Classic Rock News

Amid preparations for his annual Oscar Viewing Party this Sunday, Elton John and his family are mourning the death of their beloved dog Marilyn, who died, according to Elton’s husband, “just shy of her 18th birthday.”

Posting a photo of the pup, Elton’s husband David Furnish writes, “Marilyn joined the Furnish-Johns as companion to Elton’s beloved cocker spaniel Arthur. Together they traveled the world with us – from backstage at Caesar’s Palace to the gondolas of Venice.”

Furnish notes that when he and Elton welcomed sons Zachary and Elijah, “Marilyn was like a sentry posted at the door when both Zachary and Elijah first came home from the hospital.” 

He adds, “Instinctively she knew about the importance of their arrival, and lay directly under their [bassinets] keeping vigil. Occasionally, she’d pop her head up over the edge to check on their well-being, with her tail wagging away madly.”

“Nobody, and I mean NOBODY who wasn’t a part of the family got near those boys,” Furnish gushes. “She was a fiercely loyal and protective mother.”

“She’s back together with Arthur now, charging around in doggie heaven and chasing rabbits,” he concludes. “A dear friend once remarked, ‘a dog is the only love you can buy,’ and the love we got back from Marilyn was bountiful and immeasurable.”

By Thursday evening, Elton, who’d “liked” David’s post, seemed O.K.: Photos showing him hanging out with Miley Cyrus, Lil Nas X and Donatella Versace at the Versace Fashion Week 2023 show in West Hollywood were posted to his Instagram Story.

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Fleetwood Mac has gone through several lineup changes over the years, but none were as drastic as the summer of 1994 when they toured with only two original members: Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. 

For that tour, Traffic’s Dave Mason, singer Billy Burnette and Bekka Bramlett filled in for Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Bramlett, daughter of rock duo Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett, says she knew the gig was never going to last.

“I knew my job was to get Stevie back,” she says. “I wasn’t a moron.”

She says she knew taking the gig was “dangerous,” noting, “I knew I was facing tomatoes.”

Because of that, Bramlett decided to go out of her way to make sure fans didn’t mistake her for Stevie. “I didn’t want to twirl around. I wanted to be me,” she says. “I even dyed my hair brown just so people in the cheap seats would know that Stevie wasn’t going to be here. I didn’t want anyone to be discouraged or let down.”

She also stayed away from performing signature Stevie songs like “Rhiannon” and “Dreams,” although she did sing “Landslide” for a bit of the tour. 

And as she suspected, the job didn’t last long. Bramlett says Mick fired her by fax, which she described as heartbreaking.

She did eventually get to meet Nicks, but says, “She didn’t care for me.”

“I was blonde. The first thing she said was, ‘Oh, I didn’t know she was blonde. And she over-sings,’” Bramlett explains. “But it’s OK. I still love her. She probably felt like I pissed on her tree. I can understand that. I’m a woman. I dig it. I understand it. I get it. I don’t dig it, but I get it.”

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Bruce Springsteen fans in Columbus, Ohio, are going to have to wait to see The Boss. The rocker’s Thursday show was postponed due to illness, although who is sick hasn’t been revealed. 

“Due to illness, tonight’s Bruce (Springsteen) and The E Street Band concert at Nationwide Arena has been postponed,” the arena announced on social media. “We are working on rescheduling the date so please hold on to your tickets as they will be valid for the rescheduled show.”

This isn’t the first illness to plague the tour, although it’s the first time a show has been called off because of it. Since launching in February, E Streeters Steven Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Jake Clemons and Soozie Tyrell have all come down with COVID and had to miss shows.

Springsteen’s next concert is scheduled for Sunday in Uncasville, Connecticut.

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Def Leppard is once again giving fans a look at their life on the road. This time they’ve shared a tour diary giving fans a behind-the-scenes look at their recent shows in Bogotá, Colombia, and Lima, Peru, which weren’t easy thanks to the high altitude in the countries.

The clip shows the band doing their best to get used to the altitude, with frontman Joe Elliott drinking coca tea. He jokes it was “a bit f****** late for me,” likely referring to his brief hospitalization before the Bogotá show.

While Elliott says he “felt absolutely zero complications with altitude sickness” during the concert, he was a “different guy” before the show. He wonders if the altitude may have played a role in Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins’ death in Bogota last March.

Elliott says the band was staying at the Four Seasons, which is where Taylor passed away, and shares, “I wonder whether altitude had something to do with his death because it’s a bastard. It really is.” 

He adds, “To do a gig eight-and-a-half million feet above sea level, not easy.”

Elsewhere in the video, we see Def Leppard rockin’ out in front of their adoring fans, meeting the first lady of Colombia, enjoying the sea on their first visit to Lima and more.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

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It sounds like Pete Townshend is thinking about revisiting his Scoop series. The Who legend revealed the news while answering some questions posed by fans in the comments of an Instagram post featuring an old picture of himself in one of his home studios.

One fan asked, “You have anymore Scoop releases coming out?” He shared the great news that he’s “thinking about it right now.”

Townshend released his first Scoop album — featuring demos of released and unreleased Who tracks and solo songs — back in 1983, and followed that up with one in 1987 and one in 2001.

And that wasn’t the only revelation Townshend made in the comments. When a fan jokingly asked, “Is there any possibility of shooting Roger [Daltrey] out of a cannon on the upcoming tour? It would make for front page headlines,” the rocker couldn’t help but respond. 

“I have always wanted to do that,” he wrote. “But then, he has always wanted to do it to me.”

The Who returns to the road June 14 in Barcelona, Spain, with their The Who Hits Back! tour. A complete list of dates can be found at TheWho.com.

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Fender is paying tribute to George Harrison with a new collection of guitar accessories inspired by the late Beatle‘s record label, Dark Horse Records.

The George Harrison Dark Horse Capsule Collection consists of three items: a Dark Horse floral guitar strap, another guitar strap with the Dark Horse logo, and Dark Horse pick tin with Dark Horse Records graphics and six medium-gauge printed picks. 

All three items are available now on Fender.com and range in price from $11.99 to $44.99.

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Bono and The Edge’s upcoming Disney+ special, Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, has them touring Dublin with David Letterman. The U2 rockers say it was only right to invite the talk show host to come visit them in their city.

“You know, he had us on his stomping ground” for a week, Bono tells Access Hollywood, referring to their weeklong visit on The Late Show in 2009. “So it was the right thing to return the compliment and host him at home in Dublin.” 

The Edge adds, “We thought a stand-up comic like Dave might be able to understand what we are about and unravel the U2 mystery.” 

In the special, Bono and The Edge perform a song they wrote about Dave, which he still can’t quite believe.

“I’m still processing it because most songs written about me begin, ‘Hey dumb***,’” Letterman joked. “So this was an unusual experience.”  

Bono and The Edge were also asked about how long it took for them to get used to their nicknames, and it sounds like they may still be working on that.

“Nicknames, you don’t choose them, your friends choose them and they’re not necessarily compliments, they’re often slags, as we’d say in Ireland,” Edge says, to which Bono chimed in, “It’s always uncomfortable, is what The Edge is saying, but even his mother used to call him The Edge. In fact, Mrs. Edge used to call him The Edge.”

As for whether Letterman has a nickname, Bono says it’s “Lord,” to which Letterman clarified, “Lord Dips***.”

Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming debuts March 17 on Disney+. 

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On This Day, March 9, 1987…

U2 released their fifth studio album, The Joshua Tree, which went on to be one of the world’s best-selling albums. It was the Irish rockers’ first number-one album in the U.S. and spent nine weeks in the top spot on the Billboard 200, the longest reign at number one for the band.

The record included future U2 classics “With or Without You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” which remain U2’s only number-one singles in the U.S., as well as “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

The Joshua Tree sold over 25 million copies and won two Grammys, including Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group. In 2014, it was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the U.S. National Recording Registry, a distinction that body reserves for sound recordings that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

In 2017, U2 celebrated The Joshua Tree‘s 30th anniversary with a tour of North America, Europe and Latin America, playing the album in order, in its entirety. The tour grossed more than $316 million, making it the highest-grossing tour of the year worldwide. They then added more dates through 2019, bringing in another $390.8 million.

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Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks‘ joint stadium tour gets underway Friday in Inglewood, California. And Billy says you just might hear him singing “Landslide” at the shows, while she sings “Just the Way You Are” — or something along those lines.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times about the pairing, Billy says he and Stevie met about 10 years ago backstage at a Fleetwood Mac show. “We’ve never worked together, even though we both kind of hit at the same time,” he notes. “So this’ll be a completely new thing for me. I’ll probably do one of her songs and she’ll probably do one of mine.”

Asked which Stevie song he’s considering, he says, “That’s up to her.”

Billy traded songs with Elton John when the two toured together years ago, and he says teaming up with another artist, like Stevie, really appeals to him. 

“I did very much enjoy touring with Elton John. It was like I joined something. As a solo artist, it’s always ‘me, me, me’ — gets kind of boring,” he admits. “But when I hooked up with Elton, I got to play his material, which was a hell of a lot of fun. I miss that.”

And speaking of Elton, Billy, who’s nine years into his Madison Square Garden residency, in addition to the stadium shows he does each year, says a farewell tour like the kind Elton’s doing isn’t really for him.

“I have a disdain for capitalizing on that: ‘Let me threaten that it’ll be the end, and then I’ll make a lot of money,'” he tells the Los Angeles Times. “I’ve seen bands so many times announce their farewell tours and then they never go away.”

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The show must go on for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Despite the loss of their last founding member, guitarist Gary Rossington, last Sunday, it has been confirmed that the band will play Florida’s Strawberry Festival this Sunday as planned.

“Our Festival has lost a great friend, entertainer, and music icon,” Florida Strawberry Festival President Paul Davis shares, according to Planet Rock. “Our hearts go out to his entire family, all his fans and to the thousands of people whose lives he has enriched.”

He adds, “We know we will have a special guest and guardian angel watching over this performance.” 

In addition to the Strawberry Festival, Lynyrd Skynyrd has several other shows on their schedule, including an upcoming summer tour with ZZ Top. A complete list of tour dates can be found at lynyrdskynyrd.com.

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