Andy Summers is extending his time on the road. The former Police guitarist is due to head out on his The Cracked Lens + A Missing String tour in July, and he’s just expanded the trek.
The tour, which combines Summer’s music and photography, will now consist of over 30 dates, kicking off July 21 in Beverly, Massachusetts, and wrapping November 12 in Calgary, Canada.
Summers originally hit the road with this tour in 2019, but COVID-19 got in the way of expanding the trek. He shares, “I’m thrilled to be going out with his show again. Let the light shine … after all we went through.”
Tickets for the tour go on sale Friday, June 16. A complete list of dates can be found at andysummers.com.
A new album celebrating Pink Floyd‘s sixth studio release, Meddle, is on the way and we are now getting the first taste of it.
Yes’ Rick Wakeman, Blue Öyster Cult’s Joe Bouchard,ex-Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland and former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo have teamed up with Rainbow vocalist Graham Bonnet for a new take on the track “San Tropez,” which is expected to appear on an album featuring revamped and reimagined takes on the 1971 Floyd album.
The album, Meddle Reimagined, will be similar to 2022’s Animals Reimagined and 2021’s Still Wish You Were Here, which featured such artists as Todd Rundgren, Joe Satriani, The Zombies’ Rod Argent and more sharing their takes on Floyd’s 1977 release, Animals, and 1975’s Wish You Were Here.
“When first invited to participate on Pink Floyd’s ‘San Tropez,’ I was flattered, yet a little nervous. I had sung on ‘Dogs’ (from Animals Reimagined) a year earlier and was initially concerned whether I could do justice to such an iconic song and thankfully, it turned out better than expected,” Bonnet shares. “‘San Tropez’ would prove to be trickier for me but ultimately I was happy that I was able to honor yet another gem from the cherished and enigmatic Pink Floyd.”
So far there’s no word on when Meddle Reimagined will be released.
Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry have had a tumultuous relationship throughout their more than 50-year career together, but Perry insists rumors they don’t get along are untrue.
“This is no bulls***, man, he’s probably my best friend through all of it,” Perry tells Classic Rock. “We just know we’re different people. Even through the 70s, we were the ones that would go off on a scuba diving trip together.”
Perry admits there was some friction when Tyler decided to judge American Idol in 2008, noting he thought, “Holy s***, we’re gonna have to plan the band’s career around that,” but that thought quickly changed. Perry shares, “But god bless him, not everybody gets the chance to do that, so it was, ‘Go for it, man.’”
Around that time, their bickering boiled over in public, and at one point Perry announced the band was “looking for a new singer.” Looking back, Perry seems to regret things happened that way.
“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Perry says. “They say all press is good press, I’m not sure I agree with that. Maybe it felt like we had to something to our fans. F***, I couldn’t tell you. We were so spread apart, I don’t know. Maybe we were trying to set the record straight and be a little bit more honest and let people know what was going on. I don’t know.”
Aerosmith is set to kick off what they say is their final tour September 2 in Philadelphia. A complete list of dates can be found at aerosmith.com.
During a press conference in London, The Rolling Stones introduced guitarist Mick Taylor as Brian Jones‘ replacement.
Taylor’s live debut with the band took place in July at a free concert at London’s Hyde Park in front of 250,000 fans. The concert took place just two days after Jones’ death.
Taylor left The Rolling Stones in 1974 and was replaced by Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood, who has remained with the band to this day.
Despite his departure, Taylor was still inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with The Stones in 1989.
Foo Fighters are headed to France next week for the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
Dave Grohl and company will perform as part of the Spotify Beach event, taking place June 19-22. Their set takes place Wednesday, June 21.
Other artists on the lineup include Florence + the Machine and rappers A$AP Rocky and Jack Harlow.
Notably, the Cannes performance puts the Foos in Europe right as Glastonbury is set to begin. The “Everlong” rockers are rumored to be performing at the famed English festival on Friday, June 23, under the name The Churnups, though nothing’s officially been announced yet.
In May, Foo Fighters kicked off their first tour since the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins in March 2022. Their next scheduled show takes place Wednesday, June 14, in Rogers, Arkansas.
While many artists are worried about the dangers of artificial intelligence, it sounds like fans of The Beatles have reason to be happy about its existence.
During an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Best of Today podcast, Sir Paul McCartney revealed that what he calls “the last Beatles record” is on its way, and it was created using AI to “extricate” John Lennon’s voice from an old demo.
According to the BBC, the demo was part of a cassette given to him by Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono. The cassette, labeled “For Paul,” was recorded just before Lennon’s 1980 murder.
McCartney didn’t reveal the name of the song, but it sounds like fans won’t have to wait too long to hear it, with McCartney sharing, “We just finished it up and it’ll be released next year.”
The news was revealed during an interview McCartney was giving to promote his new photography exhibition, Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm, at London’s National Portrait Gallery and his photography book, 1964: Eyes of the Storm, which is out now.
For a lot of musicians, getting to play the Super Bowl halftime show is an experience they wouldn’t think of turning down, but it sounds like Elton John may have done just that.
In an interview with The Wrap, Elton’s husband and manager, David Furnish, discusses why Elton decided to go with a live, rather than taped, performance for his Disney+ special Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium — and seemed to let it slip that they were once offered the Super Bowl gig.
Noting that for Elton “everything he does with his band, is always 100% live,” Furnish revealed, “We looked at the Super Bowl at one point, and the reason we decided to back away from it is that elements of the Super Bowl show, they don’t allow you to do live.” He said they expected Elton to play live along to prerecorded instruments.
Furnish says he has full confidence in Elton and his band’s live abilities, sharing, “There’s nothing he hasn’t encountered in his 50-plus years as a performer that he hasn’t been able to handle and that his band hasn’t been able to maneuver around.” He says for the the Disney+ special “going 100% live just felt like the magical right thing to do. And it felt like more of an event, too.”
Finally, he offers, “Doing a livestream to 150 million people felt like an opportunity too good to pass up.”
Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry is the new face of Marc Jacobs. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is one of the stars of Jacob’s latest campaign for the St. Marc Collection.
“Marc Jacobs has invited the lead vocalist of the iconic band Blondie to introduce the reimagined St. Marc silhouette,” the designer revealed on Instagram.
Photos posted to social media show Harry dressed in a black leather jacket holding a St. Marc bag and in a black-and-white dress, with black leather gloves and Marc Jacobs Kiki platforms. There’s also one with Ever Anderson, where they are both holding a yellow St. Marc bag. Anderson noted on Instagram that “shooting with this ultimate musical icon Debbie Harry is beyond my imagination.”
As for her other job, Debbie Harry and Blondie are about to hit the road. The band’s U.K. tour kicks off in Cardiff, Wales, on June 16. A complete list of dates can be found at blondie.net.
John Mellencamp is currently on his Live and In Person tour, but one of the shows isn’t going on as planned.
The rocker just announced that his sold-out show at The Palace Theatre in Albany, New York, on Tuesday, June 13, has been canceled. No reason for the cancellation was given, and refunds will be given to all ticketholders.
Mellencamp’s next show is scheduled for Wednesday, June 14, at the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse, New York. The tour is set to wrap with a two-night stand, June 26 and 27, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A complete list of dates can be found at Mellencamp.com.
In the new print edition of the magazine Scottish Field, Rod says that his upcoming concerts in Edinburgh, Scotland, on July 6 and 7 will be “the last of the rock n’ roll shows.” He explains, “I want to move on and I’ve always wanted to do The Great American Songbook live. It sold 38 million copies.”
Rod was referring to his bestselling series of albums of standards, which began in 2002 with It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook. He made five Songbook albums in all, and they all reached the top 10 in both the U.S. and the U.K.
He goes on to say he’s recorded a “fantastic swing album” will Jools Holland, the pianist and TV host who was a founding member of Squeeze. “I just want to make a change,” he tells the magazine.
It’s likely that Rod means the Edinburgh shows are his last rock ‘n’ roll shows in the U.K., since he’s got a whole U.S. tour kicking off on July 29, followed by a string of shows in Las Vegas as part of his residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
Elsewhere in the interview, Rod, who lives up the street from Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, says he used to go to the former president’s Christmas parties and balls, until his wife, Penny Lancaster, put the kibosh on that.
“There was stuff he was coming out with, what he was saying about women he had known in the past,” Rod explains. “And Penny said ‘you’re not going – he’s a disgrace.'”
