Classic Rock 93.9

Bon Jovi will be there for its fans later this year.  The rockers unveiled plans for a 15-stop tour that will span across the U.S. starting in the spring.

Called the Bon Jovi 2022 Tour, the band will hit up arenas in the country’s biggest cities, starting April 1 in Omaha, Nebraska, at the CHI Health Center.  The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ tour wraps April 30 in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Bridgestone Arena.

The tour will support Bon Jovi’s 2020 album, and frontman Jon Bon Jovi cannot wait to hit the road again to see his fans.  “We have all missed touring and we know that nothing can replace the energy of a live show for the fans or the band,” he said in a statement.

Tickets for the 15-stop tour go on sale starting Friday, January 14, at 10 a.m. ET on Bon Jovi’s official webpage. Fans will be able to cut the line if they are a member of the JBJ Experience, and can access the pre-sale a few days earlier, on Tuesday, January 11, at 10 a.m. ET.

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Just a reminder that the star-studded A Bowie Celebration virtual concert event commemorating what would’ve been David Bowie‘s 75th birthday takes place this Saturday, January 8, starting at 9 p.m. ET.

As previously reported, the presentation was organized by longtime Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson, and will feature performances by Def Leppard, Duran Duran‘s Simon Le Bon and John Taylor, Noel Gallagher, Living Colour, Rob Thomas, WALK THE MOON, and actors Gary Oldman and Evan Rachel Wood, among others.

In addition, Ricky Gervais will make a special appearance during the show, part of the proceeds from which will benefit the Save the Children charity.

Garson will lead a house band featuring various musicians who toured and/or recorded with Bowie.

The event will be dedicated to legendary late photographer Mick Rock, and also will celebrate the 35th anniversary of Jim Henson fantasy film, Labyrinth, which starred Bowie as the Goblin King and featured five songs he wrote.

Tickets and ticket bundles for the event are available now at RollingLiveStudios.com/Bowie.

Meanwhile, a contest has been launched in conjunction of the livestream offering a variety of special prizes.

The grand prize features Bowie’s new 18-LP Brilliant Adventure box set, a one-on-one Zoom with Garson, a ticket to the streaming event, access to a virtual Q&A with some of the show’s musicians, a signed copy of Garson’s book Bowie’s Piano Man, t-shirts and other goodies.

To enter, fans must follow @bowietour, @licoricepizzarecords or @rollinglivestudios on Instagram, leave comment under the post about the contest, tag at least five friends and ask them to follow. The person who generates the most follows wins the contest. The winner will be announced at 3 p.m. ET on Friday.

Seven additional randomly chose winners each will receive a different Bowie album.

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The Cars‘ Elliot Easton and The Scorpions‘ Matthias Jabs are among a variety of artists who will take part in the NAMM organization’s Believe in Music online event, which is scheduled for January 20 and 21.

Taking place instead of the annual in-person NAMM Show music-equipment trade conference — which has been moved to the summer — Believe in Music is a global online gathering that will help unify and provide support for the people and organizations that bring music to the world.

Believe in Music will offer a variety of free music-business-related presentations, including artist interviews, performances, round-table discussions, forums, tutorials, gear unveilings and more.

Easton and Jabs both will be participating in interviews on January 20, scheduled for 4:15 p.m. ET and 5:30 p.m. ET, respectively.

Other artists also taking part in interview events include rock-guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd and Struts members Luke Spiller and Adam Slack.

For full details about the online event, visit BelieveinMusic.tv.

The 2022 NAMM Show has been combined with the Summer NAMM conference, and is scheduled to take place July 3-5 at California’s Anaheim Convention Center.

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David Bowie‘s estate has announced new special releases in conjunction with the ongoing Bowie 75 campaign commemorating what would’ve been the late rock legend’s 75th birthday this Saturday, January 8.

Five Bowie albums from the latter part of his career — 2002’s Heathen, 2003’s Reality, the 2010 A Reality Tour live album, 2013’s The Next Day and 2016’s ★ (a.k.a. Blackstar) — have been remixed for Sony’s 360 Reality Audio format and will be released via select streaming services on January 21.

The mixes were created by longtime Bowie studio collaborator and frequent co-producer Tony Visconti.

As previously reported, the 360 Reality Audio of Blackstar is getting its premiere today at the Bowie 75 pop-up stores in New York City and London. Also, 360 Reality Audio mixes of four tracks from the A Reality Tour album, which documents David’s final concert tour, will be streamed live tonight beginning at 7 p.m. ET on Bowie’s YouTube channel and at square.sony.com.

Listeners should wear headphones to enjoy the full 360-audio experience.

After the online livestream ends, viewers will be able to stream the performance on a smartphone using with the Artist Connection app, which can be downloaded at ArtistConnection.net.

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Dead & Company won’t be playing in the Mexican sand after all this month, as the band has just announced that it’s called off its entire two-weekend Playing in the Sand destination festival.

The news of the cancellation comes after drummer Bill Kreutzmann dropped out of the event earlier this week due to health issues, and then singer/guitarist John Mayer dropped out because he got COVID-19.

On Instagram, Dead & Company posted a message that reads, “With much sadness and after great consideration of every possible scenario, the Playing in the Sand shows in Riviera Cancun on January 7-10 and January 13-16 have now been canceled…due to the spiking COVID-19 cases.”

The statement continues, “Dead & Company…tried everything possible to bring normalcy and to deliver a great experience and amazing music, but with each day it became increasingly clear that canceling is the correct thing to do for the fans and for our crew.”

Noting that anyone who has tickets will receive an email about refunds, the statement ends by saying, “See you soon, hug your loved ones, stay safe and be kind.”

The event was to have featured multiple performances by the Grateful Dead spinoff group and other artists at the Moon Palace Cancún resort.

 

 

 

 

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Welcome to 2022…we’ve got new Guns N’ Roses music. Or we will, anyway.

In an interview with Classic Rock magazine, Slash reveals that there’s “new Guns material coming out as we speak.”

The guitar icon notes, “We’ll probably keep putting it out until the entire record’s worth of stuff is done and then put it out solid,” adding, “It’s cool. I’m enjoying working on the stuff and having a good time doing it.”

Last year, GN’R released two new singles: “Absurd” and “Hard Skool.” The tracks marked the first new tunes from the “Welcome to Jungle” rockers since Slash and bassist Duff McKagan rejoined frontman Axl Rose in the band in 2016.

The most recent Guns N’ Roses album is, of course, Chinese Democracy, which was finally released in 2008 after nearly a decade in development hell. Rose is the only original GN’R member featured on that record.

Slash, meanwhile, is set to drop a new album called 4 with his solo band Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators on February 11.

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Cobra Kai co-creator Jon Hurwitz is hoping to add a bit of “Thunder” to the titular dojo’s “Strike First Strike Hard No Mercy” motto.

As Hurwitz tells Entertainment Weekly, he’s been trying to use the AC/DC classic “Thunderstruck” in the Karate Kid sequel series for some time now. In fact, “Thunderstruck” was specifically written into a script for a montage season in the recently premiered fourth season of the show.

“We’ve written ‘Thunderstruck’ into the script several times over the years,” Hurwitz shares. “We’ve never been able to afford it in that moment or to make that choice [to spend the money on it] right now.”

“Our fantasy is having the kind of music budget that would allow for us to have nonstop AC/DC and Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses,” he adds.

While viewers have yet to hear “Thunderstruck” soundtrack any epic Cobra Kai karate showdowns, the show does feature a lot of Karate Kid-era appropriate rock music, including Mötley Crüe, Poison and Ratt.

“[Music supervisor] Michelle Johnson has done an amazing job, she’s been phenomenal in understanding the tone of the show,” says Hurwitz. “She’ll pitch us many, many songs or send music to our editors and we’ll narrow it down. There’s nothing we love more than finding the right song for a montage.”

Cobra Kai season 4 also featured a wink to metalheads in an episode when a neighbor of the character Stingray yells at him for “blaring s***ty Metallica all night.” Stingray, who’s played by Richard Jewell star Paul Walter Hauser, then replies, “That was actually Exodus‘ Bonded by Blood, but it’s not your fault, you don’t know the genre.”

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The Eagles have more than doubled the number of scheduled U.S. concerts for their Hotel California 2022 Tour, adding 12 new shows in a variety of major cities in March, April and May.

The new dates run from a March 17 concert in Cleveland through a May 25 performance in Salt Lake City, and also include shows in Chicago. Indianapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Nashville and the New York City suburb of Belmont, New York.

Tickets for the newly announced dates will go on sale to the general public on Friday, January 14, at 10 a.m. local time, and a limited number of VIP packages will be available that same day. There also will be opportunities to purchase pre-sale tickets; visit Eagles.com/events and Ticketmaster.com for more info.

The Eagles already had 10 other U.S. concerts lined up, spanning from a February 19 performance in Savannah, Georgia, through a May 19-20 stand in Austin, Texas.

As previously announced, the Hotel California trek features the current Eagles lineup performing the band’s classic 1976 album of the same name in its entirety, as well as other memorable tunes by the group, accompanied by an orchestra and a choir.

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Foo Fighters are kicking off 2022 by setting a new Billboard chart record.

Dave Grohl and company now have a total of 14 top-10 hits on the Rock & Alternative Airplay ranking, which measures radio airplay across rock and alternative formatted stations. That breaks what was previously a three-way tie for the most top-10s on the 12-year-old chart with Twenty One Pilots and Cage the Elephant, who both have 13.

The Foos earned the record thanks to their song “Love Dies Young,” the fourth and current single off the band’s 2021 album, Medicine at Midnight. Each of the record’s previous three singles —  “Shame Shame,” “Waiting on a War” and “Making a Fire” — also hit the top 10 on Rock & Alternative Airplay.

In addition to breaking Billboard records, Foo Fighters’ 2022 — or, as one might call it, 202Foo — includes returning to the road in continued support of Medicine at Midnight, as well as the premiere of Studio 666, a new horror-comedy film starring all of the band members.

In related news, it was just announced that the Foos will appear on the upcoming Jim Henson Company series Fraggle Rock: Rock to the Rock, set to premiere January 21 on Apple TV+.

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Sammy Hagar was awarded the title of Honorary Ambassador of Mexico’s Los Cabos municipality on Wednesday at a ceremony held in the town of San Jose del Cabo, not far from where the Red Rocker’s Cabo Wabo Cantina venue is located.

During the event, Hagar was presented with the municipality’s first Medal of Honor, which was created to recognize people who have made extraordinary contributions to the development and promotion of Los Cabos and Mexico’s economic growth.

Hagar is a longtime resident of Los Cabos, and his Cabo Wabo Cantina, where he usually stages his star-studded annual birthday bash, has brought many tourists to the area. In addition, Sammy’s hugely successful Cabo Wabo Tequila and Santo Tequila liquor brands also have helped boost the local economy.

“Being honored for anything in Los Cabos is the same for me as being honored in my hometown, because I feel this is my hometown and has been since the early ’80s,” Hagar said at the ceremony. “I will treasure this award [and]…will continue to do my part in bringing this, one of the most beautiful places in the world, to the rest of the world, as your new ambassador of tourism.”

Sammy was joined by his wife, Kari, at the event, which also was attended by various local politicians and officials, including Los Cabos’ municipal president, Oscar Leggs Castro.

Castro said at the ceremony, “Mr. Hagar has long been the unofficial ambassador to Los Cabos and through this designation we look forward to strengthening our tourism brand by leveraging his national and global appeal to promote Los Cabos throughout the world.”

After the ceremony, Hagar treated select local fans to a performance at Cabo Wabo Cantina.

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