Classic Rock News

Lenny Kravitz officially has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On Tuesday, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee, known for hit songs “Fly Away” and “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over” was honored during a ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard in front of the iconic Capitol Records Tower.

To help commemorate the milestone, his daughter, actress and filmmaker Zoë Kravitz, honored him with a sweet message.

“Lenny Kravitz, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing you for a long time,” she began. “And I must say, being your daughter has been one of the great adventures of my life.” 

She also roasted her dad by paying tribute to his shirts.

“I’ve seen the way you show up, take care of the people you love — I’ve seen your incredible dedication to your art, but mostly, I’ve seen through your shirts,” she said. “According to my dad, if it doesn’t expose your nipples, it’s not a shirt.”  

“Congratulations, you’re a star,” she said at the end of her speech.

Academy Award winner Denzel Washington also took the stage to honor the iconic musician.

“God has blessed him with an unbelievable talent, but even more so, an unbelievable heart,” he said, calling Kravitz “a giver” and “a lover.”

When it was his turn to speak, Kravitz called his star an “incredible honor.”

“As a teenager, I spent a lot of time walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard seeing the names of all my idols,” he said. “I never dreamt about having a star. I was usually just looking for a place to crash. But I did dream about making the music I wanted and doing my own thing. To see my name, Lenny Kravitz, permanently engraved on the same streets I used to walk is a surreal, indescribable feeling.”

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The success of the Bob Marley biopic, Bob Marley: One Love, has motivated a lot of music fans to rediscover the reggae legend’s music. 

The film was released on Valentine’s Day, bringing in $160.5 million worldwide, with a U.S. opening weekend of $28.7 million, and lots of those moviegoers followed up their viewing by streaming Marley’s tunes. 

According to Luminate, in the week after the film’s release, Marley’s catalog saw a 150% increase in global on-demand streams, compared to numbers during the week of January 4, with an increase of 187% in the U.S. alone. In total there was 108 million streams of Marley’s music following the film hitting theaters.

And it seems all the press around the movie also helped draw new interest in Netflix’s 2018 Bob Marley documentary ReMastered: Who Shot the Sheriff? Prior to the movie’s release, Luminate’s Streaming Viewership Model shows increased viewing minutes that peaked just ahead of the film hitting theaters.

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They’ve been around since the late ’80s and have toured the world, but for some reason, Green Day has never gone to South Africa — until now.

“Rocking all the way to the other side of the world,” the band wrote on Instagram. “South Africa, we’ll see you for the first time EVER to headline @calabashsouthafrica in Johannesburg + Cape Town next January!! Tickets on sale Friday @ 9am.”

The Calabash South Africa festival takes place January 19 in Johannesburg and January 23, 2025, in Cape Town. The Offspring is also on the bill.

Green Day will be performing from the end of May through the end of June in Europe and the U.K. Starting July 19, they’ll bring their Saviors tour to North America. Those shows wrap up in September; the South African dates are the band’s first announced for 2025.

In other overseas festival news, Arcade Fire will be headlining Australia’s Splendour In the Grass festival on July 21. 

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During the first week of March, Bon Jovi launched a countdown website, BonJoviForever.com, with announcements in various cities promising that 2024 would be “legendary.” Now we know what the band is counting down to.

It’s a song called, you guessed it, “Legendary,” which will arrive March 14 at 9 a.m. ET. There’s a teaser of Jon singing the track, an upbeat number that features the lyrics, “Friday night comes along like a song/ ‘Sweet Caroline’ and we all sing along/ got my brown-eyed girl, and she believes in me/ legendary.”

This is the band’s first new music since the album 2020, which featured the hit “Do What You Can.” Since then, Jon had major reconstructive surgery on his vocal cords and has been doing rehab to get his voice back into shape.

The new single arrives on the same day the band’s new documentary, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, premieres at South by Southwest. It’ll start streaming on Hulu April 26.

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Queen is set to release a new video of a performance from their recent IMAX release, Queen Rock Montreal.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers will drop the video for “Let Me Entertain You” on their YouTube channel on Thursday, March 14, at 12 p.m. ET.

“Experience the electrifying energy of Queen live at the Montreal Forum in 1981, remastered for an unforgettable performance of ‘Let Me Entertain You,'” reads a description of the video. “This exhilarating live concert from 1981 is a window into Queen in their most unalloyed form, giving audiences a larger-than-life, front-row immersive experience.”

Queen Rock Montreal opened in IMAX theaters across the globe in January, bringing in $4.1 million in its first weekend, making it the biggest IMAX exclusive event opening ever.

The film was recorded in November 1981 at the Montreal Forum, the band’s fourth time playing the venue. The tour was in support of their album The Game and had them performing songs from the album along with classic Queen tunes like “We Will Rock You,” Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” “We Are the Champions” and more.

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Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne have given fans an update on the planned biopic about their life and romance. 

News of the biopic, with Sony Pictures and Polygram, came out back in 2021. In the latest episode of The Osbournes Podcast, they reveal that it’s still got a long way to go. 

“By the time they finish this film, I’ll be dead. I wanna be alive to f***** see it,” the 75-year-old Ozzy says, with Sharon adding, “Movies take forever to make. Forever.”

When they started discussing who they think should play them in the film, Sharon’s top choices included Florence Pugh and “the little girl from Game of Thrones,” referring to Maisie Williams.  

While Ozzy didn’t chime in with who he wants to play him, son Jack Osbourne said he’d love to see Barry star Bill Hader as his dad, to which Ozzy asked, “Who’s Bill Hader?”  

After being shown a picture of the former SNL star, Ozzy wasn’t convinced, simply saying, “F*** off,” but Sharon noted, “I think he’d be brilliant.”

Daughter Kelly Osbourne doesn’t agree, saying, “I think dad needs to be played by an unknown actor that is very good. I don’t think there’s anybody you can think of now that would be able to do it.”

Meanwhile, Sharon, currently a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother in the U.K., revealed on the show that Ozzy “was stoned on every episode” of their MTV series The Osbournes.

“He was never sober,” she said, according to NME. “He’s never seen it. Doesn’t wanna see it. And he never watched one episode.”

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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.” 

Ghost Stories is available for preorder now.

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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 name of the festival is an anagram that stands for Solidarity, Engagement, Restore, Peace, Equality N’ Tolerance. A portion of the proceeds from each ticket and VIP package will benefit a collection of charities: The Equal Justice Initiative, War Child, The Greenlining Institute and Know Your Rights Camp.

“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.

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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.

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On This Day, March 12, 1971…

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.

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