Classic Rock News

Steve Hackett is giving fans at home a taste of his live show with the new live audio/visual album Foxtrot at Fifty + Hackett Highlights: Live in Brighton, dropping September 15.

The album was recorded in Brighton, U.K, on Hackett’s 2022 tour, in which he and his band Genesis performed their classic album Foxtrot in its entirety to celebrate the record’s 50th anniversary. A performance of the track “Watcher in the Skies” is out now.

Foxtrot at Fifty + Hackett Highlights: Live in Brighton will be released as a limited two-CD/Blu-ray set and a limited two-CD/two-DVD set, both featuring behind-the-scenes interviews. There will also be a limited Deluxe four-LP vinyl edition. All formats are available for preorder now.

Hackett will bring his Foxtrot at Fifty + Hackett Highlights tour to North America this fall, with U.S. dates kicking off October 6 in Ithaca, New York. A complete list of dates can be found at hackettsongs.com.

Here is the track list for Foxtrot at Fifty + Hackett Highlights: Live in Brighton:

“Intro/Ace of Wands”
“The Devil’s Cathedral”
“Spectral Mornings”
“Every Day”
“A Tower Struck Down”
“Basic Instincts”
“Camino Royale”
“Shadow of the Hierophant”
“Watcher of the Skies”
“Time Table”
“Get ‘Em Out by Friday”
“Can Utility and the Coastliners”
“Horizons”
“Supper’s Ready”
“Firth of Fifth”
“Los Endos”

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Paul McCartney’s photo exhibit is coming to America.

Currently on display at London’s National Portrait Gallery until October, the exhibit titled Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm will move to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, starting December 5 and running until April 7, 2024.

“What struck me about these images, beyond their obvious historical value, was McCartney’s sensitivity to his subjects,” said Erik Neil, Macon and Joan Brock director of the Chrysler Museum of Art. “The empathy that is at the center of his music is equally evident in his photographs.”

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm features more than 250 photos taken by McCartney. They are all from the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s own archive and were taken between November 1963 and February 1964, giving fans an insight into his point of view as The Beatles were becoming international superstars.

More info can be found at chrysler.org.

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Elton John‘s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour was the first tour in history to gross first $800 million, and then $900 million. Now, Billboard is revealing the final numbers when it comes to just how much the tour took in since it ended on July 8.

According to Billboard’s Boxscore chart, Elton’s tour grossed $989.1 million and sold six million tickets over 330 shows: 183 in North America, 101 in Europe and 46 in Australia and Asia. Of those, Elton’s North American shows brought in the most money: 61% of the total gross.

Elton has also cemented his lead as the highest-grossing solo artist in the history of the Billboard Boxscore chart, which has been reporting on tours for nearly four decades. In his career, he’s grossed nearly two billion dollars and sold almost 21 million tickets. It’s unlikely anyone will come close to matching that record in the near future.

As previously reported, Taylor Swift is likely to break Elton’s record of the highest-grossing tour of all time, but that likely won’t happen until 2024 after her Eras Tour plays a series of overseas dates.

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Queen is back with episode 35 of their weekly YouTube series Queen the Greatest Live, and they continue to look at the process of adapting songs live for the stage, this time focusing on the track “Seven Seas Of Rhye.”

The episode features a performance of the song on the second night of the band’s two-night stand at London’s Rainbow Theatre in November 1974. The performance shows Queen’s ability to recreate their elaborate studio sound live without the use of any backing tapes or additional musicians.

The Rainbow shows were released as a box set in 2014, and at the time, Roger Taylor noted, “When I listen to Queen Live At The Rainbow now, I find it extraordinary. I’d forgotten how heavy we were…”

“Seven Seas Of Rhye” was the second single off the band’s 1974 album Queen II, which also featured the hit “Killer Queen.” “Seven Seas of Rhye” became the band’s first Top 10 single in the U.K.

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On This Day, July 14, 1982…

A movie based on Pink Floyd’s classic album The Wall opened at The Empire, Leicester Square in London, England. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason all attended the premiere, as did such fellow musicians as Pete Townshend, Sting, Roger Taylor, Andy Summers and more. 

Directed by Alan Parker, with a screenplay by Waters, the film starred The Boomtown Rats’ Bob Geldof as a depressed rocker dealing with the pressures of stardom and more. In order to protect himself, he constructs both a physical and emotional wall around himself.

The movie didn’t open in the U.S. until that August; it went on to earn $22 million at the box office worldwide.

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Slash collaborates with Demi Lovato on a new version of the pop star’s song “Sorry Not Sorry.”

“Slash is an iconic artist who I’ve been a fan of for years,” Lovato says of the Guns N’ Roses shredder. “It’s an absolute honor to have such a legend like him on the rock version of ‘Sorry Not Sorry.'”

You can listen to “Sorry Not Sorry (Rock Version)” now via digital outlets and watch its accompanying lyric video streaming now on YouTube. The track will also appear on the upcoming album REVAMPED, featuring similarly guitar-driven rerecordings of Lovato’s past songs.

Lovato previously explored heavier rock sounds on the 2022 album HOLY FVCK and toured behind the record with a live band featuring Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss.

Slash, meanwhile, has been involved with several projects lately that may be surprising for GN’R fans. In addition to rocking with Lovato, he teamed up with Dolly Parton and Chris Janson on the country song “21 Forever” and plays guitar on the Barbie movie soundtrack.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

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Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett is the subject of a new documentary, Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd. The film’s director, Roddy Bogawa, hopes it sheds some light on the rocker.

Bogawa worked on the film with acclaimed album cover designer Storm Thorgerson, who was a childhood friend of Barrett’s, and Bogawa tells ABC Audio their goal was to create a “vey personal” film. 

“We agreed wholeheartedly on trying to make this (an) intimate portrait,” he explains, noting they wanted to “humanize” the misunderstood artist. 

Syd, who came up with the band’s name, was ousted from Pink Floyd in 1968. Some claim it was due to mental illness, while others suggest it was drug related; the film doesn’t attempt to provide a definitive answer on what happened.

“I think, you know, it’s easy to put him in that sort of ’60s acid casualty, you know, the drugs made him crazy. But I think at the core of it, nobody really knows what happened,” Bogawa says. “For sure, there was an element that he didn’t want to be in the band.”

He adds, “Everybody agrees something happened, but no one really can, you know, fundamentally say, ‘I was there, this is what happened.'” 

Bogawa believes Barrett’s story can be compared to those of other “tortured” musicians, like The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones, The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who all discovered an outlet to express all they’d been feeling — but the pressure got to be too much. Bogawa notes, “That’s the universal kind of sad story about it.” 

Have You Got It Yet? opens in New York on July 14 and Los Angeles on July 21, with additional cities to be announced.

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Gov’t Mule is once again inviting fans to come hang out with them on the beach. The band just announced details of their Island Exodus 14, happening January 14-18, at Jewel Paradise Cove Resort in Runaway Bay, Jamaica.

The island getaway will feature four nights of music, including three full sets from Gov’t Mule, along with a solo set by frontman Warren Hayes. Other guests on the bill include Robert Randolph Band, Samantha Fish Band featuring Jesse Dayton, and Pressing Strings. The bill also includes Wednesday Night Titans with special guest Ron Holloway, and Circles Around the Sun, with the latter playing January 13, the night before the official opening.

The getaway will also include lots of other fun activities for fans, like a joint Q&A with Hanes and Gov’t Mule drummer Matt Abts and Ron Holloway’s Fan Jam.

A presale for attendees of Island Exodus 13 begins Tuesday, July 18, while folks who attended previous festivals get access starting Wednesday, July 19. The general onsale begins Thursday, July 20. All ticket sales begin at 10 a.m. ET.

More info can be found at islandexodus.com.

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If you want fuel, fire and that which you desire, then you, Metallica and NASA are all on the same page.

The metal legends have loaned NASA their Reload single “Fuel” to soundtrack a new video promoting the Artemis program. The clip, which is streaming now on YouTube, features footage from the Artemis I launch, which sent an uncrewed rocket around the moon, and teases the upcoming Artemis II mission, which is set to send a crewed craft on a lunar flyby.

“What do Metallica and NASA’s Artemis missions to the Moon have in common?” the video’s description asks. “Both love ‘Fuel’ and fire.”

Metallica previously became the first band to perform on every one of Earth’s seven continents, so maybe NASA can help them perform on the moon, too.

In the meantime, you can catch Metallica live on our home planet when their U.S. M72 tour kicks off August 4 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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Billy Joel is back on the Billboard Hot 100 … sort of. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer returns to the singles chart as a writer, thanks to Fall Out Boy’s update of “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” which debuts at #94 on the all-genre chart.

The cover gives Joel his first Hot 100 appearance as a writer since the Glee days, when the show’s version of “Uptown Girl” charted in 2011. It has also led to the original “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” which is one of Joel’s three #1 Hot 100 hits, increasing 44% in streams and 104% in downloads.

Fall Out Boy dropped their “We Didn’t Start the Fire” in June with updated lyrics referencing pop culture and world events that have occurred since the original was released in 1989. Joel gave his blessing to the cover in an interview with BBC Radio 2, declaring, “Fall Out Boy, go ahead, great, take it away!”

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