Classic Rock News

Def Leppard has added another tour date to their already busy schedule.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers are set to headline Spokane Arena on September 6, the first time they are playing Spokane, Washington, in seven years.

Tickets for Def Leppard Rock Brigade Concert Club members go on sale Tuesday, February 20, with the general sale happening Friday, February 23. 

The Spokane show is one of only a handful of solo Def Leppard dates on their schedule for 2024. They are due to hit the road with Journey starting July 6 in St. Louis, Missouri. The tour features special guests Steve Miller Band, Heart and Cheap Trick.

A complete list of dates can be found at defleppard.com.

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Paul McCartney is back on the Billboard chart thanks to the 50th anniversary reissue of his Wings album, Band on the Run.

The reissue, which went to #1 on the Billboard 200 chart when it was released in 1974, returns to the same chart at #156 for the week ending February 17.

It has also landed in the top 10 on three other Billboard charts: the Top Album Sales chart, where it reenters at #5; the Vinyl Albums chart, where it debuts at #7; and the Tastemaker Albums chart, where it’s at #6. It also debuts at #37 on the Rock & Alternative Albums chart.

Overall, 8,000 copies of Band on the Run were sold in the U.S. in the first week of the anniversary edition’s release.

The 50th anniversary release of Band on the Run featured a half-speed remastered single LP vinyl of the original album, as well as a special two-LP vinyl set comprised of the half-speed remastered original album and an additional LP, Underdubbed Mixes Edition, featuring the album’s nine songs without any orchestral overdubs.

Band on the Run was the third album released by Paul McCartney & Wings and McCartney’s fifth post-The Beatles release. It featured such classic songs as the title track, “Jet” and “Bluebird.” 

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Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has announced a one-off U.S. concert ahead of his upcoming international solo tour.

The show will take place April 15 in Santa Ana, California. It’ll mark the debut of Dickinson’s newly reworked solo band lineup, which will feature guitarists Philip Naslund and Chris Declercq. They will fill in for longtime Dickinson collaborator Roy Z, who will be staying home from the tour due to personal commitments.

“We’re not afraid of doing some growing up in public,” Dickinson says. “This show will be a close to a rehearsal as you can get — it’s exciting to think what these musicians can do — and will do, when there are over one thousand fans in the room!”

Tickets go on sale Tuesday, February 20. For more info, visit Dickinson’s website, TheMandrakeProject.com.

Dickinson will release a new solo album, The Mandrake Project, on March 1. Following the Santa Ana concert, which marks the lone U.S. date on his calendar, Dickinson will head to Mexico, Brazil and Europe.

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Queen’s Roger Taylor is selling his Los Angeles home. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame drummer has put his Spanish-style villa in the Hollywood Hills on the market, according to the Robb Report. 

Taylor purchased the 4,300-square-foot home in the early 1980s for $352,000 and has now listed it for close to $6.2 million.

So, what do you get for that price tag? The two-story house sits on a third of an acre of land. The home, which the listing says has been “remarkably restored and lovingly maintained,” features four bedrooms and five baths, with a formal living room with vaulted ceilings and a black marble fireplace.

There’s also an all-white kitchen with high-end appliances, a wine closet, dining room and a den with a stone fireplace. The master bedroom has its own fireplace, a private balcony, walk-in closet and a spa-like bathroom.

The grounds include a lagoon-style pool and a hillside spa, and there’s also a motorcourt, plus a two-car garage out front.

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Sunday, February 18, marks the 50th anniversary of the release of KISS’ self-titled debut album, and the band has now launched a new line of 50th anniversary merchandise to mark the occasion. 

Items in the collection include a 50th anniversary limited-edition KISS picture disc with an anniversary jacket featuring the KISS logo in rhinestones, as well as a limited-edition gold nugget-colored KISS vinyl, with a 50th anniversary long-sleeve shirt.

There are also a variety of 50th anniversary T-shirts and a separate 50th anniversary jacket, along with a banner, woven blanket, wing-zipped hoodie, socks, gin tumbler set, pin set, sticker, belt buckle and more.

All items are on sale now at shopkissonline.com.

Released February 18, 1974, the band’s self-titled debut featured such future KISS classics as “Strutter,” “Black Diamond,” “Deuce” and “10,000 Years.” It only sold about 75,000 copies when it was first released, but after it was rereleased in 1997 it was certified Gold by the RIAA.

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The Black Crowes are giving fans another preview of their upcoming album, Happiness Bastards.

Following the release of the album’s debut track, “Wanting and Waiting,” brothers Chris and Rich Robinson have dropped the second single from the record, “Cross Your Fingers,” which is described as having a “rhythmic chorus infused with the funk and soul of the Robinson Brothers’ Georgia roots.”

You can listen to “Cross Your Fingers” now via digital outlets and on YouTube.

The Black Crowes will release Happiness Bastards on March 15. It is their 10th studio album and their first album of new music in 15 years. 

They will also be heading out on the Happiness Bastards tour this spring, hitting 35 cities starting April 2 at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. A complete list of dates can be found at theblackcrowes.com.

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There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence is changing the music industry. For one example, watch the video for Billy Joel‘s new song, “Turn the Lights Back On.” It uses what’s described as “groundbreaking technology” from a company called Deep Voodoo to transform Billy from the 74-year-old man he is today to the man he was in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. 

The video starts with a shot of the sheet music of “Famous Last Words,” the last song on Billy’s last pop album, 1993’s River of Dreams. It then shows him performing the song in the present day on an empty stage in a theater.

As he continues to sing the song, he suddenly transforms into how he looked in the ’70s, and then he turns into ’80s-era Billy, around the time of “Uptown Girl.” Next, he’s wearing shades and looks like he did in the early ’90s. As the clip ends, Billy is back to the way he looks now, and we see real-life footage of him through the years.

The video for “Turn the Lights Back On” was co-directed by Freddy Wexler, who also produced the song and co-wrote it with Billy, Arthur Bacon and Wayne Hector.

“Turn the Lights Back On” has returned Billy to the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts — as an artist, not just a writer — for the first time since 1998.

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February 18 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of KISS‘ self-titled debut album, which included such songs as “Strutter,” “Black Diamond” and “Deuce.” But while those songs may be KISS classics today, The Starchild Paul Stanley says those tunes didn’t exactly take off out of the gate. 

Stanley tells ABC Audio that it wasn’t until their 1975 live release, KISS Alive!, that fans started to really appreciate the tunes on their early records.

“KISS Alive! was really where those songs came to life,” he shares. “We were becoming well known for our live show, but our record sales didn’t reflect that until KISS Alive! … many of those songs from the first album have been staples in our concerts ever since.” 

While KISS just said goodbye to the road in December, they are far from over, with plans for a hologram show in 2027. And for Stanley, the idea of KISS still being around 50 years later is something he never could have imagined.

“There was no precedent for a band going much beyond five years,” he says. He notes that when they started out “music was still at a point where the audience outgrew it, or the musicians outgrew it.”

“At that point back then, to think of being a band for 50 years, you might as well think about breathing underwater. It was inconceivable,” he shares. 

KISS’ debut album wasn’t exactly a hit when it was first released in 1974. In fact, it only sold about 75,000 copies. It wasn’t until it was rereleased in 1997 that it was certified Gold by the RIAA.

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Brian Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys, has been has been placed under a conservatorship, his longtime manager, Jean Sievers, confirmed in a statement to KABC-TV.

The statement says that the decision was made after Brian’s wife Melinda passed away, noting that Sievers and Wilson family representative LeeAnn Hard will be his co-conservators. 

“This decision was made to ensure that there will be no extreme changes to the household and Brian and the children living at home will be taken care of and remain in the home,” the statement reads.  It goes on to say that they will be under the care of Wilson’s housekeeper, Gloria Ramos, and “the wonderful team at the house who have been in place for many years helping take care of the family.” 

It adds, “Brian will be able to enjoy all of his family and friends and continue to work on current projects as well as participate in any activities he chooses.”

Brian announced on Instagram that his wife Melinda had passed away on January 30 at the age of 77, writing, “Melinda was more than my wife. She was my savior.”

The couple married in 1995 and adopted five children together. She was credited with helping separate Wilson from his former psychologist, Eugene Landy.

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Joan Jett is one of the many female musicians featured in an upcoming Rock & Roll Hall of Fame exhibit titled Revolutionary Women in Music: Left of Center.

In addition to Jett, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with her band The Blackhearts in 2015, the exhibit will showcase artifacts and items related to such artists as Meg White, Natalie Merchant, Siouxsie Sioux, Liz Phair, Beyoncé, Pink, Queen Latifah, Ani DeFranco, Sleater-Kinney, Christina Aguilera and Suzanne Vega.

“As the saying goes, well-behaved women rarely make history — and revolutionary women have often used music and lyrics to take action, convey truth, and call for change,” says Shelby Morrison, the Rock Hall’s VP of curatorial operations. “For generations, women have fought against socially constructed gender norms to obtain equal social, political, and economic freedoms, and this exhibit, which has been decades in the making, will tell this story in a way that has never been done before.”

Revolutionary Women in Music: Left of Center will open March 8 at the Rock Hall’s Cleveland museum. On March 7, the Rock Hall will introduce the exhibit with an event featuring 2021 Hall of Fame inductee Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go’s, Garbage‘s Shirley Manson and Lisa Loeb.

For more info, visit RockHall.com.

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