Blue Öyster Cult has shared another preview of their upcoming album Ghost Stories, which is due out April 12. The band has released the second single from the album, “Don’t Come Running To Me,” along with a video for the track.
Ghost Stories features a collection of “lost gems” the band recorded between 1978 and 1983. There’s also one track, “If I Fell,” that was recorded in 2016 and a live cover of the MC5 classic “Kick Out the Jams,” the only known recording of BOC’s take on the song.
It appears as though Ghost Stories will be the last album from the band, as the announcement calls it “a fitting finale to the recording legacy of one of rock’s most iconic fixtures from the past 50 years.”
Slash has announced a festival to go along with his upcoming blues album, Orgy of the Damned.
The S.E.R.P.E.N.T. festival is a traveling blues extravaganza that will launch July 5 in Bonner, Montana, and is scheduled to wrap up August 17 in Grand Prairie, Texas. Slash and his blues band will perform on each date.
The rest of the rotating lineup includes artists like Warren Hayes Band, Keb’ ‘Mo, Robert Randolph, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, ZZ Ward and Larkin Poe.
“The S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour is a celebration of blues and rock ‘n’ roll music, and a celebration of unity and togetherness in these uncertain and divisive times,” Slash says in a statement. “S.E.R.P.E.N.T is a vehicle to help support and uplift people and communities suffering from the injustices of racism and equal rights violations, as well as to support children adversely affected by war and poverty across the world. So, we are contributing a portion of every ticket and VIP package sold from the tour to those ends. “
He adds, “S.E.R.P.E.N.T. will also provide an environment where folks can get together for a day of great music and hang out and have a good time.”
Tickets go on sale March 15 at 10 a.m. local time. VIP packages, which include access to Slash’s soundcheck and a hand-signed vinyl copy of Orgy of the Damned, are on sale now. Visit serpentfestival.com for all the details.
Just days after releasing their new album Invincible Shield, Judas Priest kicked off a new tour in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday, March 11, treating fans to a mixture of new tunes, classics tracks and more.
According to setlist.fm, the heavy metal Rock & Roll Hall of Famers kicked off their set with Invincible Shield’s first single, “Panic Attack,” with the title track and “Trial by Fire” also getting their live debut. The set also featured the first performance of “Love Bites” since 2015 and the first performance of “Saints In Hell” since 2019.
The crowd also got to rock out to plenty of classic Judas Priest tracks, including “Breaking the Law,” “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” “The Green Manalishi,” “Painkiller” and “Metal Gods.” The band wrapped the show with an encore of “Hell Bent for Leather” and “Living After Midnight.”
The next stop on Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield tour is Leeds, England, on March 13. They bring the tour to the U.S. starting April 18 in Wallingford, Connecticut. A complete list of dates can be found at judaspriest.com.
The Allman Brothers Band kicked off a two night stand at the Filmore East in New York City.
The shows were recorded and later released as the double live album At Filmore Live, which featured extended jams of such Allman Brothers tunes as “Whipping Post,” “You Don’t Love Me” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.”
The album became a breakthrough hit for the band, with many critics considering it one of the best live albums of all time. It peaked at #13 on the Billboard Album charts and went on to be certified Platinum by the RIAA.
In 2004, At Filmore East was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.
Warren Haynes has announced a trio of shows, dubbed the Now Is The Time Tour, which will have the Gov’t Mule frontman backed by the Warren Haynes Band and The Dreams and Songs Symphonic Experience.
The shows will consist of three sets: two featuring symphonic music, with Rich Daniels of Chicago’s City Lights Orchestra conducting local orchestras in each market, and a third featuring the new Warren Haynes Band, made up of John Medeski, Govt Mule’s Kevin Scott and previous WHB member Terrence Higgins.
The tour will have Haynes exploring music from his entire career, including his time in Gov’t Mule, his solo work and his associations with the Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia.
“I’m really excited to have this opportunity to tour with both my new band and the Symphonic Experience,” Haynes shares. “We will be reinterpreting a lot of different music from the storied ‘songbooks’ of many of the bands I’ve been fortunate to have been a part of over the last three decades or so combined with material from my solo work, including new music.”
He adds, “Many of these aforementioned classic songs will be interpreted by an orchestra for the first time ever and doing sets with both the symphony and the band alone will give us the platform to perform a multi-dimensional show night after night.”
The tour kicks off Friday, June 7, in Bethel, New York, and then hits Boston on Saturday, June 8, and Canandaigua, New York, on June 9.
Various ticket presales begin Wednesday, March 13, at 10 a.m., with tickets going on sale to the general public starting Friday, March 15, at 10 am. More info can be found at warrenhaynes.net.
Sean Lennon, Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Photo credit: Disney/Scott Kirkland
It was recently announced that Sam Mendes would be directing four different Beatles biopics, one for each member of the group. Sean Ono Lennon has an interesting idea about who he’d like to see play his dad, John Lennon, on the big screen.
“I’m hoping that Emma Stone might consider it because she did such a good job in ‘Poor Things,’” Lennon joked with Variety on the Oscars red carpet. “I think if you’re gonna reach that as an actor, the next obvious step is to really go for it and be John Lennon.”
Sean, Lennon’s only son, with wife Yoko Ono, does believe that finding someone to play his father won’t exactly be easy.
“I do think with someone as famous as my dad, it’s very hard to cast a film like that,” he says. “There have been some very successful biopics about music people. ‘La Vie en Rose’ was incredible. ‘Ray’ was amazing. You can pull it off, and I think we’re gonna do a good job, so I’m excited.”
Lennon also joked that he’s up for pitching in with the film any way he can, noting, “I’m the DP. I’m the grip. And I’m also catering, which you wouldn’t expect that, but I’ll be cooking up a storm.”
John Fogerty has announced some more dates for his Celebration Tour, and this time, he’s bringing George Thorogood & The Destroyers along with him.
“George and I have done shows together before but for years we’ve talked about doing a full tour together,” Fogerty shares. “This summer we decided time is short, we better do this now!”
Thorogood adds, “Celebrating the music of John Fogerty at the same time we celebrate our 50th Anniversary is just about as good as it can get. I’m looking forward to being out there with my friend, John!”
The tour, which also features the rock band Hearty Har, including Fogerty’s sons Shane and Tyler, kicks off June 2 in Simpsonville, South Carolina, and wraps with an appearance at the Utah State fair on September 11 in Salt Lake City.
A ticket presale kicks off Tuesday, March 12, at 10 a.m. with tickets going on sale to the general public starting Friday, March 15, at 10 a.m. A complete list of dates can be found at johnfogerty.com.
Variety reports that during the 2024 Pop Conference at USC on Friday, March 8, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, best known for being part of Prince’s backing band The Revolution, revealed that they’ve been writing music with Eurythmics frontwoman Annie Lennox.
They didn’t share too many details about the project but suggested it may turn into a band after Melvoin told the audience, “If you’ve got any good names for a band name for the three of us, that’d be great.”
It’s been a while since fans have heard any new music from either of these artists. The last album of new material from Lennox was 2007’s Songs of Mass Destruction, although she did release a covers album titled Nostalgia in 2014. The last album Wendy and Lisa released was 2008’s White Flags of Winter Chimneys.
Folks who came out to John Mellencamp’s concert at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Sunday, March 10, got quite a treat.
While Mellencamp was getting ready to perform his classic tune “Pink Houses,” he surprised fans by bringing out New Jersey’s favorite rocker Bruce Springsteen, who was dressed simply in a T-shirt and jeans.
Mellencamp shared footage of the performance on social media, which sees the two rockers trading off verses of the song and coming together for the chorus.
This certainly isn’t the first time Mellencamp and Springsteen have performed together. In fact, Springsteen appeared on Mellencamp’s 2022 album, Strictly a One-Eyed Jack, singing on the tune “Wasted Days.” He also contributed guitar and background vocals on two other songs.
Mellencamp is currently on his Live and In Person tour, which hits Worcester, Massachusetts, on March 11. A complete list of dates can be found at mellencamp.com.
Springsteen is set to kick off the latest leg of his tour with the E Street Band on March 19 in Phoenix. For tour dates, check out brucespringsteen.net.
The video for Bon Jovi‘s 1994 hit “Always,” from their album Cross Road, has reached 1 billion views on YouTube, and the band is thanking fans for that milestone.
In a video posted on their socials, Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan and drummer Tico Torres express their gratitude, with Jon saying, “This is a humble thank you to everybody who watched the video for the song ‘Always’ a billion times.”
“A billion,” Bryan says. “Thank you, very very much,” Jon continues.
“Thank you two billion times,” adds Bryan as Torres applauds.
The rest of the post features scenes from the video, which starred Carla Gugino, Keri Russell, Jack Noseworthy and Jason Wiles. There was also a video that only featured the band performing the song.
“Always” reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. To date, it’s the band’s most recent top 10 hit on that chart.
