Classic Rock News

Personal items belonging to the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury are currently up for auction at Sotheby’s, and the rocker’s bandmate Brian May doesn’t sound too happy about it.

May revealed his feelings about the auction in a sentimental post on Instagram, next to a picture of Freddie playing guitar.

“Inescapably thinking so much about Freddie in these strange days,” he wrote. “At the time this photo was taken I’m sure it didn’t seem very important to see Freddie’s fingers dancing on my own home-made guitar. Now it summons up waves of affection and great memories. He is so missed.”

May then noted he was about to headline a speaking engagement in front of a group of farmers, adding that at the same time, “Freddie’s most intimate personal effects, and writings that were part of what we shared for so many years, will go under the hammer, to be knocked down to the highest bidder and dispersed forever.”

He added, “I can’t look. To us, his closest friends and family, it’s too sad.”

Day one of the Sotheby’s Freddie Mercury: A World of his Own auction kicked off Wednesday, September 6, bringing in $15.4 million. A second live auction is happening Thursday, September 7, with a third scheduled for Friday, September 8. There are also three online auctions that run until September 13. More info can be found at Sothebys.com.

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Miley Cyrus has opened up on the time she spent with late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins prior to his death in 2022.

In the latest installment of her “Used to Be Young” TikTok series, the pop star shares that she and Hawkins lived in the same neighborhood during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

“We became really close,” Cyrus says. “I would go to his house, he taught me all the Chrissie Hynde songs on the drums. I would go over and play the Pretenders with him every night, he would have me dance around to ‘Brass in Pocket’ with that wireless headset while he would sing along.”

Cyrus also reveals that Hawkins was the first person she called after her plane made an emergency landing when it was hit by lightning on the way to a festival in Paraguay, which Foo Fighters were also supposed to headline.

“Next day or the day after, I woke up to the news that he had passed away,” Cyrus says.

Hawkins died March 25, 2022. On March 26, Cyrus performed a show in Brazil, during which she dedicated her song “Angels Like You” to Hawkins.

“I knew that he, of all people, would want me to still perform through the pain,” Cyrus says.

Cyrus would later perform at Foo Fighters’ Los Angeles tribute concert to Hawkins in September 2022, joining members of Def Leppard to perform their song “Photograph.” Following the show, Cyrus shared a voicemail Hawkins had left her saying that she should cover “Photograph.”

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Foo Fighters are headed back to Austin City Limits.

Dave Grohl and company will perform on the upcoming 49th season of the long-running music performance TV series. Their episode airs on November 18.

The Foos have performed on Austin City Limits twice before. Highlights from those shows were also compiled into an hourlong ACL special, which premiered in 2021 in celebration of the “Everlong” band’s 25th anniversary.

Foo Fighters had also booked an ACL taping for 2022, but it was scrapped due to the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins.

Austin City Limits airs on PBS. Episodes will also be available to stream via PBS.org.

Foo Fighters are set to headline the 2023 Austin City Limits Music Festival, taking place October 6-8 and 13-15.

In other Foos news, the creators of the Foo Fighters pinball game have released a behind-the-scenes video on how the machine came together. You can watch that streaming on YouTube.

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Bob Dylan played his first shows in Japan 45 years ago, and now, those iconic concerts are being celebrated in a new box set. 

Bob Dylan – The Complete Budokan 1978, dropping Friday, November 17, will feature two full shows recorded at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan hall on February 28 and March 1, 1978, all remastered from the original analog tapes. It includes 36 previously unreleased performances, one of which, “The Man in Me,” has just been released, giving fans a preview of the set.

The Complete Budokan 1978 will be released digitally and as four-CD set. There will also be an eight-LP set, available in Japan only, and a two-LP set, Bob Dylan – Another Budokan 1978, with 16 selected tracks. 

The Japan shows were part of the Bob Dylan World Tour 1978, his first international tour since 1966. Dylan played 114 shows on that tour, hitting Asia, Oceania, North America and Europe.

Bob Dylan – The Complete Budokan 1978 is available for preorder now.

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Jimmy Buffett’s daughter Sarah Buffett, who goes by the name Delaney, is remembering her late father, who passed away September 1 after a four-year battle with with Merkel cell skin cancer.

Delaney shared a tribute on Instagram, writing, “I knew my dad my whole life but in his final days, I saw who he was: a man who spirit could not be broken,” adding that even though he was in pain, “he smiled everyday. He was kind when he had every excuse not to be. He told us not to be sad or scared, but to keep the party going.”

As for that party, Delaney says Jimmy “loved his weed and his wine, but the truth is, most of the time, he was high on life, and that is what he wanted for everyone: to enjoy the fantastic trip that life can be.”

“My dad was the joy he sang about. He was the hardest working person I’ve ever seen,” she explained, noting that while fans have thanked her for sharing her father with them, “I know he would have wanted me to thank his fans for sharing their lives with him.”

“We are his family but the stage was his home, and you, his band, and everyone on the road gave him the strength to keep going back,” she writes. “I’ll pass something along my mom said to me, ‘Whenever you feel sad or lost, look for the messages in the music. There are plenty.'”

She concluded with a message to her dad, writing, “You turned nothing into something and gave me everything. I will never be able to repay you or my mom for my beautiful life. I will love you forever, and I will always keep the party going (responsibly, of course).”

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On This Day, September 7, 1951… 

Christine Ellen Hynde, better known as future Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, was born in Akron, Ohio.

Hynde formed the Pretenders in March of 1978 alongside James Honeyman-Scott, Pete Farndon and Martin Chambers and released their self-titled debut in 1979. They had their first real hit, “Brass in Pocket,” in 1980, with the track hitting #1 in the U.K and #14 in the U.S.

Others hit singles include “Back on the Chain Gang,” which went to #5 and “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” which hit #10.

Over the years, the band has gone through several lineup changes, with Honeyman-Scott and Farndon passing away in 1982 and 1983, respectively. Hynde has been the only consistent member of the group, which was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Hynde is both a U.S. and U.K. citizen. She is a vegetarian and a vocal animal rights activist. She’s been married twice, to Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr, father of her daughter Yasmin, from 1984 to 1990, and to Columbian artist Lucho Brieva from 1997 to 2002.

Pretenders are set to release their 12th studio album, Relentless, on September 15.

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Billy Joel is ringing in the New Year close to home. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer will headline a special New Year’s Eve concert at UBS Arena in Belmont Park, New York.

The show will be Joel’s first time playing the arena, which opened in 2021. It is also his first concert on Long Island since ringing in the New Year at Nassau Coliseum in 2018.  

“We are thrilled to welcome Long Island’s own Billy Joel to UBS Arena at Belmont Park,” said UBS Arena President Kim Stone. “To have such an iconic artist as our New Year’s Eve show is an honor. We look forward to ringing in the New Year with him and our guests later this year.” 

A Citi presale kicks off Monday, September 11, at 10 a.m., with the public onsale beginning Friday, September 15 at 10 a.m.

Joel has a long history of celebrating the New Year onstage, including several New Years shows in the New York area. In addition to the 2018 Nassau concert, in 2013, he rang in the New Year at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. He also welcomed the new millennium at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2019.

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have announced they have postponed all of their September performances as Springsteen is being treated for symptoms of peptic ulcer disease.

According to a message shared Wednesday on Springsteen’s website and his official Instagram account, the postponement of the September shows is “the decision of his medical advisors.”

“Over here on E Street we’re heartbroken to have to postpone these shows,” read a comment from Springsteen included in the statement.

His comment continued, “First, apologies to our fabulous Philly fans who we missed a few weeks ago. We’ll be back to pick these shows up and then some. Thank you for your understanding and support. We’ve been having a blast at our U.S. shows and we’re looking forward to more great times. We’ll be back soon.”

The band previously suspended shows in August due to the “Born in the USA” singer suffering an undisclosed illness.

According to the National Library of Medicine, peptic ulcer disease “is characterized by discontinuation in the inner lining of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.” Acid from the stomach can cause sores or other permanent damage in the esophagus, stomach or small intestine.The postponements will start with Thursday’s show which had been scheduled for the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, New York, according to the statement.

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Rare images of The Beatles will be available to fans for the first time as a series of new of digital collectables.

The photos are from the vaults of Retna Pictures and London Features International; they include shots from the legendary rockers’ Help! and Hard Day’s Night promotional tours, as well as early performance photos, snaps from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “bed in,” and one from the Fab Four’s final photo shoot. 

The digital images, created by Pop Culture, Inc., will be sold on the digital marketplace Quidd and will be available starting September 26 at 5 p.m. ET.

“We are excited about these magical collections, showcasing many photos that have never before been seen,” says Hayden Michael, CEO of POP Culture, Inc. “Our curator, Chris Vranian, has spent countless hours searching in old filing cabinets, most of which had not seen the light of day in half a century.”

And there will be more images to come. Future collections will feature photos of other famous rockers, including an October drop of “Helloween” photos of David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne and KISS. Bowie will also be the subject of a November 17 drop with photos taken around the release of his 1967 self-titled debut album.

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Peter Gabriel, Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Sheryl Crow are among the artists lending their voices to the fight against gun violence in America, joining the Artists for Action to Prevent Gun Violence coalition, Variety reports. The group is led by musician Mark Barden, whose son was one of the young victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

The group, which also includes Billie Eilish, Bootsy Collins, Bush, Tedeschi Trucks Band and Halestorm, will be hosting a series of live events, with a goal toward getting folks to help end gun violence in the U.S. through volunteering, donating and voting.

“After my son Daniel was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I put my career as a professional guitarist on hold to devote myself to preventing gun violence,” Barden said. “Please join me and hundreds of other artists, musicians, actors, athletes, and people like you to finally end this senseless violence.”

Gabriel adds, “This needs to stop. So many needless deaths. So much suffering. It just needs a little common sense.” 

Bush is headlining the first event, a concert at New York’s Irving Plaza on September 22. There will be others, including a December concert celebrating the release of the documentary A Father’s Promise, about Barden and the work of Sandy Hook Promise. There will also be a concert at the Central Park Summerstage in New York next summer coinciding with Gun Violence Awareness month.

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