A two-day celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame kicked off at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Night one featured performances by such artists as Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Billy Joel and John Fogerty.
Night two’s lineup included Aretha Franklin, Metallica, U2, Mick Jagger, Springsteen, Jeff Beck, Lou Reed, Ozzy Osbourne, Billy F Gibbons and Sting.
A four-hour highlight special of the concerts aired on HBO the following month, and was later released on DVD and Blu-ray.
Warren Haynes Band is set to play the all-star SOULSHINE benefit concert, which will raise money to aid recovery efforts in Western North Carolina and Florida, areas that were devastated by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
The concert, happening Nov. 24 at New York’s Madison Square Garden, will be headlined by newly inducted Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Dave Matthews Band, with a lineup that also includes Nathaniel Rateliff & the NightSweats and Goose, along with special guests Trey Anastasio, Mavis Staples, Robert Randolph, Joe Russo, Trombone Shorty, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.
Haynes’ hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, was one of the areas hardest hit by Helene.
“The damage and destruction caused by Hurricane Helene to my beloved home of Asheville and all of Western North Carolina has truly devastated me,” Haynes shares. “Every year, it is my honor to host the Christmas Jam and give back to the community there, but this year, we need to do things a bit differently.”
He adds, “I’m thrilled to partner with my good friends in Dave Matthews Band and so many other musician friends to bring SOULSHINE to the iconic Madison Square Garden and help raise money for all those affected by both hurricanes throughout North Carolina and Florida. My heart is with you all and we look forward to creating a really special night!”
Money raised from the concert will go toward the SOULSHINE Concert Fund at the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, which will benefit Habitat for Humanity’s 2024 Hurricane Recovery fund, as well as other nonprofits on the ground in North Carolina and Florida.
Tickets for the concert go on sale to the general public Friday at 10 a.m.
Another behind-the-scenes video of the upcoming Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown has been released, giving us another look at Timothée Chalamet as the future Rock & Roll Hall of Famer.
The latest clip is soundtracked to Chalamet’s performance of “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” and features footage of the actor shooting the classic video for the song, which had Dylan holding cue cards with lyrics from the tune.
There’s also behind-the-scenes footage of the production shooting scenes of the Newport Folk Festival and Monterey Pop Festival, and more.
Set in New York in the ’60s, A Complete Unknown follows a 19-year-old Dylan at the beginning of his career, through to his historic electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
In addition to Chalamet, A Complete Unknown stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash and Nick Offerman as Alan Lomax. Elle Fanning plays Sylvie Russo, a character based on Dylan’s real-life girlfriend and muse Suze Rotolo.
Derick A. Thomas; Dat’s Jazz/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
Guitars belonging to Eddie Van Halen, George Harrison, Eric Clapton and more will be part of Julien’s Auctions’ upcoming “Played, Worn & Torn II” auction, happening Nov. 20-21 live in Nashville, as well as online.
The auction house previously revealed that Van Halen’s 1993 Ernie Ball Music Signature Canada Day guitar and Harrison’s early Beatles era Futurama guitar would be part of the auction, but now the other instruments up for grabs have been revealed.
Other guitars on the auction block include: a signed Torino Red Fender Stratocaster electric guitar played byClapton during his 1989-1991 Journeyman tour; a 1997 Gibson Custom Shop Ron Wood VSJ-200 acoustic guitar, signed by The Rolling Stone guitarist with lyrics from the Faces song “Ooh La La”; and Prince’s 1985 Sadowsky Telecaster, played on his 1986 Parade tour. There are also signed guitars from Alice Cooper, John Mellencamp, Peter Frampton and Keith Richards.
Also being auctioned off is a tinsel-adorned Christmas-themed hat worn by Freddie Mercury during Queen’s December 1979 charity concert at London’s Odeon Hammersmith, and the mic The Who‘s Roger Daltrey used during The Who Hits Back 2022 North American tour.
Over 1,000 items will be part of the auction, with proceeds going to several different charities, including City of Hope, Sweet Relief Music Fund, Teenage Cancer Trust and Rock for a Cause.
The “Played, Worn & Torn II” auction will take place at the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum in Nashville, where items in the auction will be on display to the public through Nov. 21.
The Fleetwood Mac tune“Everywhere” is the latest track to join the Spotify Billions Club.
The tune, from the band’s 1987 album, Tango in the Night, has officially been streamed over 1 billion times on the streaming service, one of four songs by the band to reach the milestone.
Previous Fleetwood Mac tunes to join the Spotify Billions Club include “Dreams,” which joined in June 2022, “The Chain,” which joined in December 2023, and “Go Your Own Way,” which joined in July 2024.
“Everywhere,” a top 20 hit for the band, may have gotten a bit of a boost thanks to its use on TV. The song has been used in commercials for Chevy electric vehicles.
The Who is giving fans another chance to get their hands on the Dolby Atmos mix of Who’s Next, which was previously only available as part of the super deluxe edition of the album, released back in September 2023.
The band is now releasing it as a standalone Blu-ray to the SDE (Super Deluxe Edition) shop, featuring producer/audio engineer Steven Wilson’s Dolby Atmos and 5.1 mixes, as well as 14 bonus tracks and instrumental mixes.
The Who’s Next SDE-exclusive Blu-ray audio will be released Jan. 17 and is available for preorder from now until Nov. 1.
Released in 1971, Who’s Next features Who classics like “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Behind Blue Eyes.” The album was originally conceived as another rock opera, Lifehouse, following their 1969 hit Tommy. Pete Townshend eventually scrapped the whole project.
Billy F. Gibbons has announced his first solo tour dates for 2025.
The ZZ Top rocker will hit the road with his band the BFGs,kicking things off with four nights in Honolulu, Hawaii, Jan. 17-20. The tour hits such cities as Phoenix, St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland and more before wrapping Feb. 20 in Bristol, Tennessee.
A complete list of dates can be found at billygibbons.com. Tickets for all shows go on sale Friday.
Meanwhile, ZZ Top recently announced some 2025 tour dates, as well. They’ll kick off their 2025 Revelation tour on March 5 in Dothan, Alabama, with dates confirmed through April 11 in Cape Girardeau, Montana. Dates can be found at zztop.com. Tickets are on sale now.
Elvis Costello never went after Olivia Rodrigo for a writing credit on her SOUR tune “Brutal,” despite many people agreeing it sounded just like his hit “Pump It Up,” and now he’s explaining why.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Costello says people don’t cover “Pump It Up” — rather, he says, they “allude to it in their own arrangements. Like Olivia Rodrigo’s producer obviously did.”
“Now, I did not find any reason to go after them legally for that, because I think it would be ludicrous,” Costello continues. “It’s a shared language of music. Other people clearly felt differently about other songs on that record.”
Costello may have been referring to Taylor Swift with that comment; Taylor and her producer Jack Antonoff are listed in the credits of SOUR as co-writers of the songs “Deja Vu” and “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” That’s because of the similarities between “Deja Vu” and Taylor’s song “Cruel Summer,” and the fact that “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” interpolates Taylor’s song “New Year’s Day.”
Costello continued to explain his point of view to Vanity Fair, noting, “[I]f there were no [musical] quotations, there’d be no Bach. There’d be no Mozart. There’d be no Sonny Rollins. So we can’t start worrying about that. That’s the way it works. One thing leads to another. That’s all I’ve ever been saying.”
Alice Cooper is headed back out on the road in 2025.
The rocker just announced eight more dates on his Too Close For Comfort Tour, with the new shows kicking off Jan. 31 in Augusta, Georgia. It hits Greensboro, North Carolina; Mobile, Alabama; Orlando, Florida; and more before wrapping Feb. 11 in St. Augustine, Florida.
Tickets for all shows go on sale Thursday aka Halloween.
Cooper also has two other gigs confirmed for 2025. He’s set to take part in the Rock Legends Cruise XII 2025, happening Feb. 13-17, leaving out of Miami, and he’s also on the bill for the Sonic Temple Art & Music Festival on May 9 in Columbus, Ohio.
Cooper recently contributed to a new song by The Black Keys. The tune, “Stay in Your Grave,” will appear on the upcoming deluxe version of the Keys’ new album, Ohio Players. The expanded set is due out Nov. 15.
Stevie Nicks appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, where she talked about her new song, “The Lighthouse,” which is a protest song in support of women’s rights in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Asked why she decided to speak out on the issue, Nicks noted, “Because everybody kept saying, ‘Well, somebody has to do something. Somebody has to say something.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I have a platform. I tell a good story. So maybe I should try to do something.'” She added, “I was also there. I was, been there, done that.“
Stevie recounted her decision to have an abortion in 1979 after she became pregnant with then-boyfriend Don Henley, saying that her having a baby would have “destroyed” Fleetwood Mac.
“It would’ve been a nightmare scenario for me to live through,” she shared.
Asked what she’d want to say to anyone who criticized her decision to have an abortion, Stevie said, “If people want to be mad at me, be mad at me. I don’t care. Had I made the other choice, had I gone the other way, I’d have been a great mom. I went this way, and I’ve done great.”
And for Stevie, the song is more about getting the message out than having a hit.
“Poets write what they write, and poets should not be censored. Writers should not be censored. This song should not be censored,” she said. “It should go out into the world and do what it’s gonna do, maybe change some minds. There is a God, and God gave me this talent to sing and write and dance. So, I’m doing my job.”
