Classic Rock News

The ’80s-era music of King Crimson will be celebrated on a new tour featuring former members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin.

The BEAT tour will have the two musicians teaming up with guitar great Steve Vai and Tool drummer Danny Carey to reinterpret three King Crimson albums – 1981’s Discipline, 1982’s Beat and 1984’s Three Of A Perfect Pair – which were also the first three to feature Belew and Levin. 

“The 1981 through 1984 King Crimson created a music all its own. Timeless. Beautiful. Complex. Fierce,” Belew shares. “For the fans who lived through it then, and the ones who never got to witness it, our aim is to bring it to life again. A monumental task but we’re going for it! There are not enough exclamation points to express my excitement!” 

Levin adds, “This is going to be quite a tour. Revisiting some of my favorite music is a treat in itself, but in company of this stellar lineup, I expect to have my musical butt kicked!” 

The BEAT tour kicks off September 12 in San Jose, California, with dates confirmed through November 8 in Las Vegas. A ticket presale is already open, with tickets going on sale to the general public on Friday, April 5.

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Heart is extending their time on the road. Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson have just added some more dates to their upcoming Royal Flush tour, which is their first tour together in five years.

The new dates kick off September 26 in San Francisco, with added stops in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Nashville, New York, San Diego and more, before wrapping December 15 at the BleauLive Theater inside Fontainebleau Las Vegas. 

The new shows feature Cheap Trick, Bachman Turner Overdrive featuring Randy Bachman and Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening as special guests on select dates.

Presales for the new shows begin Wednesday, April 3, at 10 a.m., with tickets going on sale to the general public Friday, April 5, at 10 a.m.

The first leg of the Royal Flush tour, featuring special guest Cheap Trick, is set to kick off April 20 in Greenville, South Carolina. Heart will also bring the tour overseas, where they’ll be playing festivals and some headlining shows with special guest Squeeze.

In addition to their Royal Flush tour, Heart is scheduled to open three dates on the Def Leppard and Journey stadium tour this summer. A complete list of Heart dates can be found at heart-music.com.

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Jeff Lynne’s ELO has added more dates to their Over and Out Tour, which is being billed as the band’s final tour. 

The new dates include a second show in four big cities: New York’s Madison Square Garden on September 17, Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center on September 21, Chicago’s United Center on September 28 and Los Angeles’ Kia Forum on October 26.

The tour will kick off August 24 in Palm Desert, California, with the October 26 Kia Forum date the final show of the trek. A complete schedule can be found at jefflynneselo.com.

An artist presale for the new shows will begin Wednesday, April 3, at 10 a.m., with tickets going on sale to the general public on Friday, April 5, at 10 a.m.

The Over and Out Tour will be the first tour for Jeff Lynne’s ELO since 2019, although they did play Joe Walsh’s VetsAid in Chula Vista, California, in 2023, treating the crowd to such classics as “Evil Woman,” “Don’t Bring Me Down” and “Mr. Blue Sky.”

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Bruce Springsteen came to the rescue of one of his young fans, who was skipping school to see Bruce’s concert at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Sunday, March 31.

Fan-shot footage posted to Facebook shows the rocker kneeling down to sign an excuse note for a young girl who was holding up a sign that read “skipping school sign my note?” As he handed the note back he blew a kiss to the fan.

This isn’t the first time Springsteen has signed a child’s excuse note. Back in 2016, he signed 10-year-old Michael Fenerty’s absence note after he and his father went to the Free Library of Philadelphia to get The Boss’ memoir, Born To Run, signed. 

As for the Springsteen concert on Sunday, according to setlist.fm Springsteen opened with the tour debut of “Light of Day,” from the 1987 Michael J. Fox movie of the same name. It was the first time The Boss has performed the song with The E Street Band since 2016.

The show also featured Springsteen classics like “Hungry Heart,” “Badlands,” “Thunder Road,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Born To Run.”
 

Next up, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band hit the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, for shows on April 4 and 7. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.
 

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On This Day, April 2, 1977 …

Fleetwood Mac topped the Billboard 200 album chart with their 11th studio album, Rumours. The album would go on to spend 31 nonconsecutive weeks at #1.

Rumours became Fleetwood Mac’s most successful release, thanks to four top-10 hits: “Dreams,” their only #1 song; “Go Your Own Way”; “Don’t Stop”; and “You Make Loving Fun.”

Rumours won Album of the Year at the Grammys in 1978 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003. It was also selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2017. 

As of February 2023, Rumours had sold over 40 million copies worldwide and had been been certified 21-times Platinum by the RIAA.

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Green Day has shared a new behind-the-scenes video capturing the recording of “Living in the ’20s,” a track off the band’s new album, Saviors.

The clip, which is streaming now on YouTube, features frontman Billie Joe Armstrong trying a few different approaches to the song’s guitar solo before figuring out the direction he wants to take.

“I don’t wanna do anything that sounds too old-fashioned guitar playing,” Armstrong says. “I wanna do something where it’s just, like, it just gets bigger.”

Saviors, the 14th Green Day album, dropped in January. It also includes the singles “The American Dream Is Killing Me” and “Dilemma.”

Green Day will launch a U.S. tour in support of Saviors in July. They’ll also be playing their albums Dookie and American Idiot in full in honor of their respective 30th and 20th anniversaries.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)  

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While Peter Frampton is a rock star in his own right, he’s had no problem stepping out of the spotlight and lending his guitar expertise to other artists, and in a new interview he reveals why he likes to do it.

“I’ve always enjoyed doing sessions for other people because everybody works differently,” he tells RockOn magazine. “Every artist has different material, and I enjoy bringing my creativity as a guitarist. I’m a guitar player first and foremost. Even if I’ve got a cold, I can still do a good solo.” 

But there are things that can slow him down. In 2019 Frampton was diagnosed with the progressive disease inclusion body myositis, which affects his hands, although for now he can still play. In fact, he’s currently on his Never Ever Say Never tour.

“I’ve got to have the wherewithal to be able to play, and I’m adapting, but I am losing strength in my hands,” he says. “But between the audience and the adrenaline and my love of playing music, especially guitar, somehow I pull it off every night.” 

Frampton is currently nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and he’s anticipating “a wonderful next couple of years” if he gets in. Those years will also include the 50th anniversary of his iconic live album Frampton Comes Alive in 2026, which is a milestone that won’t be forgotten.

“We’re going to have a big party,” he says. “I hope I’ll be able to do some playing then.” 

Frampton’s current tour hits Omaha, Nebraska, on April 3, with dates confirmed through April 14 in San Diego. A complete list of shows can be found at frampton.com.

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Scorpions‘ 1984 album Love at First Sting was a huge hit thanks to the successful single “Rock You Like A Hurricane,” but it turns out the song almost had a different, more explicit title.

“I thought we needed a rock song with lyrics that should be forbidden,” former drummer Herman Rarebell, who co-wrote the tune, reveals in a new interview with Classic Rock. “The original title, for me at least, was F*** You Like A Hurricane. The record company looked at me and said, ‘You’re completely out of your mind!’ Which I was.”

While the band heeded the warning and changed the title, Rarebell thinks that if it was being released now, they wouldn’t have to do so. 

“Looking back at in now, it makes you laugh,” he says. “There are all these songs that go, ‘Motherf*****, a******…’ They would never have been played in America back then. Now you could release it as F*** You Like A Hurricane and nobody would give a s***.”

Scorpions celebrated the 40th anniversary of Love at First Sting in March and will continue the celebration with their Scorpions – Love at First Sting Las Vegas residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, which kicks off April 11. A complete list of dates can be found at the-scorpions.com.

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Foreigner is taking issue with anyone who doesn’t think they deserve to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. 

The band, who received their first Rock Hall nomination this year, shared a new video on social media responding to a February Axios article ranking this year’s potential inductees. In it, Foreigner was listed last, with the author writing they “had a string of hits over two decades that were fun but didn’t impact the course of music history in any substantial way.” 

Well, Foreigner decided to show Axios just how much they impacted musical history. The video points out that they sold over 80 million albums and have 19 Gold/Platinum records, three Grammy nominations and 22 songs in the Billboard Hot 100. Plus, they note that Mick Jones and Lou Gramm were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2013.

They captioned the video, posted on April Fools’ Day, “Jokes on Axios.”

The Hall of Fame fan vote is open until April 26, and inductees will be announced later that month. The 2024 induction ceremony will take place in Cleveland in the fall. 

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Sebastian Bach has hopes to one day reunite with his old band Skid Row.

In an interview with Metal Hammer, Bach looks back on his time with the band, noting that it ended way too soon. 

“For me, doing three albums with Skid Row, I was just getting started,” he says. “I didn’t think it would be over and done with so quick.”

Bach was Skid Row’s frontman from 1987-1996, during which they had some of their biggest hits, including the singles “18 and Life” and “I Remember You” and the multi-Platinum albums Skid Row and Slave to the Grind.

While Skid Row and Bach have tried unsuccessfully to reunite in the past, Bach hasn’t given up hope that it may one day happen, sharing that it’s something he’d love to do for the fans. 

“I can definitely see that happening considering they play the same songs I play,” he says. “When I get a substantial royalty check for an album I did with musicians that I haven’t been in the same room with since 1996, I feel like a piece of s***. Because we should be giving something back to the fans that have made this great life possible.”

In the meantime, Bach is getting ready to release Child Within the Man, his first solo album in 10 years, on May 10. He’ll also launch his What Do I Got To Lose? tour in the U.S. on May 10 in Jefferson, Louisiana. A complete list of dates can be found at sebastianbach.com.

Skid Row recently announced that Halestorm‘s Lzzy Hale will step in as their lead singer for their upcoming shows to replace vocalist Erik Grönwall, who’s leaving the band. They have four shows scheduled in May and June.
 

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