Foo Fighters are mandating that anyone set to attend their shows in Alaska must prove they have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or have tested negative for the virus prior to the event.
Anchorage Daily Newsreports that the band, set to perform three shows in the state between August 17 and August 21, will not be requiring masks at their events, but masks are encouraged. However, the band is requiring that fans show proof of vaccination at the door or a negative COVID-19 test that was taken within 48 hours of the concert. Audience members must also show an ID that matches the information on the vaccination card or negative COVID-19 test document.
Prior to their Alaska shows, the Foos performed before a fully vaccinated audience in June at New York City’s Madison Square Garden — the venue’s first arena show since COVID-19 shut it down in March 2020.
Heart‘s Ann and Nancy Wilson have both been busy with solo musical projects since the band last toured in 2019, but Nancy says she thinks there’s a good chance that the Rock & Roll Hall Fame group will hit the road again, possibly as early as next year.
“[Ann and I] don’t…speak real directly really often these days, but I think she wants to do [another tour],” the Heart guitarist tells ABC Audio. “And I want to do it. She knows that I want to do it.”
Nancy continues, “I think it’s just, you know, the devil’s in the details about who’s in the band and…making all the choices, because we’re partners in the project, so, you know, prerequisite decisions have to be made first.”
With the two sisters recording and releasing their own solo projects lately, they now each have backing groups. With that in mind, Nancy notes, “To me, the most important thing is who’s in the [Heart touring] band. So, we’re gonna figure it out.”
While no definite plans are in place for a new Heart trek, Nancy reveals that Live Nation has made an offer to the band for a 2022 tour.
Meanwhile, Nancy, who released a debut solo studio album titled You and Me in May, will play a special orchestral show with her solo band and the Seattle Symphony on October 30 at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall.
Nancy tells ABC Audio that she feels it would “be a sweet thing” if Heart also lined up some concerts with orchestral accompaniment.
Happy 80th birthday to David Crosby, the golden-voiced folk-rock legend who co-founded The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and also has established a thriving solo career.
Among the well-known songs Crosby has penned or co-written are The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” and “Renaissance Fair,” CSN’s “Wooden Ships,” “Guinnevere” and “Long Time Gone,” and CSNY’s “Almost Cut My Hair” and “Déjà Vu.”
The singer/songwriter also infamously struggled with drug abuse during the 1970s and ’80s, and spent nine months in jail in 1982 and ’83 after being convicted on drug and gun-possession charges. In 1994, he underwent a liver transplant, and he also has experienced various other health issues in recent years.
Crosby was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with The Byrds in 1991 and CSN in 1997.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, Crosby continued to tour and occasionally record with CSN and CSNY. Also during that period, David played and recorded with the band CPR, which also featured his son James Raymond on keyboards and guitarist Jeff Pevar.
Up until 2016, David’s main musical focus had been touring with CSN and working as a duo with Graham Nash, but a rift with Nash resulted in the trio going on indefinite hiatus and led Crosby to concentrate on solo projects.
Since 2016, David has released four solo albums. His latest, For Free, which hit stores on July 23. features major contributions from Raymond, plus collaborations with Michael McDonald and Sarah Jarosz.
In 2019, a documentary focusing on Crosby’s life called David Crosby: Remember My Name premiered. The film featured segments on David’s late-career creative resurgence and his rifts with Nash, Neil Young and Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn.
In a Twitter message posted today, Crosby revealed that he was working on songs for another new solo project.
High-quality audiophile versions of The Eagles‘ classic 1970s albums are being reissued as two-LP 45-rpm vinyl box sets and on the SACD format by the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Billboard reports.
According to Billboard, Rhino Entertainment is licensing the band’s first six studio efforts — 1972’s Eagles, 1973’s Desperado, 1974’s On the Border, 1975’s One of These Nights, 1976’s Hotel California and 1979’s The Long Run — to the Mobile Fidelity company, with Eagles due out on August 15 and Desperado set for a September 15 release. Release dates for the other albums will be announced later.
The vinyl box sets, which are pressed on 180-gram vinyl, are priced at $125, while the SACDs cost $29.99. Only 7,500 copies of the LP collections will be available, limited to two copies per household.
“We are incredibly honored to be doing these Eagles records,” says Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab executive Josh Bizar, adding about the vinyl collections’ high price tag, “[P]eople will pay more for a quality product.”
Eagles was released in June 1972, and features such classic tunes as “Take It Easy,” “Witchy Woman” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” Desperado arrived in April of 1973, and includes the memorable title track, plus “Tequila Sunrise.”
Visit MoFi.com to pre-order Eagles and Desperado and to find out more info about the reissues.
Meanwhile, The Eagles are set to launch their 2021 orchestral tour celebrating Hotel California on Sunday, August 22, at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden. The trek is mapped out through a recently announced November 5 show in Seattle, tickets for which went on sale to the general public today.
The latest episode of Queen‘s weekly YouTube video series Queen The Greatest premiered today, profiling five successful songs that guitarist Brian May has written for the band.
The installment begins by noting that Brian “has contributed some of the band’s most anthemic and best-loved songs,” including “Who Wants to Live Forever,” “Flash,” “The Show Must Go On,” “Keep Yourself Alive,” “Now I’m Here” and “Tie Your Mother Down.”
The first song profiled is 1977’s “We Will Rock You,” followed by 1978’s “Fat Bottomed Girls,” 1980’s “Save Me,” 1985’s “Hammer to Fall” and 1989’s “I Want It All.”
Each segment includes a clip from the music videos that Queen made to accompany the tunes.
“We Will Rock You” peaked at #2 and #4, respectively, on the U.K. and U.S. singles charts, while “Fat Bottomed Girls” reached #11 and #24, respectively. “Save Me” and “Hammer to Fall” landed at #11 and #13, respectively, in the U.K., but failed to chart in the States. As for “I Want It All,” it peaked at #3 in Queen’s home country, while only reaching #50 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Queen The Greatest series previously featured installments profiling songs written by drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon, while an episode focusing on the compositions of late frontman Freddie Mercury is yet to come.
If you haven’t checked out the Hella Mega tour yet, Green Day wants you to know what you’re missing.
Footage from the ongoing run, which also features Fall Out Boy and Weezer, is featured in the new video for “Pollyanna,” Green Day’s latest single.
“It’s the BEST feeling being out on the road [with] the Hella Mega Tour!!” Green Day says. “So great, in fact, that we made a vid for ‘Pollyanna’ [featuring] some of the best times we’ve had so far.”
You can watch the “Pollyanna” video streaming now on YouTube.
Green Day debuted “Pollyanna” in May. It follows the trio’s 2020 album, Father of All…
The Hella Mega tour, meanwhile, is set to continue Friday in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Fall Out Boy, which had missed three stops on the outing after a member of the band’s team tested positive for COVID-19, has since returned to the bill.
Earlier in the week, Elton John talked about how happy he was about the Olympics, where a number of athletes represented by his sports management company, Rocket Sports, took home the gold. So maybe it’s not surprising that he’s now involved in a TV show that will mix Olympic sports and music.
Billboard reports that Elton is executive-producing From the Top, a series that will premiere on the Olympic Channel on Monday. Each episode will pair a top Olympian with a different music star. The first episode features 13-year-old skateboarder Sky Brown and British alt-rocker Yungblud.
More episodes are set to air in December. You can watch the first one at Olympics.com.
Pearl Jam has announced a concert stream to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band’s 1996 album, No Code.
The virtual event will showcase Eddie Vedder and company’s 2014 performance in Moline, Illinois, during which they performed No Code front-to-back. You can watch it for free premiering on the actual No Code release date — August 27 — via the concert streaming site Nugs.net.
No Code, Pearl Jam’s fourth studio album, had a much more experimental sound compared to the band’s opening trio of records, which was met with confusion by some fans and critics. It was also released amid PJ’s infamous legal battle with Ticketmaster, which affected their touring efforts.
Still, No Code was RIAA-certified Platinum and spawned the singles “Who You Are” and “Hail, Hail.”
By the way, if that August 27 release date sounds familiar, that may be because Pearl Jam’s iconic debut album Ten dropped on that same date, albeit five years earlier in 1991. While No Code is celebrating its 25th anniversary this coming August 27, Ten will be hitting the big 3-0.
The metal legends have announced the premiere date for The Metallica Podcast: Volume 1 — The Black Album. The eight-episode series will make its debut next Friday, August 20.
As its title suggests, the podcast will chronicle the making of Metallica’s iconic 1991 self-titled record, aka The Black Album, in honor of its 30th anniversary. Members James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett will all appear on the show to recall their experiences, as will former bassist Jason Newsted and producer Bob Rock.
Also contributing will be “studio and touring personnel, music critics, fellow musicians, friends, and many more,” a press release promises.
The 16-times RIAA-certified Platinum Black Album officially celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this week. The party will continue with a massive deluxe reissue, as well as the all-star The Metallica Blacklist tribute compilation, featuring 53 artists covering every song off The Black Album. Both releases arrive September 10.
Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson postponed the last two appearances of a U.K. spoken-word tour last week because a member of his household had tested positive for COVID-19, and now the singer reveals that he also has tested positive for the virus.
Dickinson tells Rolling Stone that he had gone home to self-quarantine for 10 days after the events were postponed — as per U.K. government guidelines — and a few days later he felt like he was coming down with a cold, so he went and took a “lateral-flow” COVID-19 test that came back positive.
Dickinson, who’s fully vaccinated, explains to the magazine, “I was kind of sneezing a bit. For a couple of days, I felt a bit groggy, kind of like the flu, and that was it. And I’m 63 years old. I’ve pretty much got no doubt that had I not had the vaccine, I could be in serious trouble.”
The powerhouse vocalist has rescheduled his spoken-word appearances for October, while Iron Maiden will release a new studio album, Senjutsu, next month, although the band isn’t scheduled to tour again until June 2022.
Meanwhile, Dickinson says he doesn’t believe people should be required to get vaccinated to attend concerts, although he hopes they do for the sake of their own health. He also believes wearing masks and getting vaccinated is “a personal choice” that the government shouldn’t regulate, while adding that it’s “a responsible” and “common sense” thing to do.
Dickinson says his COVID-19 experience as a vaccinated person was he basically felt like he had a cold.
He notes, “The biggest issue is just stay indoors so you don’t go and pass it on to somebody else who might go and pass it on to somebody who actually is vulnerable.”
