Classic Rock News

Neil Young recently revealed he’s hitting the road this summer on a West Coast solo tour, and now we have the dates. 

Young’s Coastal Tour, featuring special guest Chris Pierce, will consist of 13 dates, kicking off with a four-night stand at Los Angeles’ John Anson Ford Theatre on July 1, 2, 4 and 5.

The tour will hit California cities like Santa Barbara, San Diego and Paso Robles, plus stops in Washington and Oregon, before wrapping July 23 in Napa, California. A complete list of dates can be found at neilyoungarchives.com.

Tickets for all shows go on sale Wednesday, June 14, at 10 a.m. local time. To cut down on scalping, tickets purchased through Ticketmaster can only be resold through Ticketmaster’s Face Value Exchange.

As previously reported, Young revealed in a Zoom with Neil Young Archives subscribers that the tour will focus on songs he hasn’t actually played live before. The tour will be Young’s first since before the pandemic. 

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Eric Clapton is giving fans another taste of his upcoming box set The Definitive 24 Nights, dropping June 23. The latest is a previously unseen performance, “Key to the Highway (Live At Royal Albert Hall).” 

The Definitive 24 Nights features six hours of music from Clapton’s historic 24-night run at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1991, including 35 never-before-released performances. During the run, Clapton performed with three lineups — a rock band, a blues band and an orchestra; “Key to the Highway” was featured in the blues section of the shows.

The Definitive 24 Nights will be released in a six-CD or eight-LP set. There will also be standalone versions of each genre — 24 Nights: Rock, 24 Nights: Blues and 24 Nights: Orchestra. All options are available for preorder now.

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On This Day, June 9, 1978…

The Rolling Stones released the album Some Girls, which was their first album to feature guitarist Ronnie Wood as a full-time member.

The album, which went to #1 in the U.S., featured the #1 song “Miss You,” along with future classics “Beat of Burden,” which peaked at #8 on the chart, and “Shattered.”

There was some controversy surrounding the album’s artwork, which featured the band members in drag, alongside pictures of famous females like Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minelli, Marilyn Monroe and more. Several of them threatened to sue over the use of their likeness without permission, and the cover was reissued without the celebrities images.

In marking the anniversary of the Some Girls release on Instagram, the band noted that the album “became the longest-running studio album on the American chart in the Stones history,” adding it was their first studio album to earn a Grammy nod for Album of the Year.

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Fans of The Rolling Stones can look forward to a lot of new vinyl in 2023 and beyond. ABKCO Records is continuing its campaign to reissue 16 titles from the band’s back catalog, with the latest being the U.K. version of the Big Hits compilation, High Tide and Green Grass, out now.

The plan is to continue to reissue Stones vinyl throughout the year and into early 2024, focusing on releases from 1963 to 1970. The next reissue will be the U.S. version of High Tide and Green Grass and 1967’s Flowers, coming June 16.

Future releases include: 1975’s rarities collection Metamorphosis on July 14; 1965’s Out of Our Hands (U.S. & U.K. versions) on September 15; 1964’s England’s Newest Hit Makers on October 6; 1969’s compilation Through The Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) (U.K. version) on October 20; 1969’s Through The Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2)(U.S. version) on November 10; 1965’s The Rolling Stones No. 2 and December’s Children (And Everybody’s); and 1966’s Got Live If You Want It! on December 1.

Plus, 2024 will see the vinyl reissues of The Rolling Stones, Now! and The Rolling Stones (U.K. version).

ABKCO Records’ reissue campaign kicked off earlier this year with the releases of 1967’s Between The Buttons and 1966’s Aftermath, the first time in 37 years they’ve been out on standalone vinyl.

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Queen is back with episode 20 of their weekly YouTube series Queen The Greatest Live, this week looking at one of their classic performances of “Is This the World We Created…?”

The performance was recorded at one of their Magic Tour sell-out shows at London’s Wembley Stadium in July 1986, and shows how the acoustic performance, featuring just Freddie Mercury and Brian May, can captivate an audience just as much as their more epic tunes.

The song, from 1984’s The Works, was penned by Mercury and May after watching a documentary on the African famine of the eighties. A year earlier they had performed the song for the Live Aid concert at the very same venue.  

And coming up next week – “Adapting Songs.”

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June 10 marks the 40th anniversary of Stevie Nicks’ sophomore solo album, The Wild Heart, which peaked at five on the Billboard 200 Album chart, spending seven weeks in that position. It went on to spend over a year on the chart.

Released almost two years after her monster solo debut, Bella Donna, The Wild Heart featured the hit single “Stand Back,” which peaked at five on the Billboard Hot 100. The song featured an uncredited cameo by Prince on synthesizers; he got a 50% writing credit, reportedly because Nicks took inspiration for the song from his hit “Little Red Corvette.”

Nicks infamously shot two videos for “Stand Back,” the first featuring lavish production and a big price tag. Stevie rejected that clip, reportedly because she thought she looked fat. Instead she released a lower budget clip, featuring footage of her singing and dancing, along with a choreographed dance group.

In addition to Prince, Toto’s Steve Lukather appeared on “Stand Back,” while the album also featured guest appearances by Tom Petty on “I Will Run To You” and Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood on “Sable on Blond.”

The Wild Heart went on to be certified double Platinum by the RIAA.

Also turning 40 on June 10 is The Kinks’ 20th studio album, State of Confusion, which peaked at #12 on the Billboard album chart.

The album’s success was aided by the single “Come Dancing,” which peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune was a tribute to Ray Davies’ older sister Rene, who passed away from a heart attack during a night out dancing. The video for the song became a staple on MTV, helping the tune become one of the band’s highest charting U.S. singles of their career, tying with their 1965 track “Tired of Waiting For You.”

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After putting her spin on “Under the Bridge” last year, Kelly Clarkson is back with another Red Hot Chili Peppers cover.

During the latest “Kellyoke” segment on her daytime talk show, the American Idol winner and pop star took on the By the Way hit “Can’t Stop.” You can watch the performance streaming now on YouTube.

Clarkson often dips into the rock world for her “Kellyoke” covers, which have also included Blink-182‘s “All the Small Things,” The Smashing Pumpkins‘ “1979” and The Offspring‘s “Come Out and Play.” She also released a Kellyoke EP last year featuring renditions of songs by artists including Radiohead, Billie Eilish and SHAED.

The Chili Peppers, meanwhile, have been on tour supporting their two 2022 albums, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen. Following a European tour kicking off later in June, the group will be back in the U.S. in August to headline Lollapalooza.

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Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson is featured in the latest episode of Gibson TV’s My First Gibson, and in it he explains that he was 12 years old when he got his guitar.

“I wanted to play guitar because I just thought it was such a cool instrument, I thought it sounded really cool,” he shares. “You know, when I listened to music that had guitar music in it, particularly like The Beach Boys in that period, in the mid ’60s, it was just the driving force of the music and it just kinda spoke to me I think.” 

He says when he was in his teens, every Saturday he’d go to a music store in Toronto called Long and McQuade’s and take down a guitar and play until a sales person would kick him out. He talks about all the guitars he used to try out, until he finally got himself a Gibson, noting, “I just couldn’t believe how easy it was to play.”

Lifeson says that guitar was his main axe until Rush got their record deal, and he and the band went back to Long and McQuade’s to buy new instruments; that was when he was able to purchase his first Les Paul.

“It was so cool doing that, it was like a dream come true for any young musician,” he says.

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Gov’t Mule heads out on their June tour starting Friday, June 8, and the lineup will look a little different at the shows. 

The band announced on social media that bassist Jorgen Carlsson is leaving the group, and he’s being replaced by bassist Kevin Scott. No reason was given for Carlsson’s departure.

“We thank Jorgen Carlsson for all his incredible work, including on ‘Peace…Like A River,’ and wish him the best,” the band shares, referring to their new album, which drops June 16. “Some of you may have seen Kevin with us last year when he stepped in for a few shows, so you know he’ll do a great job out there with us.”

The tour kicks off in Jacksonville, Oregon, with dates confirmed through June 24 in Fargo, North Dakota. A complete list of tour dates can be found at mule.net.

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Here’s a chance to get up close and personal with Peter Frampton. The legendary guitarist just announced he’s taking part in Tommy Emmanuel’s Guitar Camp USA, set for September 21-24 at the Grand Hyatt in Nashville.

“I’m honored and very excited to be joining Tommy and lots of other great players for this wonderful event,” Frampton shares on Instagram, adding with a wink, “You never know what’s gonna happen.”

The four-day festival offers a plethora of activities for guitar players of all levels: performances by Emanuel and instructors, open mics, intimate groups and more, with workshops “strictly about immersing oneself in the joys of music and our lovely surroundings!”

Tickets are on sale now.

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