If you attend any shows on the Metal Tour of the Year, keep an eye out for Dave Mustaine in the crowd.
During the recent stop on the run, the Megadeth frontman played the role of heavy metal Santa Claus when he sneaked into the arena’s stands and handed out guitar picks to some awed kids sitting in front of him.
Mustaine posted a video of the interaction on his Instagram, writing in the caption, “Metal is alive and well.”
The Metal Tour of the Year, which features Megadeth, Lamb of God, Trivium and In Flames, continues Tuesday in Omaha, Nebraska. LoG frontman Randy Blythe is back on the tour after missing a few dates due to testing positive for COVID-19.
Aerosmith has announced a new concert that will be part of the band’s 50th anniversary celebrations this year, a September 4 performance in Bangor, Maine, at Maine Savings Amphitheater.
Tickets for the show go on sale to the general public this Friday, April 29, at 10 a.m. ET, while an Aerosmith fan club pre-sale begins on Wednesday, April 27, at 9 a.m. local time.
Not including Aerosmith’s recently announced 2022 Las Vegas residency dates, the Bangor, Maine, concert is only the second show that the band has scheduled this year. The other is the long-delayed September 8 hometown performance at Boston’s Fenway Park that will feature Extreme as the opening act.
As previously reported, Aerosmith has scheduled a total 24 Las Vegas residency dates at at the Dolby Live at Park MGM. The performances are broken up into three eight-show engagements running from June 17 to July 8, from September 14 to October 5, and from November 19 to December 11.
To buy tickets and for more info about the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers’ tour plans, visit Aerosmith.com and Ticketmaster.com.
In other news, 1971: The Road Starts Here got its official release on CD and digital formats earlier this month. It’s a collection of seven recently rediscovered rare early live Aerosmith performances that was first issued as a limited-edition vinyl disc and cassette for the 2021 Record Store Day Black Friday event.
The B-52s have announced that they will launch a farewell North American tour this summer that’s set to kick off on August 22 in Seattle.
The trek currently is scheduled to visit 11 cities, and is mapped out through a November 11-12 stand in Atlanta, although more dates will be added soon. KC & the Sunshine Band and The Tubes will serve as the support acts at select stops on the tour. The outing also includes multiple-show engagements in New York City, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
Tickets will go on sale to the general public this Friday, April 29, at 12 p.m. ET, while pre-sale tickets will be available starting Wednesday, April 27, at 12 p.m. ET. Visit TheB52s.com for more information.
In celebration of the impending farewell tour, The B-52s will be performing on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday night. In addition, the band has announced that a long-awaited official documentary about the influential New Wave group will be released in early 2023.
“Who knew what started as a way to have some fun and play music for our friends’ at house parties in Athens [Georgia] in 1977 would evolve into over 45 years of making music and touring the world,” says B-52s singer/keyboardist Kate Pierson. “It’s been cosmic.”
Adds singer Fred Schneider, “No one likes to throw a party more than we do, but after almost a half-century on the road, it’s time for one last blow-out with our friends and family…our fans. And with KC & The Sunshine Band and The Tubes on board, it’s going to be one hell of a farewell party at these concerts.”
Journey has unveiled full details of its forthcoming studio album, Freedom, a 15-track collection that will be released on July 8.
In advance of the album, Journey’s first studio effort since 2011’s Eclipse, the band has released a soaring new single titled “You Got the Best of Me.”
Explaining what inspired the new track, guitarist Neal Schon says, “I wanted kind of a punky rendition of ‘Any Way You Want It…I usually don’t go in saying I’m going to look for something like that, but then it just came to me, like ‘Wheel in the Sky’ did years ago. It just kind of flew out of my mouth.”
“You Got the Best of Me” is available now via digital formats. The song was co-written by Schon, longtime Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain and drummer/producer Narada Michael Walden, who also co-produced the track with Schon. Randy Jackson plays bass on the song. Jackson — who previously played with Journey during the mid-1980s — and Walden were recruited as the band’s new rhythm section after Ross Valory and Steve Smith were fired in 2020, although neither has been taking part in the group’s current tour.
Freedom came together while Journey was off the road because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During the pandemic, there wasn’t much to do,” Schon notes. “I spent a lot of time in my little studio at home, learning how to play keyboards and looping. Some of those ideas ended up being songs. So it kind of came out of nowhere.”
Freedom also includes “The Way We Used to Be,” which was released as a single last year. You can pre-order the album now.
Meanwhile, Journey’s Freedom Tour 2022 with Toto continues Tuesday, April 27, in Nashville.
Here’s the album’s full track list:
“Together We Run”
“Don’t Give Up on Us”
“Still Believe in Love”
“You Got the Best of Me”
“Live to Love Again”
“The Way We Used to Be”
“Come Away with Me”
“After Glow”
“Let It Rain”
“Holdin On”
“All Day and All Night”
“Don’t Go”
“United We Stand”
“Life Rolls On”
“Beautiful as You Are”
Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy; Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Founding Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell has a very busy 2022 tour schedule plotted out with his current band, The Dirty Knobs, which last month released their second studio album, External Combustion.
The group’s itinerary includes headlining shows at clubs and theaters, some festival appearances, and a stint supporting country star Chris Stapleton at select large venues in June and July. But perhaps the cherry on top for Campbell and The Dirty Knobs is a recently announced series of seven concerts opening for The Who this fall.
“For me, that’s like, ‘Yeah, man, sign me up! I’m there,'” Mike tells ABC Audio about getting to perform with the British rock legends. “We’re all excited about that.”
He continues, “I’m a huge…’60s fan. The Who is one of my favorite bands, so I’m just kind of thrilled that that happened.”
Campbell cites The Who’s Pete Townshend as a major inspiration, noting, “He is one of the best riff writers and songwriters ever, and from that British mold…That’s what I grew up on was the ’60s, so it’s a big deal for The Dirty Knobs to be on that bill.”
The Dirty Knobs’ seven-show stand with The Who runs from an October 14 performance in St.Louis through a November 1 concert at the famed Hollywood Bowl in LA.
The 72-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer tells ABC Audio that the Hollywood Bowl show will be poignant for him because that’s where Petty & the Heartbreakers played their last concert in September 2017, a week before Tom Petty‘s death.
“[I]t’ll be [a] kind of full circle, emotional thing to go back to the Hollywood Bowl and play, you know, opening for The Who,” Campbell says.
Mick Jagger: KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images; Yungblud: Steve Jennings/Getty Images
He may be 78 years old, but Mick Jagger is still inspired by current music. In fact, there are two young artists he feels are helping keep rock music alive and well.
In an interview with Sweden’s P4 Extra, the iconic Rolling Stones frontman was asked what “inspires [him] most today musically.”
“I like people with energy, a lot of the time,” Jagger responded. “In rock music, you need energy, and there hasn’t [sic] been a lot of new rock singers around.”
He then added that he feels there’s now “a few” rock singers “coming up.”
“You’ve got a few in England, you’ve got Yungblud,” Jagger said, referring to the British alternative rock artist born Dominic Harrison. He added, “In America, you’ve got Machine Gun Kelly and so on, people like that.”
While he first found fame as a rapper, Kelly, born Colson Baker, has been at the forefront of the current pop/punk revival. He’s also collaborated with Yungblud.
Jagger continued, “That kind of post-punk vibe makes me thing there’s still a bit of life in rock n’ roll…it’s nice to see people still enjoying doing that high-energy stuff.”
Meanwhile, The Who‘s Roger Daltrey is also a Yungblud fan, telling The Independent, “Rock desperately needs people like Yungblud. The kind of rock we made, it’s kind of gone, hasn’t it? [But] Yungblud is a resurgence of that kind of rock.”
In fact, Daltrey tapped Yungblud to perform at The Who‘s recent Royal Albert Hall charity concert for Teenage Cancer Trust, along with Liam Gallagher, Paul Weller and Ed Sheeran.
After postponing their April concerts after Warren Haynes fractured his shoulder, Gov’t Mule has now added dates to their upcoming U.S. summer tour.
The tour, in support of Gov’t Mule’s latest album, Heavy Load Blues, starts June 3 in Hayes’ hometown of Asheville, NC. The newly announced shows include a June 4 show in Birmingham, AL, a June 19 concert in Ojai, CA, a June 21 show in Tempe, AZ and a June 22 show in Tucson, AZ. The final new date is August 19 in Indianapolis.
Pre-sale tickets for Ojai, Tempe, Tucson and Indianapolis are available via pre-sale on Wednesday; the general on-sale date is April 29 at 10 a.m. local time. All ticketing information is available at mule.net.
The tour features a mix of headlining and festival dates, as well as a few support dates with ZZ Top, Grace Potter, and Willie Nelson on his Outlaw Festival Tour. In addition, the band has rescheduled its shows in Philadelphia and New York City for December 29 and December 30 and 31, respectively.
In a statement, Haynes says, “I can’t overstate how happy and excited we are to finally get back on the road and be together with our amazing fans this summer. It’s been far too long, but I’m getting better every day and appreciate the well wishes and your patience.”
He adds, “We’re really looking forward to performing all these new songs for you. We’re also going to dig deep into our catalog and include many songs we haven’t played in a while. As always, every show will be a different experience. See you all very soon!”
Heart‘s Ann Wilson is releasing her new solo album, Fierce Bliss, this Friday, but her famous band is always looming in the background. For one, Wilson says she’s enthusiastic about the in-the-works Heart biopic which, as previously reported, is being scripted by Portlandia star and Sleater-Kinney member Carrie Brownstein.
Speaking with the U.K. paper The Independent, Wilson says, “It is very strange, just the idea of somebody portraying me. But Carrie just really gets it. She’s the best – so smart and funny and talented.”
“And she’s trying to make sure it doesn’t fall into so many of these rock movie clichés,” Wilson adds. “She’s trying to get away from that and really tell the story of what it’s like for these two people, my sister [Nancy] and I. To make it real.”
While the Wilson sisters went on record earlier this year about their disagreements regarding Heart’s future as a live band, Ann said last month that they have “a bunch of stuff” planned for 2023, which will mark Heart’s 50th anniversary. For example, Ann tells The Independent that the band is hoping to return to the city where Heart played their very first gig for a 50th anniversary show.
That city is Vancouver, where Wilson recalls that Heart played a venue called The Cave. Their audition for the gig was a disaster, she recalls. Because Nancy hadn’t yet joined the band, Ann was playing guitar as well as singing. “My [guitar] strap came off and so my guitar fell off during “Stairway to Heaven,’” she laughs.
Wilson will kick off a series of tour dates with her backing band The Amazing Dawgs in support of Fierce Bliss starting May 4 in San Francisco.
Now that Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks have wrapped up what they say is their final tour, a new book that claims to be the definitive source on all things Genesis is coming this fall.
Called Genesis Reference Manual, the tome, which begins with the band’s 1968 beginnings and ends with their final London shows in 2022, lists all known concerts, recordings and media appearances, as well as those of its individual members’ solo careers. It’s billed as the “final word on one of the world’s most enduring and successful bands.”
The solo career chapters alone should be quite extensive, since in addition to singers Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, both Banks and Rutherford, plus former guitarist Steve Hackett, have all released multiple solo albums. In addition, Rutherford has released many albums with his side project, Mike + the Mechanics.
And speaking of Hackett, he wrote one of the forewords for the book, as did original Genesis lead guitarist Ant Phillips, and Richard McPhail, one of the band’s tour managers.
The book, written by Alan Hewitt, is due to be published on September 23. You can order it from Wymer Publishing‘s website.
In 1976, The Who set a Guinness World Record for the loudest concert in history when they were measured at 126 decibels, which is close to a jet engine taking off. But today, singer Roger Daltrey says he regrets the band’s high-volume shows.
Speaking to the U.K. paper The Independent, Daltrey says his hearing is “terrible, terrible,” adding that without his hearing aids, “everything’s a mumble.” He notes, “It’s a penalty for what we did in our lives. We were too f***ing loud.”
But despite his and Pete Townshend‘s hearing issues, The Who is back on the road, and in June, Daltrey will mount a solo U.K. tour called Who Was I. One reason, he says, is to help out his band and crew financially.
“Musicians have had a real rough two years, really rough,” he explains. “Most of them are self-employed, they got no furlough, no anything. It’s been brutal on them. So if I can go out there and employ 10 musicians [and] 10 road crew for a month, I’m gonna do it.”
Daltrey is also hard at work on his long-planned Keith Moon biopic, which he’s working on with author Nigel Hinton.
“It’s been quite a journey,” he says. “I’ve had so many scripts written, by very eminent scriptwriters, but they just did not get it. They did not get him, they did not get the music business. It’s been very difficult, but I’m quietly confident that we’ve got something special.”
And while Townshend recently said he hopes to retire from the road, Daltrey’s not interested. He notes, “I’m going to do it as long as I can, but then one day it will give me up and I won’t be able to do it. Simple as that.”
