Classic Rock News

The first trailer for Midas Man, the upcoming biopic on the late Beatles manager Brian Epstein, has just been released, giving fans their first look at The Queen’s Gambit star Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Epstein.

The clip also features glimpses of The Beatles: Jonah Lees as John Lennon, Blake Richardson as Paul McCartney, Leo Harvey-Elledge as George Harrison and Adam Lawrence as original drummer Pete Best.

“What I saw on that stage, I shall never forget it,” Epstein says in the clip after his first experience seeing The Beatles. He is later heard telling a group of men, “Those boys will be bigger than Elvis,” which elicits laughs.

The clip also features footage of The Beatles in the studio and touches on Epstein’s private life. It also gives us a look at Jay Leno playing Ed Sullivan as he introduces the band on his show.

The cast for Midas Man also includes Emily Watson, Eddie Marsan and Eddie Izzard. 

Midas Man debuts in the U.K. in October. So far a U.S. release date hasn’t been announced.

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James Hetfield doesn’t want Metallica to be a “legacy band.”

Speaking on the latest episode of The Metallica Report podcast, Hetfield shares that he feels “confidence” going into the 2025 leg of ‘Tallica’s M72 tour after songs off their latest album, 2023’s 72 Seasons, got such a positive response live during the 2023 and 2024 legs.

“We’re not afraid of it,” Hetfield says of including new songs in the set. “But we’re not overindulging in it, as well.”

“We know people wanna hear the ‘best-of,’ and you gotta challenge them to listen to some of the new stuff, as well,” he continues. “We certainly don’t wanna be a legacy band that just plays their greatest hits and then that’s it. It’s all a part of it.”

Metallica wrapped their 2024 tour in September in Mexico City. They’ll close out the year with their Los Angeles Helping Hands benefit concert in December before launching their 2025 tour in April.

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Joan Jett & The Blackhearts are showing their support for the Democratic party. The rockers shared a new video using their 2023 song “If You’re Blue” to encourage folks to “Vote Blue” at the polls this November. 

“We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the world” blasts across the screen at the opening of the clip. “It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done.” 

Then a quote from Vice President Kamala Harris appears, reading, “We must be worthy of this moment.”

The video cuts to images of America, with words like freedom, opportunity, compassion and dignity flashing across the screen, along with phrases like “turn the page,” “our fight our future,” “the American dream belongs to all of us” and “when we fight, we win,” the latter being a slogan used by Harris.

“If You’re Blue” appeared on Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ 2023 EP, Mindsets. It was the band’s first new music release since their acoustic album Changeup, which dropped in March 2022.

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Rolling Stone frontman Mick Jagger is a grandfather again. 

The rocker’s daughter Georgia May Jagger announced on Instagram that she and her boyfriend, skateboarder Cambryan Sedlick, welcomed son Dean Lee Jagger Sedlick on Sept. 30.

Georgia shared a collage of pictures of the family, including one with mom Jerry Hall.

“We are so in Love and happy and can’t stop staring at him,” she writes. “Thanks @cambryans for being so incredible through everything and taking such good care of us.”

Georgia is one of Mick’s four children with Hall. He has a total of eight kids with five different women. His youngest, son Deveraux, with current girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, is 8. His daughter Karis, who he had with former girlfriend Marsha Hunt, is already a mom, as is daughter Jade, whose mother is Jagger’s former wife, Bianca.

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Def Leppard and Journey spent the summer on the road together, and Def Leppard’s Phil Collen is opening up about what it was like touring with a band whose members weren’t exactly getting along.

Over the summer Journey’s Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain were suing each other over financial disagreements, but Collen says it didn’t affect the tour at all.

When asked by Rolling Stone whether it was “weird” touring with a band that’s dealing with infighting, Collen shared, “It would be, but we didn’t see it when we saw them.”

“I know the whole beef is mainly Jonathan and Neal, but when we get to see them, they’re just always just lovely and just wonderful,” he said. “So you don’t really get into whatever they’re going through, that other stuff. We just see them on stage hearing, ‘Don’t Stop Believing,’ ‘Open Arms,’ and all that stuff, and it’s pretty magical.” 

Unlike Journey, Collen says all the members of Def Leppard get along.

“We’ve only ever have one dressing room. We make a point of doing that,” he says. “If we can we’re always in one room, and it’s just magical. It’s like a bunch of arrested development. Everyone makes each other laugh.” 

“Journey are such a great band. I hope they get everything sorted out,” he added. “But it sure wouldn’t happen to us. We just have a different approach. I don’t want to be in separate rooms from the rest of the guys. None of us do.”

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Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour appears in a new video for the cover of the band’s classic “Comfortably Numb” from Ice T’s heavy metal group Body Count.

The video features black-and-white footage of Gilmour performing his guitar contribution to the song, cut with footage of Ice T at the mic, the band performing and images depicting the lyrics Ice T is rapping.

“Body Count’s version of ‘Comfortably Numb’ is quite radical, but the words really struck me,” Gilmour shared when the tune was first released. “It astonishes me that a tune I wrote almost 50 years ago is back with this great new approach. They’ve made it relevant again.”

“Comfortably Numb” is available now via digital outlets. The song will appear on Body County’s new album, Merciless, which drops Nov. 22.

(Video includes uncensored profanity.)
 

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Chicago has announced nine new shows at The Venetian Theatre, running from Feb. 28 to March 15.

This will be Chicago’s eighth year headlining a residency at The Venetian. In 2024 they played their 50th show there, making it the longest running residency in the venue’s history.

Various presales kick off Oct. 15, with tickets going on sale to the general public Oct. 18 at 10 a.m.

Chicago is set to return to the road on Oct. 22 with a show in Nashville, and they have 2024 dates booked through Nov. 17 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A complete list of dates can be found at chicagotheband.com.

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On This Day, Oct. 10, 2013 …

Paul McCartney surprised fans in New York City with an impromptu free concert in Times Square, announcing the show on social media about one hour before it occurred.

The rocker was promoting his 16th studio album, New, and treated fans to four songs off the record: “Save Us,” “Everybody Out There,” “Queenie Eye” and the title track.

Fans who could not make it to the Big Apple were able to enjoy the concert at home thanks to a Times Square webcam. 

New, which at the time was McCartney’s first album of new material in six years, was released one day later on Oct. 11. 

McCartney is currently on the latest leg of his Got Back tour. He plays Santiago, Chile, on Friday.

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Rod Stewart has won a Grammy, been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and been knighted at Buckingham Palace. But his latest honor isn’t for his music — it’s for his whisky.

Rod launched his own brand of whisky, Wolfie‘s, a little over a year ago, and on Oct. 7 he was honored by the Keepers of the Quaich, a society that recognizes people who’ve played a role in promoting Scotch whisky. At the society’s fall banquet at a castle in Scotland, Rod was named an Honorary Keeper of the Quaich in recognition of Wolfie’s award-winning success. 

A “quaich” is a traditional Scottish drinking vessel, which Rod evidently had to drink out of to make his honor official. Rod did a Q&A during the ceremony and also performed “Maggie May” with the house band.

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The Guess Who founding singer Burton Cummings released A Few Good Moments, his first solo album in over a decade, to digital services back in September, and now physical copies are on the way.

The record will be released on CD and two-LP orange vinyl on Nov. 15.

“The songs on this album took a while to become the proper collection. I believe in these songs because they are the result of having lived more years,” Cummings says. “At this point I have no interest in writing teenage love songs. Aging has changed the writing and that’s natural. I believe in these songs and I hope that the people who have followed my material enjoy them.”

He adds, “I want this album to stand up when it’s listened to years from now.”

Cummings is currently on a Canadian leg of his 60th Anniversary Hits tour and will bring it to the States starting Jan. 11 in Chandler, Arizona. He just announced a new set of March dates for the tour, which will now run through March 29 in Columbus, Ohio. A complete schedule can be found at burtoncummings.com.

In September, Cummings and his Guess Who bandmate Randy Bachman reached a settlement in their battle against fellow original members Jim Kale and Garry Peterson over the band’s name. Cummings and Bachman sued the pair in October 2023, accusing them of tricking fans into thinking Cummings and Bachman were still performing with the group, when they were actually getting a “cover band.”

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