Classic Rock News

Dave Grohl may be getting another call from Axl Rose after the Guns N’ Roses frontman slipped and fell during the band’s show in London on Friday, June 30.

In fan-shot footage from the concert posted to YouTube, you can see Rose lose his footing while singing the Use Your Illusion I cut “Bad Obsession.”

Luckily, the fall seemed pretty minor, as Rose quickly got back up and even flashed a quick smile at the crowd before launching back into the song. That probably means he won’t have to borrow Grohl’s throne again, which he sat in during GN’R’s 2016 reunion tour after breaking his foot earlier that year.

Grohl famously debuted the giant, mechanized throne in 2015, which he had built after falling off the stage during show and breaking his leg.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Call it the “Glastonbury Effect.” Appearances at the U.K.’s iconic Glastonbury Festival have paid off with big sales for most of the headliners, especially Elton John. 

Elton’s performance, billed as his last-ever show in the U.K., has sent his greatest hits collection Diamonds to number two on Britain’s Official Albums Chart. Plus, his Dua Lipa collab “Cold Heart” has reentered the chart at #30, while his classic “I’m Still Standing” has returned to the top 40 for the first time since it was released in 1983. 

In addition, “Since I Found You” singer Stephen Sanchez has benefited from joining Elton onstage at Glastonbury as one of his surprise guests. The retro-flavored ballad, Stephen’s breakthrough in the U.S., has now reentered the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart at #14, a new peak.

Glastonbury was one of Elton’s final shows before he says goodbye to the road for good. He’ll wrap his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour with a two-night stand in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 7-8.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

July’s full moon has brought us yet another new song from Peter Gabriel. “So Much” is the seventh single he’s released from his upcoming album i/o, which so far does not have a release date. 

“’So Much’ is about mortality, getting old, all the bright, cheerful subjects, but I think when you get to my sort of age, you either run away from mortality or you jump into it and try and live life to the full and that always seems to make a lot more sense to me,” Gabriel shares. “The countries that seem most alive are those that have death as part of their culture.”

As he’s done with all the other songs he’s released from i/o, Gabriel plans to release several different remixes of the song. The first one released is the Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake. It will be followed later this month by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent‘s Bright-Side Mix and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix).

Gabriel recently wrapped the U.K./European leg of his i/o tour. He’ll be bringing it to North America starting September 8 in Quebec City, Canada. A complete list of dates can be found at petergabriel.com.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Foreigner released their fourth studio album, aptly title 4. The title was even more appropriate because the band went from six members to four —  Lou Gramm, Mick Jones, Rick Wills and Dennis Elliott.

The album was a massive hit, spending 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart and selling over six million copies. It featured three hit singles, including one of their biggest hits “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” which peaked at #2 on the chart. Other hit singles included “Urgent,” which went to #4, and “Juke Box Hero,” which featured a young Thomas Dolby on keyboards. 

The album went on to be certified six-times Platinum by the RIAA.

Foreigner is currently on their final tour, though the only original member currently playing with the band is Mick Jones. They play Alpharetta, Georgia, on July 6. A complete list of dates can be found at Foreigneronline.com.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Neil Young made his return to the road this weekend, kicking off his Coastal Tour at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, California, his first tour since 2019. Young had promised fans he was going to be focusing on songs he rarely or hasn’t played live before, and he wasn’t kidding. 

Neil kicked off the show Friday, June 30, with the track “I’m The Ocean,” recorded with Pearl Jam for 1995’s Mirror Ball. According to setlist.fm, he hadn’t played that song since 1997 with his band Crazy Horse. 

Other rarities that were played for the first time in years include the Buffalo Springfield track “Burned,” which Neil hadn’t performed since 2009, “If You Got Love” for the first time since 1986 and “Song X,” which he last played in 1995 with Pearl Jam. Neil also performed “Prime of Life” for the first time since 1994, “Days That Used to Be” for the first time since 2014 and “When I Hold You In My Arms” for the first time since 2001.

There were also several songs that got their live debut, including “A Dream That Can Last,” “Don’t Forget Love,” and “Love Earth.”

The night wasn’t completely filled with rarities, with at leasts two classics making the set: “Heart of Gold” and the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tune “Ohio.”

Young has two more shows at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, July 3 and 5, before he heads to Santa Barbara on July 7. A complete list of dates can be found at NeilYoungarchives.com.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses had something of a rivalry back in the day, but it appears time has long healed that wound.

Dave Grohl has joined the “Welcome to the Jungle” rockers live onstage several times over the past few years, most recently during their headlining set at Glastonbury for a performance of “Paradise City.” Speaking with NME, guitarist Slash calls the Nirvana drummer-turned-Foo Fighters frontman “one of my all-time favorite musicians.”

“I knew [Grohl] was gonna be around, and I think it was [bassist] Duff [McKagan] who said to him, ‘Hey, you wanna come jam?'” Slash says of the Glastonbury collaboration. “So yeah, it eventually came together and it was fun.”

The GN’R appearance was one of a few surprises Grohl pulled off at Glastonbury, along with an unannounced Foo Fighters set, which had been billed as a mystery band called The Churnups.

Elsewhere in the interview, Slash gives a shout-out to another ’90s alt titan: Radiohead‘s Jonny Greenwood.

“I … think Jonny Greenwood is a great f****** composer,” Slash says, referencing the guitarist’s film work. “There Will Be Blood was one of the best scores of the last 20 years.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Chicago is one of several musical acts set to perform on PBS’ A Capitol Fourth, and original member Lee Loughnane is certainly looking forward to celebrating our nation’s independence in Washington, D.C. 

“A Capitol Fourth is a great show,” he tells ABC Audio. “You wait the whole show and hear some great music and then at the end, the fireworks are just, they blow your mind.”

This is the second time Chicago has performed on A Capitol Fourth, and this time they’ll perform three songs for fans. And as a bonus, Lee and the band will get to be right on the lawn watching the fireworks with everyone else.

“The fireworks has always been the greatest thing about the Fourth of July,” he says. “Besides the fact that the country is celebrating a birthday and this is the freest country in the world, and I’m proud to be able to call myself an American.”

The 76-year-old Loughnane is now in his 58th year of touring with Chicago — and even he can’t believe it sometimes.

“There is no way to look into the crystal ball and think that you might be doing the same songs that you were doing when you’re 19, 20 years old,” he says. “[It’s] really fun to be able to still do this. I mean, I feel like I’m 20 sometimes. My body doesn’t all the time, but, you know, my mind is. I’ve never quite grown up.” 

A Capitol Fourth, hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro, airs Tuesday, July 4, at 8 p.m. on PBS. In addition to Chicago, it will feature performances by Belinda Carlisle, Babyface, Boyz II Men and more.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

David Lee Roth has shared a new mini doc about the short-lived US Festival, which was the brainchild of Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak. According to the doc, Wozniak had hoped the ’80s would be “more community oriented” than the ’70s. 

The US Festival, the US standing for Unite us in Song, not United States, took place outside of California. It consisted of two multiday festivals, one during Labor Day weekend in 1982 and another during Memorial Day weekend in 1983. The latter consisted of four shows broken down by genre — new wave, rock, heavy metal and country — with Van Halen headlining the heavy metal day, which also included Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne.

Roth’s somewhat bizarre 24-minute documentary starts with a discussion of his creation of what he called the Jungle Studs, a group of friends he’d go on adventures with. But his traveling time was cut short when Van Halen was offered the US Festival gig by Wozniak. They at first turned it down, but changed their minds when they were offered $1 million for the gig.

At the time, the show was the biggest concert of Van Halen’s career. They wound up getting paid even more than the initial offer, since they had a clause in their contract that no band could be paid more than them. Wozniak, desperate to get David Bowie for the rock day lineup, paid $1.5 million to get him and his crew to the show.

In the end, the festival cost Woz $10 million — and there were two reported deaths. The festival never returned.

(Video includes uncensored profanity.)

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Paul McCartney recently revealed that artificial intelligence was used to “extricate” the late John Lennon’s voice from an old demo, for what he says will be “the last Beatles record.” As previously reported, he later clarified that “nothing has been artificially or synthetically created” for the tune. Well, now the only other living Beatle, Ringo Starr, is chiming in on details about the song.  

In an upcoming episode of Rolling Stone‘s Music Now podcast, Ringo insists they would “never” go so far as to fake Lennon’s vocals for a song. He also says they used recordings the late George Harrison made before his 2001 death. 

“This was beautiful,” Starr says of the tune, “and it’s the final track you’ll ever hear with the four lads. And that’s a fact.”

So far there’s no word on the name of the song. Speculation suggests it’s the tune “Now And Then,” which was recorded at the same time as “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love,” which appeared on the Beatles Anthology albums, which were released between 1995 and 1996.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

John Mellencamp will be featured in the debut episode of the new public television series WITH, set to debut Saturday, July 1 (check local listings). The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer sits down for a chat with TV personality Bob Costas for the episode, which was filmed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

“I’m a curmudgeon,” Mellencamp says in a preview of the episode, much to Costas’ mock surprise. “I like to do things my way and I pay an awfully high price for that.” Mellencamp also discusses his love of painting in the clip. 

According to the series’ description, it “explores the concept of collaboration and the impact that relationships and experiences can have on the creative process,” looking at the “unseen influences and inspirations that shape an artist’s work.” Each episode features a musician paired with fellow creators, musicians and friends.

A trailer for the series reveals future episodes will feature interviews with Peter Frampton, the members of AC/DC, Heartbreaker guitarist Mike Campbell, and Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.