Classic Rock News

Queen continues their look at the encore in this week’s episode of Queen the Greatest Live, this time looking back at a surprise they had in store for their audience during 1986’s Magic Tour.

While Queen classics “We Will Rock You” into “We Are The Champions” became the standard encore for the band during 1977’s News of the World tour, during the Magic Tour, they tried something different.

Instead of going right from one song into the other, the band decided to follow up “We Will Rock You” with another song, “Friends Will Be Friends.” This week’s clip shows their performance of the track at Wembley Stadium in July 1986.

The new encore was such a success, the band kept it as part of their shows through August, their final shows with frontman Freddie Mercury. 

Next week on Queen the Greatest Live: “We Will Rock You.”

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Dave Grohl continues to live up to his “nicest guy in rock” title, even when he’s on the other side of the planet.

In between dates on Foo Fighters‘ current tour of Australia, Grohl volunteered with a charity called The Big Umbrella to help cook food for people in need.

According to the Australian news site News.com.au, the event took place on Friday in Melbourne. You can check out photos of Grohl volunteering via The Big Umbrella’s Instagram Stories.

Grohl is known for being a big barbecue enthusiast; he’s volunteered his cooking skills for good causes on multiple occasions. In February, he cooked meals for a shelter in Los Angeles during the Southern California winter storm.

Foo Fighters wrap their Australia tour in December 12. They’ll launch a U.S. stadium tour in July.

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Bruce Springsteen has just added a Las Vegas date to his 2024 tour. He and the E Street Band will play T-Mobile Arena on Friday, March 22.

This will be the first time Springsteen has played a show in Las Vegas in over 20 years. The last time he hit Sin City was in August 2002, when he played the Thomas & Mack Center.

Tickets go on sale Thursday, December 14, at 10 a.m. PT.

In September, Springsteen was forced to push the remaining dates of his U.S. tour to 2024 to give him time to recover from peptic ulcer disease. The rescheduled dates are due to kick off March 19 in Phoenix, Arizona. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.

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System of a Down‘s Serj Tankian and Black Sabbath‘s Tony Iommi play together on a new song called “Deconstruction.”

The track was co-written by Tankian and Cesar Gueikian, CEO of Gibson. It also marks the debut of the guitar company’s Gibson Band, described as a “revolving collective of Gibson artists.”

Proceeds from “Deconstruction” will be donated to the Armenia Fund’s Artsakh Refugee Initiative, in support of Armenians affected by the country’s war with Azerbaijan. Both Tankian and Gueikian are of Armenian descent.

Additionally, Tankian will be auctioning off a painting that was used for the single cover of “Deconstruction,” while Gibson is offering a guitar customized with the artwork. Those sales will also benefit the Armenia Fund.

“It’s a dream come true to have collaborated with my good friend, Cesar Gueikian, and Tony Iommi, who I have collaborated with before,” Tankian says. “I am happy that we are using our platform to donate the music, my art, and Gibson’s incredibly unique guitar for such a great charity. Music with the right intentions can inspire and also create positive change.”

“It was great to hook up with Serj again and also to do a track with Cesar (I think that he’s trying to steal my job!!) ha-ha!!” Iommi adds. “The Armenian people are really lovely people, and it’s a great pleasure, a great cause, and I’m very happy to be involved in it.”

You can listen to “Deconstruction” now via digital outlets.

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An auction of the late ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill‘s instruments, wardrobe pieces, memorabilia and more kicked off Thursday, December 7, at Julien’s Auctions, with one of his bass guitars going for big bucks.

The late rocker’s signature 1953 Fender Precision bass sold for $393,700, more than three times the auction house’s highest estimate.  

The instrument, the most played of Hill’s guitar collection, is now the second-highest bass ever sold at auction. Only Beatle Paul McCartney’s Yamaha BB-1200 bass sold for more, back in 2021. A Fender Mustang, owned by The Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman, is just behind Dusty’s bass at three. 

“Dusty would be so pleased to know his bass is between a Beatle and a Rolling Stone!,” Dusty’s wife commented. 

Other items sold include: Hill’s fur bass from ZZ Top’s “Legs” video, for $317,500; Hill’s MTV Moonman for Best Group Video for “Legs,” for $25,400; a custom sky-blue wool suit jacket, which Dusty wore on the cover of the album Fandango!, sold for $11,430; and a black leather motorcycle jacket with custom painted skeletons and silver spikes sold for $13,000.

The three-day auction continues Friday, December 8, and Saturday, December 9, in Dallas, Texas, and online at Julien’s Live. A portion of the auction proceeds will be donated to the Recording Academy’s charitable foundation, MusiCares.

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Guns N’ Roses have dropped a new single called “The General.”

The “Welcome to the Jungle” outfit previously previewed the track during a November concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. It marks the second new GN’R tune of 2023, following the August premiere of “Perhaps.”

You can listen to “The General” now via digital outlets. It’s also being released alongside “Perhaps” on a seven-inch vinyl single.

“The General” and “Perhaps” follow GN’R’s two 2021 singles, “Hard Skool” and “Absurd,” which marked the group’s first new material since reuniting in 2016.

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On This Day, December 8, 1980…

Legendary Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment building, The Dakota. He was 40.

Earlier in the day, Lennon signed a copy of his album Double Fantasy for a fan as he and wife Yoko Ono were leaving for the recording studio. When he returned later that evening, the same fan, Mark David Chapman, shot him twice. The musician was rushed to the hospital where he died.

Chapman did not go on trial for Lennon’s murder, instead pleading guilty to second degree murder. He was sentenced to 20-years-to-life in prison and became eligible for parole in 2000, but he still remains in jail.

No funeral for Lennon was held, but his cremated remains were scattered in New York’s Central Park, not far from The Dakota. A memorial for Lennon, Strawberry Fields, was later created in the area.

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A new book focusing on two classic performances by The Who will be released early next year.

Teenage Wasteland: The Who at Winterland, 1968 and 1976 takes a look at how things changed for the band in the almost 10 years that passed between the two concerts at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom.

A description of the book notes, “These two years represent a screen grab of the band taken in its purest form: live, and harder than ever, right before and right after the huge success The Who struggled to live with in the years between.”

The two shows were worlds apart for the band, with the February 1968 concert attended by only a few hundred fans, while less than 10 years later, in March 1976, the 5,000-capacity theater was sold out.

The book offers fans a glimpse inside both shows with the use of firsthand accounts, previously unpublished photos taken by fans at the show and more.

Teenage Wasteland: The Who at Winterland by Edoardo Genzolini, with a foreword by Joel Selvin, will be released February 28 and is available for preorder now.

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Peter Gabriel recently released i/o, his first album of new material in 13 years, but it sounds like fans may not have to wait too long for his next one.

In an interview with U.K. paper The Times, Gabriel says now that he’s done touring he’s “having a sabbatical.” But after that, “There is another album’s worth of stuff in the can that needs to be finished.”

He’s also working on what he calls a “brain project,” which is about a device that reads minds.

“Some of these current songs will fit into the brain project, as I want to have some familiar songs in it when it is finally assembled,” he says. 

Later in the interview, Peter talks about why he decided to check out his former band Genesis’ final concert at London’s Wembley Arena in 2022.

“I had put so much of my life into getting Genesis going in the early years, it felt wrong not to be there when the guys decided to close the book,” he says. “It was a strange night for them and for me, full of memories, sadness and warmth.”

But fans shouldn’t expect Gabriel to now add Genesis tunes into his live shows. 

“I know that the music that means the most to you as a teenager tends to retain its hold on you throughout your life. I do occasionally have thoughts about doing a version of a couple of those songs that have a lot of me in them,” he says. “But then my attention gets caught by something new and exciting.”

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Documentaries about John Lennon, Carlos Santana and Blood, Sweat and Tears all have a chance for an Oscar nomination this year. 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences just announced the films eligible for a nomination in the Documentary Feature Film category, and several music docs made the cut. 

Films that could possibly land a nomination include The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, about Lennon’s relationship with May Pang; Carlos, about guitarist Carlos Santana; and What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears?, about the band’s 1970 State Department-sponsored tour of Iron Curtain countries Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland.

Also in the running for a possible nomination is Joan Baez: I Am Noise, about folk singer Joan Baez, and Little Richard: I Am Everything, about the legendary musician Little Richard.

Nominations for the 96th Academy Awards will be announced Tuesday, January 23. The Oscars will air on ABC, Sunday, March 10.

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