Classic Rock News

Keith Richards made a surprise appearance at Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles over the weekend. Rolling Stone reports that Richards joined the birthday boy Sunday night for a performance of Waylon Jennings’ “We Had It All” and Billy Joe Shaver’s “Live Forever.”

“I’d like to thank Willie for inviting me to this party,” Richards told the crowd.

The two-night Nelson birthday party, Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90, featured a lineup that included Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Warren Haynes, Sheryl Crow and Snoop Dogg. 

Saturday’s show, according Variety, featured a whole host of highlights, including: Young and Stills teaming up with Promise of the Real for “Long May You Run” and “For What It’s Worth”; Willie and Young, along with Lukas and Micah Nelson, performing “Are There Any More Real Cowboys”; Haynes performing the Allman Brothers Band classic “Midnight Rider”; and Rosanne Cash and Kris Kristofferson performing “Lovin’ Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again).” 

Both nights featured a “Happy Birthday” serenade to the singing legend. As for his actual birthday, Willie shared on social media, “I was born before midnight on the 29th but it didn’t get registered in the county courthouse until the next day, the 30th. So, it went out officially as the 30th. So I just do both days.”

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KISS’ Paul Stanley is facing some backlash after posting his thoughts about gender confirmation treatment for children, suggesting it’s been “turned into a sad and dangerous fad.”

“There is a BIG difference between teaching acceptance and normalizing and even encouraging participation in a lifestyle that confuses young children into questioning their sexual identification as though some sort of game and then parents in some cases allow it,” Stanley writes on Twitter.

He seems to suggest that it’s OK if adults make the decision to change their gender, but he has some issues with parents “normalizing” the choice for kids.

Stanley adds, “With many children who have no real sense of sexuality or sexual experiences caught up in the ‘fun’ of using pronouns and saying what they identify as, some adults mistakenly confuse teaching acceptance with normalizing and encouraging a situation that has been a struggle for those truly affected and have turned it into a sad and dangerous fad.” 

The post has quickly been met with backlash. One of those blasting Stanley is The Offspring guitarist Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman, who tweeted, “This is a very disappointing take, especially from someone who wore high-heels, makeup, & teased up hair his whole career. As a young kid your band helped teach me that I could be whatever I wanted to be. I guess it was just gimmickry after all. #thatsashame.”

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On This Day, May 1, 1976 …

Led Zeppelin’s seventh album, Presence, hit number one on the Billboard Album chart. 

The band, unable to tour due to injuries Robert Plant sustained in a car accident, completed the album in just 18 days, with Plant doing his vocals from a wheelchair.

The album, which spent two weeks on top of the chart, featured the 10-minute opener “Achilles Last Stand,” one of the band’s longest studio recordings.  

Presence received mixed reviews and is the band’s lowest-selling album. It was one of seven Led Zeppelin albums to reach number one. The others include 1969’s Led Zeppelin II, 1970’s Led Zeppelin III, 1975’s Physical Graffiti, 1979’s In Through the Out Door and 2003’s live album How The West Was One.

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Tim Bachman, guitarist and one of the co-founders of the Canadian band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, passed away Friday at age 71. The news was announced by the artist’s son Ryder in a post on Facebook, with an earlier post revealing that doctors had found “cancer riddled all throughout his brain.”

“My Dad passed this afternoon. Thank You Everyone for the kind words,” Ryder wrote. “Grateful I got to spend some time with him at the end. Grab yer loved ones and hug em close, ya never know how long you have.”

BTO also featured Bachman’s brothers Randy and Robbie, along with Fred Turner. Tim was featured on two of the band’s albums, Bachman–Turner Overdrive and Bachman–Turner Overdrive II, with the latter featuring the band’s two biggest hits, “Takin’ Care of Business” and “Let It Ride.”

Tim left the group in 1974 and was replaced by Blair Thornton. He did return for a 1984 reunion album and tour, which had BTO opening for Van Halen.

Tim’s death comes after the January passing of his brother Robbie, at the age of 69.

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Soundgarden, Warren Zevon and Iron Maiden are among the artists who made the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 2023 fan ballot, Billboard reports.

For the past 10 years, the Rock Hall has allowed the public to vote for their favorite nominees to be inducted. The top five vote-getters then comprise the fan ballot, which counts as a single entry among all the ballots cast by the official Rock Hall voting body.

Other artists on this year’s fan ballot included George Michael, who earned the most votes, and Cyndi Lauper.

As Billboard notes, four out of the past five top vote-getters in the fan vote were ultimately chosen for induction. The only one who didn’t get in was Dave Matthews Band in 2020.

The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees will be announced on May 3. The other nominees are The White Stripes, Kate Bush, Rage Against the Machine, Joy Division and New Order, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Willie Nelson, The Spinners and A Tribe Called Quest.

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As suspected, Aerosmith is saying goodbye to the road. The band just announced dates for their “Peace Out” farewell tour, featuring special guests The Black Crowes.

“It’s not goodbye it’s PEACE OUT!,” the band shared in a statement. “Get ready and walk this way, you’re going to get the best show of our lives.” 

The tour is set to kick off September 2 in Philadelphia, hitting such cities as Pittsburgh, Detroit, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville and more before wrapping, January 26, 2024 in Montreal, Canada. The trek also includes a New Year’s Eve show in the band’s hometown of Boston, Massachusetts.  

One person who won’t be joining the band for their farewell run is drummer Joey Kramer. “While Joey Kramer remains a beloved founding member of Aerosmith, he has regrettably made the decision to sit out the currently scheduled touring dates to focus his full attention on his family and health,” the band explained. “Joey’s unmistakable and legendary presence behind the drum kit will be sorely missed.” 

Ahead of the official announcement the band teased the news with a trailer that featured cameos by such stars as Ringo Starr, Slash, Kelly Clarkson, Eminem, Dolly Parton and Bill Burr, with Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler ending the clip by saying “and if you think we’re joking, dream on,” a reference to their classic song.

Tickets for the Peace Out tour go on sale Friday, May 5 at 10 a.m. local time. A complete list of dates can be found at Aerosmith.com.

(Video contains uncensored profanity)

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John Fogerty kicked off his Celebration Tour last week, marking his first tour since regaining the worldwide rights to his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer fought for 55 years to get those rights back, and he’s learned some big lessons along the way.

So, what would he say to young artists who are so eager to get a deal that they’d be willing to sign any contract?

“Don’t do it,” he tells ABC Audio. “I know you think you’re going to write another great song tomorrow and it doesn’t matter, but it’s really an abomination that somehow at the moment, you’re writing this masterpiece of yours down on paper, it’s now whisked away from you and it gets to be owned by someone else. That’s just a tragedy.”

Of course, it’s easy for young artists to get discouraged if nothing’s happening in their career, but Fogerty urges them not to be too eager.  

“I would sure tell a young person, look, if you have the talent, it’s going to come through no matter when you decide to let it shine,” he says. “And doing it with a gun to your head is really a poor outcome for you because you don’t want to end up doing what I had to do (which was) fight for my rights for, you know, 50 years or longer.”

He notes, “There’s so many more positive things that you should be doing with music.” 

Fogerty’s Celebration Tour picks up again on May 6 in Pomona, California. A complete list of tour dates can be found JohnFogerty.com.

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In U2′s 2004 song “Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own,” which is about Bono‘s late father, he sings, “You’re the reason the opera is in me.”  At his Stories of Surrender book tour event in New York City on Saturday night, Bono devoted much of the evening to exploring the truth of that particular line.

“I’m still pretending this is a book tour,” he told the sold-out audience at the Beacon Theater. In truth, it’s more of a one-man show, with Bono recreating the stories from his book on a stage that was bare except for some chairs and tables, used as props to great effect.

Bono punctuated those stories with performances of U2 songs like “Sunday Bloody Sunday, “With or Without You” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” with help from producer Jacknife Lee on keyboards and percussion, cellist Kate Ellis and harpist/singer Gemma Doherty.  Stripped of U2’s backing, Bono’s singing seemed even more emotional than usual.

But while the rapt audience heard about Bono’s relationship with his band mates and his wife Ali, the show’s main set piece involved Bono acting out the weekly chats he had with his dad, Bob, whose hobby was singing opera, in their local pub.

Bob remained stubbornly unimpressed by his famous son, and in scenes alternately funny and heart-breaking, Bono described his desperate attempts to impress his dad, which mostly involved boasting to him about his friendship and musical collaboration with opera icon Luciano Pavarotti.

Bono’s tales of his father, opera and their all too infrequent moments of connection culminated in the show’s closing number. Bono delivered a stunning, a cappella performance of “Come Back to Sorrento” — one of his father’s favorites — in Italian.

The show continues in New York through May 8.

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Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band kicked off their European tour in Barcelona, Spain Friday with The Boss bringing out two very special guests to help him out. 

After being spotted the night before dining with Former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama and director Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw, it appears The Boss felt the need to put some of them to work. Video on social media shows Michelle and Kate joining Springsteen to play tambourine and sing back up on “Glory Days.” 

As for the rest of the night, Springsteen didn’t stray too far from the set he’s been playing at his U.S. shows, but, according to setlist.fm, he did play “Human Touch” for the first time on the tour and the first time since 2016. 

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band play a second night in Barcelona on Sunday, April 30. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.

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The upcoming long-in-the-works Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet may have found its Joan Baez.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Monica Barbaro, who appeared in the blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, is in talks to play the legendary folk singer in the James Mangold-directed film A Complete Unknown. 

The flick is set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan infamously divided folk fans by going electric. Baez joined Dylan at the festival to perform “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Movie and music fans have been waiting a long time for this Dylan film to finally be made. Earlier this month Mangold revealed that production is expected to begin in August, with Chalamet doing all his own singing.

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