“It’d never be as good,” he said.

The interview coincides with R.E.M.’s induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which is happening Thursday in New York City.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Bruce Springsteen is back on the stage after taking a few weeks off to recover from vocal issues.

Springsteen and The E Street Band relaunched their tour in Madrid on Wednesday, kicking the show off with “Lonesome Day” and “No Surrender.”

According to setlist.fm, the concert featured the tour debut of two songs. The first was the track “Frankie Fell in Love,” which was the first time Bruce played the High Hopes track with The E Street Band since 2014. He also performed a cover of John Fogerty’s “Rockin’ All Over The World,” which was the first time he played it since 2016. 

The rest of the set included such Springsteen classics as “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “Land of Hopes and Dreams,” “My Hometown,” “The River,” “Backstreets,” “She’s The One” and “Badlands,” as well as “Hungry Heart,” “Thunder Road,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Born to Run.”

Springsteen announced in late May that he would have to postpone shows in Marseille, Prague and Milan “under doctor’s direction.” The three shows have now been rescheduled for summer 2025.

Springsteen and The E Street Band play a second night in Madrid on Friday. The tour returns to North America in August. A complete list of dates can be found at brucepsringsteen.net.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

As rumored earlier in the year, the Eagles will be the next band to play the Sphere in Las Vegas. 

Eagles – Live in Concert at Sphere will consist of eight shows, kicking off Sept. 20, with the band playing Fridays and Saturdays through October 10. A complete list of dates can be found at eagles.com. 

A ticket presale begins June 18 at 10 a.m. PT, with presale registration now open. Tickets go on sale to the general public starting June 21 at 10 a.m. PT. In addition, ticket and hotel packages go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. PT, with VIP packages going on sale June 18 at 10 a.m. PT

Eagles will be the fourth band to take up residency at Sphere. U2 opened the venue back in September, with Phish and Dead & Company also playing residencies there.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Gov’t Mule is heading to the Caribbean again this January.

The band, fronted by Warren Haynes, just announced plans for their Island Exodus 15, an all-inclusive music festival happening Jan. 19-23 at Jewel Paradise Cove Resort in Runaway Bay, Jamaica.

Described as a “concert-cation,” the four-day festival will include three two-set beachfront concerts from Gov’t Mule, plus Hayes will headline an afternoon solo set. Other artists booked for Island Exodus include Drive-By Truckers, Karina Rykman, Big Sugar and Ron Holloway.

“We’re excited to return to Jamaica for our 15th Island Exodus,” Haynes shares. “This is always such a special experience so this year, we handpicked a lineup featuring talented friends of ours and artists that share a connection with Gov’t Mule.”

In addition to music, attendees will get to take part in a Q&A with Haynes, plus there will be all sorts of activities, like a corn hole tournament, yoga, tie-dyeing on the beach and more.

Presale tickets for those who attended Island Exodus 14 begin June 18, with another presale happening June 19 at 12 p.m. for previous attendees. Tickets go on sale to the general public June 20 at 12 p.m. ET. 

More info can be found at islandexodus.com.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The Who’s Pete Townshend will be in New York to attend the 77th annual Tony Awards, which will air Sunday live on CBS at 8 p.m. ET. 

Townshend is confirmed as a presenter on the telecast, where the cast of The Who’s Tommy is set to perform. The show has been nominated for Best Revival of a Musical, where it will compete with Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Gutenberg! The Musical! and Merrily We Roll Along.

This isn’t Townshend’s first encounter with the Tonys. The 1993 original run of The Who’s Tommy won five Tony Awards, including Best Original Score for Townshend. 

The Who’s Tommy is currently running at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The Police are looking back on their hit album Synchronicity and just shared the original promotional short film used over 40 years ago to celebrate the album’s release.

“They don’t make album promo like they did in 1983,” the band shares on social media. “A burning telephone, eggs on the piano, a taxidermy goat. It’s got to be The Police.”

The almost four-minute black-and-white clip includes all of those things mentioned, as well as a dinosaur skeleton, a collage of images of the band and more, and features clips of tracks like “Walking In Your Footsteps,” “Mother” and “Synchronicity II.”

It ends with snippets of the music videos for their future #1 single, “Every Breath You Take,” and “Wrapped Around Your Finger.” 

The release of the video comes as The Police are set to reissue Synchronicity in honor of its 40th anniversary. The release comes out July 26 in a variety of different formats, including six-CD and four-LP sets. A six-CD super deluxe box set features 55 previously unreleased tracks — alternate takes, instrumentals, demos and live recordings — along with new liner notes, interviews and previously unseen photographs.

It is available for preorder now. 

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

In an extensive interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Kevin Spacey opened up about the support he received from Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, following the sexual assault allegations that derailed his Oscar-winning career.

Spacey was exonerated in courts in both the U.S. and the U.K., and told Morgan both stars have stood by him through it all. 

“Elton was the first email I got on Oct. 30 of 2017 after the [Anthony] Rapp story had come out, saying, ‘We love you, whatever you need, we’re here for you,'” Spacey said. 

The former House of Cards star also revealed he “didn’t ask” the pair to testify in his defense in the U.K. case, but they “insisted.” 

“I told them a piece of information that one of the accusers had said about them, which was not true, and Elton and David said, ‘Well, we have to testify. … We have to let the jury know that this individual is not telling the truth,'” he shared.

The trio had a reunion last summer in France, Spacey recalled, calling their dinner together “very beautiful.”

But while Elton and David have stood by Spacey, he says he’s been shunned by many in Hollywood.  

“Yeah, there are some people who definitely ran into the forest, but … I continually find myself very moved by people who take the time and to reach out to find out how I’m doing,” he said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

While artists like Billy Joel, Michael Jackson and Tina Turner have had Broadway musicals written around their songs, it doesn’t sound like you’ll ever see one featuring the Bon Jovi catalog.

“I’ve been asked to do that 100 times,” Jon Bon Jovi tells Variety about the possibility of doing a jukebox musical. “Everybody wanted to write the story of Tommy and Gina [from ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’], but I’m going to guess that ABBA did it and Jersey Boys did it, and they did it really well many, many years ago. So I have turned down that opportunity time and again.”

It seems Jon feels like the band’s story has already been told on the stage. 

“I do recall all those years ago when I saw Jersey Boys, and I went, ‘Oh, that’s our story.’ That’s every band’s story. So our story isn’t that unique,” he explains. “And then I thought, OK, if you take the characters of Tommy and Gina and build two and a half hours around the catalog and their life, then it’s Mamma Mia. So that’s not unique.”

Instead, Jon is working hard to get his voice back after having vocal surgery two years ago. And when he does, he hopes to get his band back onstage for a tour.

“I know that none of us can achieve perfection, but I have to achieve excellence in order for me to do it on that level again, or I won’t,” he says. “I don’t want to pretend to be something I was … I don’t try to be that boy from 29 years ago, but I want to be the very best version of the 2024 version of me.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The four members of R.E.M. – Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Bill Berry and Peter Buck – sit down with CBS Mornings Thursday for what will be their first interview together in almost 30 years.

The band is set to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame that night, and in a preview of the interview they discuss how it feels to be recognized for their songwriting.

“We lived or died on the strength of our songs, so this is a huge honor,” Mills shares, with Buck adding, “It is the hardest thing that we do and it’s the thing that we worked on the most from the very beginning.”

“Because we had to,” Berry chimes in. “I mean early on just to put food on the table we had to write songs as fast as we could.” 

When asked if they ever look at their body of work as a whole, Mills noted that they aren’t quite that self-indulgent, to which Stipe interrupted with, “OK I am.”

“And then I wind up on YouTube and I watch some live performance, I’m like, ‘Wow I can’t believe we did that,’” he says. “Like we did, we did things and we did it really well from time to time.”

The Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala takes place Thursday in New York City. This year’s other inductees include Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and the late Walter Becker, Timbaland, Hillary Lindsey and Dean Pitchford.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.