Classic Rock News

In addition to being an iconic guitarist, Joe Satriani is also a painter. He announced plans to appear live at two Florida galleries to show his new work in December — and serenade the fans who buy them.

Satriani, who recently wrapped up Sammy Hagar‘s Best of All Worlds Tour, will make appearances at the Wentworth Gallery at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood on Dec. 6 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. and at the Wentworth Gallery in Boca Raton Town Center Mall on Dec. 7 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

His original canvases will be on display, as well as hand-painted guitars. And those lucky fans who show up and buy one of the guitarist’s works will be treated to a private performance in the gallery during the last hour of his appearance at each gallery.

Images that recur in Satriani’s brightly colored paintings include flags, hearts, alien faces and the Statue of Liberty. He says of his art, “Music and art are my passions … challenging the straight line and the concepts of what belongs with what excites me. I want to experience new color combinations to make me see beyond the prevailing reality.”

He adds, “When I paint and play my guitar, I strive to be in a state of exhilaration and communicate that feeling to my fans.”

On Jan. 31, Satriani will release G3 Reunion Live, an album that documents his most recent tour with fellow guitar greats Steve Vai and Eric Johnson.

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A documentary about the late keyboard player Billy Preston — perhaps best known for being the only guest musician ever credited on a Beatles record — will screen at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary film festival, on Nov. 17

Titled That’s the Way God Planned It, after Preston’s 1969 solo hit of the same name, the film features interviews with Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and George Harrison‘s widow, Olivia, as well as rare footage. It focuses on Preston’s genre-spanning work with Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Elton John and more, as well as his struggle to come to terms with his sexuality and his substance abuse.

If you watched the Beatles’ Get Back documentary, you saw Preston jamming in the studio with the Fab Four and playing with them during their final live performance on the rooftop of Apple Records in London in January 1969. The single “Get Back” was credited to “The Beatles featuring Billy Preston.”

Following the rooftop concert, Preston was signed to The Beatles’ Apple Records and scored a hit with “That’s the Way God Planned It.” In his years after leaving the label in 1971, he recorded the hits “Will It Go Round in Circles,” “Outa-Space,” “Nothing from Nothing” and “With You I’m Born Again.”

Preston also co-wrote Joe Cocker‘s classic “You Are So Beautiful,” recorded and toured with George Harrison and The Rolling Stones, and was the first-ever musical guest on Saturday Night Live, among his many other accomplishments. He died in June 2006 after a bout of pericarditis in 2005 caused respiratory failure, which left him comatose.

Preston was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.

The screening of the doc at the festival will include a Q&A with director Paris Barclay.

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Are you ready for yet another cover of Bob Dylan‘s classic “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”?

The song, which Dylan recorded for the soundtrack of the film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, has been covered by everyone from the Grateful Dead and Guns N’ Roses to Avril Lavigne and Eric Clapton. Now Yellowjackets star Sophie Thatcher has recorded her version for the soundtrack of the new A24 horror film Heretic.

In the film, out on Nov. 8, Thatcher and Chloe East play two Mormon missionaries who try to convert a character played by Hugh Grant — who turns out to be a very bad guy. The new version of the song is heard at the end of the film. Thatcher says her version feels “very melancholic and feminine and more dreamy and atmospheric.”

“It works with the movie because Hugh Grant goes on a spiel about religion and Christianity, [and how] they’re all iterations of each other,” she says.

Thatcher also allows that her version sounds very much like Mazzy Star‘s ’90s hit “Fade Into You.” And that’s not the only ’90s alt-rock band that’s referenced in the film: At one point, Grant’s character sings a bit of Radiohead’s “Creep” to illustrate how similar it is to The Hollies‘ “The Air That I Breathe.”

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After launching their co-headlining tour in football stadiums this year, Billy Joel and Sting will continue the party into 2025 by performing in four football stadiums — but they just announced a one-off show for next year in the more “intimate” surroundings of a baseball stadium.

The two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers will perform April 26 at the Milwaukee Brewers’ American Family Field, in what the The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports will be their only baseball stadium show of 2025. It’ll be Billy’s first show in Milwaukee since 2019 and Sting’s first show there since 2016.

American Family Field has a capacity of 41,900. By comparison, a football stadium, like the one they’re performing in on Nov. 9 in Las Vegas, can hold 72,000 fans.

Tickets go on sale Nov. 15 at 10 a.m. local time via livenation.com and ticketmaster.com. Citi cardholders will be able to access a presale beginning Nov. 11 at 10 a.m. local time.

Following the joint concert with Sting Nov. 9, Billy has two more shows left in 2024: a Nov. 23 solo date in Hollywood, Florida, and a New Year’s Eve show at UBS Arena in Belmont Park, New York, on Dec. 31. As for Sting, his Sting 3.0 tour with his power trio continues through November and ends Dec. 7. 

Billy and Sting’s first show together in 2025 comes on Feb. 8 in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, then Sting resumes his solo tour on Valentine’s Day in South America.

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The cast of the Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere has expanded.

The film, starring The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White as The Boss, chronicles Springsteen’s creation of his 1982 stripped-down album, Nebraska. Variety reports that actor Marc Maron has joined the cast as Chuck Plotkin, the producer who made the songs on the album sound high-quality enough to release. The originally quality of Springsteen’s recordings was dicey, since he’d originally recorded it solo on a cassette, and then damaged it by carrying it around in his pocket for weeks.

In addition, Variety reports that Gaby Hoffmann will play Bruce’s mom, Adele, who passed away earlier this year at age 98. David Krumholtz will portray Al Teller, the record executive who Bruce and his team worked with to release the album.

As previously reported, Jeremy Strong will play Springsteen’s longtime manager Jon Landau. There’s no release date for the film, which is currently in production. Springsteen was recently photographed visiting the New Jersey set and hugging White.

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Mötley Crüe has shared a new video for “Cancelled,” the title track off their new EP.

The black-and-white clip, which begins with a flashing lights advisory, features footage from a recent club show by the “Kickstart My Heart” outfit, as well as images reflecting the song’s lyrics.

You can watch the “Cancelled” video streaming now on YouTube.

The Cancelled EP, which dropped in October, also features the single “Dogs of War” and a cover of Beastie Boys‘ “Fight for Your Right.” It marks the first Mötley release since guitarist John 5 joined the band in place of Mick Mars.

Meanwhile, Mötley has announced that they’re donating $350,000 to Covenant House, which supports young people experiencing homelessness. The money was raised through a charity dinner and auction around the Crüe’s three intimate Los Angeles shows in October.

“Every young person deserves a safe place to sleep and the opportunity to thrive,” the band says. “It’s been an honor to support Covenant House in the fight to end youth homelessness. Thank you to all the Crüeheads who joined the fight and helped make this donation possible. We are humbled and inspired by all of you.”

(Video contains uncensored profanity.) 

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Peter Gabriel, who sang about Native Americans in his song “San Jacinto,” has now become involved in a documentary highlighting the struggles of Canada’s First Nation indigenous peoples.

According The Hollywood Reporter, Gabriel is executive producing New Blood, which focuses on the historical trauma faced by First Nations people. The documentary shares its name with Gabriel’s 2011 album, which featured him performing some of his songs, including “San Jacinto,” with an orchestra.

Gabriel first became involved with the project when he allowed music from that album to be used in an Alberta, Canada, high school dance production inspired by the true story of a First Nation chief named Vincent Yellow Old Woman.

The documentary focuses on the fact that until the 1990s, the Canadian government funded so-called “residential schools” run by the Catholic Church, where indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to be assimilated. In 2021, Canada underwent a national reckoning after the remains of hundreds of indigenous children — students in those schools — were discovered in unmarked graves.

The New Blood documentary chronicles Chief Vincent’s own experience in a residential school, which led to him becoming a drug addict and then, later in life, becoming chief of Siksiká Nation, one of the four nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy. 

The film will air on Canada’s CBC on Nov. 22.

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On This Day, Nov. 7, 1943 …

Joni Mitchell was born in Alberta, Canada.

Born Roberta Joan “Joni” Anderson, Mitchell’s rise to fame began in the ’60s and ’70s with such classic songs as “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Chelsea Morning,” “River” and “Both Sides Now.” She also wrote “Woodstock,” which later became a huge hit for her friends Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Mitchell has released 19 studio albums over the course of her career, but it’s her fourth album, 1971’s Blue, that is considered by many to be one of the best pop and rock albums in history.

In 2015 Mitchell suffered a brain aneurysm. She once revealed that she had to learn to walk again following the medical emergency. She made few public appearances after that and hadn’t performed live in 20 years when, in 2022, she surprised audiences at the Newport Folk Festival, joining Brandi Carlile for a guest-filled Joni Jam.

Since 2022, Mitchell has played a few more Joni Jams, and performed on the Grammys in 2024. She most recently headlined two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in California in October, with Elton John joining her onstage during one of the shows.

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Ahead of the presidential election, Bruce Springsteen, who’s been touring in Canada, introduced his song “Long Walk Home” as “a prayer for my country.” And in his first post-election show Nov. 6 in Toronto, he underscored that sentiment by actually opening the show with that song.

At the concert, he first apologized to the audience for starting late due a flight delay, then introduced the song by saying, “This is a fighting prayer for my country.” 

The lyrics for “Long Walk Home,” from Bruce’s album Magic, go in part, “My father said ‘Son, we’re lucky in this town/ It’s a beautiful place to be born/ It just wraps its arms around you/ Nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone/ Your flag flyin’ over the courthouse/ Means certain things are set in stone/ Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t.'”

He followed that up with another fitting song, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which he performed at a rally for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Oct. 28. In that song, he sings, “Leave behind your sorrows/ Let this day be the last/ Tomorrow there’ll be sunshine/ And all this darkness past.”

According to setlist.fm, Bruce also took requests from the audience for two other songs that appeared to match that theme: “Reason to Believe” and “Better Days.”

In addition to campaigning with Harris, Springsteen appeared in an ad for her and posted a lengthy video on Instagram explaining why he was voting for her.

But the Nov. 6 show wasn’t all seriousness: As part of his first encore, Bruce also performed his holiday favorite tune, “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” after a fan requested it.

Bruce’s next show is Nov. 9 in Ottawa, Canada.

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The new Bruce Springsteen documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band is streaming now on Hulu and Disney+, and while the movie gives fans insight into the band’s live show, it also turns the camera on Bruce’s dedicated fans.

The film’s director, Thom Zimny, tells ABC Audio that he’s always felt welcomed by the fans, noting that for many, coming to a concert is about more than just getting to see Bruce play some songs.

“When I was interviewing the fans, the beautiful thing I encountered was this universal connection to the music,” he says. “And it goes beyond fandom.” 

“I really talked to the people at length and found, to have simple stories of their connection to be a really powerful thing,” he says. “It wasn’t being obsessed with celebrity or chasing a rock god. It’s more that they’ve taken this positive thing in their life, made a community out of it and it reinforces ideas for them that bring joy in their life.”

He adds, “That silent communication that you see in people’s faces with the music and the band, it’s something that I abstractly wanted to try to get across. It’s really hard to put into words.” 

Zimny himself is one of those fans, and when asked to pick his favorite Springsteen album, he had a hard time choosing.  

“For me, every day there’s an opportunity to step into a Springsteen album. … Every day you can find an album to start at the beginning and play straight through till the end,” he says. “The narrative arc and the journeys on these albums are flawless and they stay with me in a timeless way.” 

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