Classic Rock News

The Rolling Stones are giving fans another way to enjoy Hackney Diamonds, their first album of new material in 18 years.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers just announced they’ll be releasing Hackney Diamonds (Live Edition), featuring the original album, along with recordings of the seven songs they performed at the surprise record release concert they held at the intimate New York City venue Racket on Thursday, October 19.

The show featured the debut performance of four Hackney Diamonds tracks: “Angry,” “Whole Wide World, “Bite My Head Off” and “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” which featured a surprise appearance by Lady Gaga. The show also featured performances of Stones classics “Shattered,” “Tumbling Dice” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

Hackney Diamonds (Live Edition) will be released January 19, as a double CD set. It is available for preorder now.

The live performances are just a taste of what fans can expect when The Rolling Stones head out next year on their Hackney Diamonds tour. The trek kicks off April 28, in Houston, Texas, and wraps July 17, in Santa Clara, California. Tickets go on sale Friday, December 1. A complete list of dates can be found at therollingstones.com.

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The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan has died, his wife Victoria Mary Clarke shared on social media Thursday. He was 65. 

No cause of death was given, but in late 2022, the singer spent months in a Dublin hospital viral fighting encephalitis.

MacGowan’s life, and his music, were famously intertwined with his hard partying ways.

“[T]he love of my life and the most beautiful soul and beautiful angel and the sun and the moon and the start and end of everything that I hold dear has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese,” Clarke began her post. 

“I am blessed beyond words to have met him and to have loved him and to have been so endlessly and unconditionally loved by him and to have had so many years of life and love and joy and fun and laughter and so many adventures,” she continued. 

Calling MacGowan the “love of my life,” Clarke also expressed, “There’s no way to describe the loss that I am feeling and the longing for just one more of his smiles that lit up my world. Thank you thank you thank you thank you for your presence in this world you made it so very bright and you gave so much joy to so many people with your heart and soul and your music.”

Drinking problems led to MacGowan leaving the beloved band he founded in 1982 — as Pogue Mahone, a rude Irish slang phrase — in 1991.

The Celtic punk legend’s famous holiday song, with the late Kirsty MacColl, “Fairytale of New York,” came to a new generation last year, thanks to its addition to James Gunn‘s Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special soundtrack. 

The 1987 hit was also covered by Bon Jovi in 2020, and most recently, Travis Kelce teamed up with his brother, Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, to record a hit cover called “Fairytale of Philadelphia.”

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Elton John told U.K. politicians that the country could be the “first country in the world to defeat” AIDS, in a speech to Parliament on November 29.

Elton was honored at a reception hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS for his work with his Elton John AIDS Foundation.  According to the Evening Standard, during the event, he said the government’s fight against AIDS should have three goals: widespread HIV testing, wider access to to PrEP, which is, he says, the “proven safe and effective pill to prevent HIV infection,” and identifying thousands of people with HIV who aren’t in treatment.

He said, “If we do these three things in the U.K. … we can be the first country to end new cases of HIV.”

“I implore you not to waste your allotted time as political leaders,” said Sir Elton. “Take action and push things a little further than might feel comfortable. And as you do, I can promise you this: I will be there with you … [g]iving everything I can for the rest of my life to ending HIV and AIDS.”

“We can be the first country in the world to defeat this awful virus,” he added.

Recalling his own experience, Elton said, “In the 1990s, I visited far too many homes where people were dying of AIDS. I remember the helpless, suffocating feeling as one after another they succumbed, not knowing if it would ever end. These memories are etched on my soul, and they taught me a lot.”

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You’d think that working for your dad you’d have job security, but that wasn’t the case for Harry Waters, son of Pink Floyd rocker Roger Waters.

Harry tells Rolling Stone that despite playing keyboard and organ for his father for 14 years, he was let go when Roger began work on his 2017 US + Them tour.  

“I think he just wanted a change of blood, something new, something fresh,” Harry says, calling it “pretty miserable.” “I’m not sure of his exact reasoning, but everyone except two people [keyboardist Jon Carin and guitarist Dave Kilminster] got fired. But the other guys that got the sack weren’t his son, so it was doubly hurtful for me.” 

But Harry is still on good terms with his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame father and defends Roger against the criticism he’s received for his political views, along with accusations he’s antisemitic. 

“It’s just not true at all that he’s an antisemite,” he says.

Roger has also been criticized for some parts of his concerts, specifically where he dresses in what appears to be an SS officer uniform and flies an inflatable pig with a Star of David on it.

“He’s been doing that for 40 years. It’s satire,” Harry says. “He’s bringing to light all the evils of the world. But people confuse that and think he’s an antisemite, which is really stupid.”

As for whether he’ll ever work with his dad again, Harry shares,  “I don’t imagine it’ll happen again, but maybe. We’ll see.” 

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Over 15 years after its original release, the Foo Fighters song “Statues” has finally gotten its live debut.

Dave Grohl and company played the track, which appears on the 2007 Foos album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, for the first time in concert during their Australia tour kickoff in Perth on Wednesday, November 29.

You may recall that Grohl performed a rendition of “Statues” alongside Norah Jones on an episode of her podcast, Norah Jones Is Playing Along, which premiered in October.

According to Setlist.fm, the Perth show also included another Echoes deep cut, “Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners,” and a cover of AC/DC‘s “Big Balls” sung by Foo Fighters’ drum tech.

Foo Fighters will continue to tour Australia into mid-December, followed by a trip to New Zealand in January. They’ll launch a U.S. stadium tour in July.

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Lenny Kravitz is featured in the winter issue of Esquire magazine, where he shares his thoughts on the controversial comments made by Rolling Stone co-founder and former editor-in-chief Jann Wenner, which many deemed racist and misogynistic. 

While promoting his new book, The Masters, Wenner tried to explain why it didn’t include interviews with any Black or female artists; he said there were no women “articulate enough on this intellectual level.” Regarding Black artists, Wenner did acknowledge the genius of Stevie Wonder, but noted, “I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”

“It’s very disappointing and sad,” Kravitz said about the comments, which got Wenner kicked off the board of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “I’ve known Jann since 1987. I’ve been to his house. In his life. I was disappointed. I was very disappointed.”

“The statement alone, even if you just heard about the man yesterday, was appalling and embarrassing. And just wrong,” he added.

Kravitz, who’ll release the new album Blue Electric Light on March 15, also opened up about his early struggles to be taken seriously in the rock world.

“There was this one article that, at that time, said, ‘If Lenny Kravitz were white, he would be the next savior of rock ’n’ roll,’” he shared. “I got a lot of negativity thrown at me by all these older white men who weren’t going to let me have that position.” He said it was discouraging at times.

But those comments mean nothing to him now, with Kravitz noting, “I’m good. Intact—happy, healthy, focused, with still so much to do.”

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The Rolling Stones have added some more dates to their upcoming Hackney Diamonds tour. 

Not long after the presale for tickets launched, the band announced second dates in two cities: East Rutherford, New Jersey, and Chicago, Illinois.  

In addition to the already announced show on May 23, The Stones will now play New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on May 26, with a June 30 date added to Chicago’s Soldier Field to go with the already announced June 26 gig. Both new dates are being billed as “second and final shows,” so if fans are hoping for more dates in those cities, it seems unlikely. 

Tickets for all shows go on sale Friday, December 1. A complete list of dates can be found at therollingstones.com.

As for that presale, it was available to members of AARP, which is sponsoring the tour. According to The New York Post, so many people wanted access to the tickets that it crashed the organization’s site. Fans who went to the site were met with a message about technical difficulties, informing them, “Our team is actively working to fix the issue, and we hope to resolve it soon. Thank you for your patience.”

Meanwhile, The Stones have just released the lyric video for the Hackney Diamonds track “Bite My Head Off,” their collaboration with Paul McCartney. The clip features footage from their album release concert, which took place at the intimate venue Racket in New York on October 19.

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We have yet another charming story to add to the Osbourne family legend.

During the latest episode of The Osbournes Podcast, Sharon recalls the time she defecated into a bag of Ozzy‘s marijuana.

As for why anyone would do that, Sharon apparently employed the tactic in an effort to keep Ozzy from doing drugs.

This particular incident happened during a family vacation in Hawaii, after daughter Kelly found the bag.

“[Sharon] s*** in it, zipped it back up again and put it back,” Kelly says. “Then when [Ozzy] found out, he went nuts and chased us down the hallway.”

“Everyone’s going to be like, ‘Oh my God, the family trauma!'” adds son Jack of the incident. “It was actually kinda funny.”

As for what happened to the weed after that, Sharon says Ozzy threw it away. So at least it’s good to know that the man who bit the head off a bat and may or may not have snorted a line of ants does have some limits regarding what he’ll put into his body.

Ozzy, by the way, was absent from the episode, so he wasn’t there to give his take on the story. Comedian Margaret Cho filled in for him as a guest.

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Rush’s Geddy Lee reveals in a new interview that he and bandmate Alex Lifeson do plan to get together to work on some new music, but it won’t necessarily lead to the return of Rush.

“If I say anything about working with Alex, people run to the conclusion that Rush is starting up again. That’s not the case,” Lee told Vancouver’s CTV. “Yes, Alex and I like each other a lot, still. We hang around with each other a lot. And we both have a desire to try to write songs together. We don’t know whether that will bear fruit or not.”

He adds, “If it does bear fruit, great. Then we might release some songs. If – that’s always an ‘if’ there – but when people publish articles about that, they leave the ‘if’ out.” 

Rush’s pretty much ceased to exist after the band’s 2015 tour. Drummer Neil Peart retired after the tour and in 2018, Lifeson confirmed they disbanded due to Peart’s health issues. He sadly passed away in 2020.

While Geddy is confirming that he and Alex hope to write songs together, what will come of that is anybody’s guess. He notes, “We don’t know if they’ll be any damn good, so we’ll see what happens.”

Lee is currently on a book tour promoting his memoir, My Effin’ Life. He hits Denver, Colorado, on Thursday, November 30. A complete list of dates can be found at rush.com.

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Back in September, Aerosmith was forced to postpone their Peace Out farewell tour after Steven Tyler fractured his larynx. Well, now he’s giving fans a little update on his health.

The good news is it seems Tyler is getting better. The rocker posted a picture on Instagram of him in the studio wearing headphones, writing, “THROATS ON THE MEND… BUT MY EARS STILL WORK!” He added, “SO IN THE MEANTIME… IT’S STUDIO TIME… STARTING RE-MIXING AEROSMITH AEROSMITH!,” possibly referring to the band’s self-titled debut, which was released 50 years ago.

Aerosmith kicked off the Peace Out tour on September 2 in Philadelphia but was forced to postpone just weeks later. So far, they haven’t rescheduled the tour, but it is supposed to happen in 2024.

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