Classic Rock News

Lenny Kravitz is known for putting on a spectacular live show, so it’s no surprise he says it was a concert he went to when he was young that made him realize he wanted to make music a career.

Kravitz tells ABC Audio his first concert ever was the Jackson 5 at Madison Square Garden in New York in the early ’70s. It really convinced him music was what he should be doing, noting, “After that night, my life was never the same. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

Lenny, who released the new album Blue Electric Light earlier this year, says for him, getting to play live is all about the people who come to his shows.

He shares that his favorite thing about performing is “the communion with the audience, being with the audience, being with the people that support you, that have made it possible for this music to live.”

Lenny has seen lots of fellow musicians in concert and while he does get inspired by what he sees, he doesn’t necessarily use that inspiration when planning what he’ll do onstage.

“I don’t really think about other artists when I’m preparing for something like this,” he says. “I’m just trying to represent the time and be, you know, as strong as I can be and to be as open as I can be to really share this experience with the people.” 

Kravitz in on tour overseas through August. So far his only U.S. shows are a five-night residency at the Dolby Live in Las Vegas in October. A complete list of dates can be found at lennykravitz.com.

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Even after over 30 years, Pearl Jam keeps racking up career firsts.

The band’s song “Wreckage,” the current single off their new album, Dark Matter, has hit #1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Having already conquered the ranking with the Dark Matter title track, which was also the record’s lead single, Pearl Jam has now notched consecutive #1 hits on Mainstream Rock Airplay for the first time.

“Wreckage” gives Pearl Jam a total of five #1 Mainstream Rock Airplay singles. The song “Dark Matter” previously gave PJ the record for the longest gap between #1 hits on the chart, having taken over 26 years since last leading in 1998 with “Given to Fly.”

The album Dark Matter, the follow-up to 2020’s Gigaton, dropped in April. The band will launch a second leg of their U.S. tour in support of the album in August.

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After postponing three shows due to an illness in the band, Pearl Jam returned to the stage in Barcelona Saturday night, where frontman Eddie Vedder opened up about the health issues they were dealing with.

Fan-shot footage posted to social media shows Eddie addressing the crowd before a performance of “Wasted Reprise,” sharing, “the last week it almost felt like a near death experience. It was very uncomfortable and it got frightening.”

The comments came just after a performance of “Just Breathe,” with Vedder saying the issue was chest related. “It felt like maybe you couldn’t breathe, maybe you wouldn’t make it through the night, maybe you’d have to go to the hospital,” he said.

Eddie then noted that it wasn’t just him, and “a few of us” had it.

“You just realize how precious this life is, how lucky we are to have been living on a planet where we could go round and play to incredible people like the people in this room here tonight,” he added. “So, it was a poignant experience. I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon and we won’t be forgetting tonight anytime soon.”

Next up, Pearl Jam plays a second night in Barcelona on July 8. They return to the U.S. on August 22 with a show in Missoula, Montana. A complete list of dates can be found at pearljam.com.

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Stevie Nicks is the latest artist forced to postpone tour dates.

The two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer postponed her July 6 Glasgow show, as well as her planned July 9 show in Manchester, with a now-vanished Instagram Story post from Stevie blaming it on “a recent leg injury requiring a minor surgical procedure that will need a few days of recovery time.”

The post noted fans should keep their tickets and rescheduled dates will be announced soon. 

It also indicated that Stevie still plans to continue with her upcoming July 12 show in London, noting, “Stevie looks forward to seeing everyone at Hyde Park in London.”

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Pat Benatar and husband Neil Giraldo are offering up an update on their musical Invincible, a retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet using their music catalog.

The musical originally opened in late 2022 at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, and after mixed reviews, Benatar now tells Billboard they are planning to totally rework the show.

“The place we’re at right now is about tearing it to shreds and starting over,” Benatar shares. “We have the liberty to do that because we haven’t gone to even off-Broadway or anything like that. So we’re tearing it apart, doing a similar show but with a lot of different elements to it.” 

Giraldo adds that after the changes, the musical will be “different and the same at the same time.”

“It will take it in a little different direction, maybe go back to the very beginning,” he says. “I think we got too far in the weeds with it and it started getting a little messy.” 

In addition to the title song, the show features such classic Benatar/Giraldo tunes as “Love Is a Battlefield,” “Heartbreaker,” and “We Belong” and despite the setbacks, Benatar says the process has been “exciting” and “fun.” 

She notes, “You just keep evolving ’til we get to the place we feel like it’s time to put it out there.”

So far there’s no word on when or where exactly they plan to put it out there, although Benatar suggested it could open next in Giraldo’s hometown of Cleveland.

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Actor Clive Owen has revealed that David Bowie was a huge inspiration for him wanting to become an actor.

“Bowie probably has more to do with me being an actor than any actors,” Owen told Variety at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. 

“He showed me that you can create worlds,” Clive says. “My imagination was fired — that was the beginning of going into acting. It was Bowie that provoked my understanding of the art.”

Variety notes that Owen said he has no intention of ever trying to play Bowie in a project.

While Bowie, who passed away in 2016, is known mostly for music, he did dabble in acting throughout his career. He appeared in such films as 1976’s The Man Who Fell To Earth, and 1986’s Absolute Beginners and Labyrinth, as well as Martin Scorsese’s 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, 2006’s The Prestige and more.

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An Eddie Van Halen guitar emblazoned with the Canadian flag is going up for auction later this year.

The long-lost 1993 Ernie Ball Music Signature Canada Day guitar will be part of Julien’s Auctions biannual Played, Worn, & Torn: Rock ‘N’ Roll Iconic Guitars auction.

According to the auction house, the guitar, unseen for 31 years, was played by Eddie at a July 1, 1993, Canada Day concert at Molson Park in Barrie, Ontario. It features the red Canada maple leaf, with signatures of all the band members.

The auction is happening Nov. 21-22, and fans can register to be a part of it now. Eddie passed away in 2020 due to complications from throat cancer; to honor the rocker, proceeds from the sale will be donated to the cancer research and treatment nonprofit City of Hope.

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KISS’ Paul Stanley is giving fans an inside look into his guitar collection.

The rocker appears in the latest episode of Gibson TV’s The Collection, where he gives folks a behind-the-scenes look at the KISS warehouse, where he stores his guitars.

In the video, Stanley shares that seeing Eddie Cochran on TV inspired him to want to play guitar, noting, “There was something about him that was rogue and seemed ruthless, a great attitude.”

“So that was really the start of my introduction to guitar, although I grew up in a family with a lot of folk music and bluegrass and opera and classical music and all,” he says. “But I was convinced I could play the guitar when I had no knowledge of the guitar, just because there was some sort of connection.”

Stanley says he kept trying to get his parents to buy him a guitar, and requested an electric guitar for his 13th birthday, but instead he got a “used nylon-string guitar.”

“I was shattered ’cause you can’t play rock ‘n’ roll on this,” he said. “A couple of months later, I said, ‘You know, let me give that a go.’ So that was really the start … I took to it really quickly.” 

He adds, “I took a few lessons, and I wanted to go faster, and for some reason the teacher was, ‘No. You have to stay at this pace.’ So he went and the guitar stayed.”

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The Rolling Stones have given fans a look inside the studio as they recorded their 20th studio album, Voodoo Lounge. 

The band shared a behind-the-scenes clip from inside the studio, where guitarist Keith Richards talks about drummer Charlie Watts hitting his peak during the recording. There’s also a clip where Watts is chatting about his performance with Keith, Mick Jagger and producer Don Was.

The clip reveal comes as The Stones are set to reissue Voodoo Lounge in honor of its 30th anniversary. The album will be reissued on red- and yellow-colored vinyl on July 12, along with a limited-edition Rolling Stones store exclusive 10-inch single, containing B-sides “I’m Gonna Drive,” “So Young,” “Jump On Top Of Me” and “The Storm.”

The Voodoo Lounge 30th anniversary reissue is available for preorder now.

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David Gilmour is set to play some solo dates later this year, and he’s just given fans a sneak peek at what to expect. 

The rocker shared a clip of him rehearsing the Pink Floyd classic “Wish You Were Here” with musician Ben Worsley, as Wesley the dog listens on.

Gilmour is set to kick off his solo tour with a six-night stand in Rome, starting Sept. 27, followed by dates at London’s Royal Albert Hall beginning Oct. 9. In the U.S. he’ll play four shows in Los Angeles, starting Oct. 25 at the Intuit Dome, with the other three dates happening at the Hollywood Bowl. He’ll wrap the tour with five nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden, starting Nov. 4. 

The tour is in support of Gilmour’s new solo album, Luck and Strange, which drops Sept. 6. It is his first album of new material in nine years.

Luck and Strange is available for preorder now.

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