Classic Rock News

Cyndi Lauper is headed to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this fall, and to celebrate the final show of her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour, she brought out fellow female members of the Hall to join her onstage.

Cher and Joni Mitchell — the latter in only her second public appearance of 2025 — were special guests at Lauper’s show Saturday at the Hollywood Bowl, as were pop/R&B superstars John Legend and SZA.

Mitchell joined Lauper for a version of “Carey,” from Mitchell’s iconic album Blue. Lauper has performed the song herself multiple times in concert over the years.  Legend then appeared to join Lauper on “Time After Time,” and SZA popped up for “True Colors.”

The final song of the night was, of course, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” with Lauper’s good pal Cher joining her to perform that number.

You can find footage of all of these performances on YouTube.

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Dead & Company’s three San Francisco shows celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead helped promote a lot of causes that are important to the band.

Like most Dead & Company concerts, the band had a Participation Row at the San Fran shows, promoting causes like Reverb.org and HeadCount.org, and it produced some pretty positive returns.

According to a post on Instagram, the shows raised over $2.2 million for Dead Family charities. In addition, there were over 17,700 positive activations from fans, including over 5,300 voter actions and over 13,100 environmental actions.

“Dead Heads make a positive impact everywhere they go,” the band said on Instagram. “Thanks to all the fans that took action and supported @headcountorg, @reverb_org and other nonprofits, we accomplished all of this together. THANK YOU for showing up.”

Dead & Company’s three shows at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park took place Aug. 1, 2 and 3. They featured guest appearances by Phish’s Trey Anastasio and Phil Lesh‘s son Grahame Lesh, as well as Billy Strings and Sturgill Simpson.

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Bryan Adams has released a new video for the track “Will We Ever Be Friends Again” from his just-released new album, Roll With the Punches.

According to a post on Instagram, the clip was filmed in Iceland and stars Icelandic model Inga Eiriksdottir. Adams shared a video of an outtake with Inga playing the accordion.

Roll With the Punches is Adams’ 16th studio album and his first album since 2022’s So Happy It Hurts. He’s set to celebrate the release with a series of intimate club shows in England, kicking off Saturday in Leeds and wrapping Sept. 3 in Kingston.

He’ll also launch a North American tour on Sept. 11 in Kamloops, British Columbia. U.S. dates, featuring Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo as special guests, begin Oct. 25 in Uncasville, Connecticut, and run through Nov. 26 in Minneapolis.

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A new documentary about Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles years has been acquired by Amazon MGM Studios.

Directed by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville, Man on the Run will premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, which runs from Friday to Monday. It will eventually be released in select theaters.

It will then be released on Prime Video on Feb. 25, 2026.

Man on the Run gives fans a look at McCartney’s life following the breakup of The Beatles, including the formation of his band Wings. According to the description, it “chronicles the arc of McCartney’s solo career as he faces down a myriad of challenges while creating new music to define a new decade.”

The acquisition of the film is part of a larger partnership between McCartney, Universal Music and Amazon. Over the next year it will include the release of exclusive music and merch drops from Amazon Music.

McCartney is also releasing a new book about his post-Beatles career. Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run will be released Nov. 4.

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The Sex Pistols‘ iconic album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols is the latest album to get a high fidelity audio release.

The English punk rockers’ only studio album is now part of Rhino High Fidelity’s series of limited-edition, high-end vinyl reissues, with 5,000 individually numbered 180-gram black vinyl copies now available via Rhino.com. The reissue comes with new liner notes from the album’s producer Chris Thomas.

Released in 1977, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols features such songs as “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen.” The album debuted at #1 in the U.K., despite many record stores refusing to carry it because its title was considered offensive. The band would eventually break up just months after the album’s release, calling it quits in 1978 during their U.S. tour. 

Although not a huge hit in the U.S. when it was first released, the album would go on to sell over 1 million copies and has been certified Platinum by the RIAA. It was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.

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Bon Jovi has dropped the first two tracks off their upcoming collaborations album, Forever (Legendary Edition), which has them teaming up with other big-name artists to reimagine songs on their 2024 album, Forever.

The first released track is the album’s lead-off single, “Red, White and Jersey”; the band also released a new music video, which follows a couple and their friends having fun in the Garden State. The other track is the first collaboration to be released, “Hollow Man,” featuring fellow New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen.

Both songs are available now via digital outlets.

In addition to Springsteen, Forever (Legendary Edition), dropping on Oct. 24, has Bon Jovi collaborating with such artists as Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, Jelly Roll, Ryan Tedder, Avril Lavigne, Jason Isbell, James Bay and Lainey Wilson.

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Metallica‘s intimate concert Thursday at the Stephen Talkhouse venue in Amagansett, New York, featured a nod to the late Ozzy Osbourne.

During the recurring “doodle” segment of the metal legends’ show, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo jammed the riff from the Prince of Darkness’ solo classic, “Crazy Train.”

Metallica was one of the many bands to play the massive Back to the Beginning concert, held July 5 in Birmingham, England, which was announced as Ozzy and the original Black Sabbath lineup’s final live performance. Ozzy died just over two weeks later, on July 22.

“It’s impossible to put into words what Ozzy Osbourne has meant to Metallica,” Metallica posted following Ozzy’s passing. “Hero, icon, pioneer, inspiration, mentor, and, most of all, friend are a few that come to mind.”

Trujillo, who also played in Ozzy’s solo band before joining Metallica, later posted, “Ozzy was the conduit for so many new relationships both creative collaborations and real, lasting friendships.”

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Bryan Adams‘ new album, Roll With the Punches, is out now, and he thinks it rocks, if he does so say himself.

“It’s predominantly pretty much a rock record,” he told ABC Audio. “What can I tell you? It’s the best songs I could have come up with in a year. I’ll tell you that!”

“If you like anything that I’ve done before and you like the themes that I sort of hark to, then it’s very much in that bag,” he continued, before describing some of the album’s songs.

“‘Roll With the Punches‘ is about getting up after you’ve been knocked down and just starting over. ‘Make Up Your Mind‘ is about the possibility of getting back with your ex, but your ex actually has somebody else,” he explained. “So it’s all those kind of themes.”

“I’ve got a song that’s about veterans coming back from war. I’ve got a beautiful love song on there,” he added. In fact, Bryan said he feels Roll With the Punches echoes two of his classic albums. 

“It’s kind of a cross between, maybe, Waking Up the Neighbours and Into the Fire,” he says of his 1991 release and his 1987 project.

Roll With the Punches is an independent release on Bryan’s own label, BAD Records. “It didn’t take much to convince me to do it,” he says. “Because what we did was we sort of tested the waters.”

Specifically, a few years ago Bryan teamed with the record label BMG to released a box set documenting some shows he’d recorded at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Then, last year, he put out a similar box set on BAD.

“We did as good if not better on our own than we did with BMG,” he laughs. “So, might as well do it ourselves.” 

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In the 1980s, popular music encompassed multiple genres, from rap and pop to heartland rock and dance. But one genre that is overwhelmingly associated with that decade is metal — specifically, hair metal and glam metal. Now it’s being examined at a new exhibit at GRAMMY Museum Mississippi.

The exhibit, ’80s Rock: The Wildest Decade in Music, explores why those genres became so popular during that time and why the bands who played that kind of music continue to attract millions of loyal fans. Members of Twisted Sister will be on hand for a special conversation at the museum’s preopening event on Sept. 25, ahead of its official Sept. 26 opening.

As part of the exhibit, many artifacts from that time will be on display, including Mötley Crüe’s drum kit, an Ozzy Osbourne stage costume, a Def Leppard bass guitar, autographed guitars and memorabilia from Poison, a guitar played by Ratt, a smashed-up bass and Appetite for Destruction lithograph from Guns N’ Roses, a pink bodice worn by Heart‘s Nancy Wilson, a drumhead from Warrant, and a guitar and stage outfit from Lita Ford.

Photos from the era will also be on display. Fans can have their photo taken in front of a replica of the Whisky a Go Go, the LA club on the Sunset Strip that was ground zero for hair metal.

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As a vegan, Joan Jett doesn’t want to get a “Bad Reputation” for eating pizza with cheese made from dairy. So that’s why she’s demanding that Domino’s finally get with the program and add vegan cheese to its menu.

Jett sent a letter on PETA’s behalf to Russell J. Weiner, the CEO of Domino’s, ahead of her performance Thursday night at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan. The venue is about 90 minutes from the company’s headquarters in Ann Arbor.

In her letter, Jett points out that Domino’s in other countries already have vegan cheese on their menus, as do other U.S. chains.

“I’ve played a lot of shows in Michigan, and one thing that always hits the spot is a good slice of pizza,” Jett wrote. “That’s why my friends at PETA and I are asking Domino’s, while I’m right here in your own backyard, to turn up the volume and finally add dairy-free cheese to your U.S. menu.”

“Pizza should be for everyone. More and more folks are ditching dairy, as I did years ago, for their health, allergies, or because they don’t want to support cruelty,” she continued. “Vegan cheese today is gooey, melty, and every bit as satisfying. It deserves a place on Domino’s pizzas across America.”

Jett concludes, “It’s time for Domino’s in the U.S. to catch up and give people what they’re asking for. Music brings people together, and so does pizza. Let’s make sure no one is left out when it’s time to share a pie.”

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