Classic Rock News

An updated version of the Doors concert film Live at the Bowl ’68, along with bonus content, will be screened in select theaters on November 4 to celebrate the 50th anniversary this year of the band’s classic album, L.A. Woman.

The screening event, dubbed The Doors: Live at the Bowl ’68 Special Edition, will feature the full movie, as well as footage of a new performance by surviving Doors drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger joined by various guest musicians, plus a conversation with Densmore, Krieger and the group’s manager, Jeff Jampol.

Tickets for the screenings go on sale starting September 21 at TheDoorsFilm.com.

Live at the Bowl ’68, which originally was released in 2012, features restored footage of a July 5, 1968, show that The Doors played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles that’s widely considered to be one of the band’s best performances caught on film. An album featuring select songs from the same concert was released in 1987 under the title Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

The “Special Edition” of Live at the Bowl ’68 boasts a remastered audio mix in Dolby ATMOS and 5.1 surround sound created by longtime Doors engineer Bruce Botnick, who recorded the original Hollywood Bowl show and co-produced L.A. Woman.

“The magic that has been done to enhance the picture and sound quality of this show will make everyone feel as though they have a front-row seat at the Hollywood Bowl,” says Krieger.

As previously reported, an expanded 50th anniversary reissue of L.A. Woman will be released on December 3.

Here’s the full Live at the Bowl ’68 song list:

Show Start/Intro
“When the Music’s Over”
“Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)”
“Back Door Man”
“Five to One”
“Back Door Man” (Reprise)
“The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)”
“Hello, I Love You”
“Moonlight Drive”
“Horse Latitudes”
“A Little Game”
“The Hill Dwellers”
“Spanish Caravan”
“Hey, What Would You Guys Like to Hear?”
“Wake Up!”
“Light My Fire”
“Light My Fire” (Segue)
“The Unkown Soldier”
“The End” (Segue)
“The End”

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New York City’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum will honor Jon Bon Jovi this November 10 at its 2021 Salute to Freedom gala.

Jon will receive the 2021 Intrepid Lifetime Achievement Award for his Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which helps low-income individuals and veterans find affordable housing and shelter.  The Foundation also runs three JBJ Soul Kitchen community restaurants that allow diners to work to pay for their meal, or give other diners the chance to pay for others’ meals.

In addition, Jon is being honored for opening the Walter Reed veterans housing facility in 2019, which provided homes for 77 veterans.  The other honoree is music industry executive Bob Pittman, who helped found MTV.

In a statement, the president of the Intrepid Museum says, “This year’s honorees go above and beyond for the important causes they care so deeply about, [such as] Jon Bon Jovi’s continued service to our country’s military heroes and those suffering food and shelter insecurity…We are honored to recognize the great work of these trailblazers, and we thank them for their immeasurable contributions.”

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Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts was laid to rest last week but, according to U.K. newspaper The Sun, his band mates Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood were not able to attend the funeral because of COVID-19 restrictions.

The paper reports that small private ceremony for Watts was held in Devon, U.K., but because the band was in Boston rehearsing for The Stones’ upcoming U.S. tour, they weren’t allowed to travel back to their home country for the services.

The Sun also reports that it was the wishes of Watts’ family that the funeral took place secretly, without much attention.

According to the newspaper, an inside source said that The Rolling Stones plan to pay tribute to Watts at their upcoming concerts, and also are organizing a celebration of his life that will be held in the U.K. later in 2021.

Watts died on August 24 at the age 80. As previously reported, before his death, Charlie had handpicked lauded session drummer Steve Jordan to step in for him on the band’s forthcoming trek.

The Stones’ 2021 No Filter Tour of the U.S. kicks off September 26 in St. Louis and is mapped out through a November 20 show in Austin, Texas.

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Iron Maiden‘s latest album, Senjutsu, has become the band’s highest-ever charting album on the Billboard 200.

Senjutsu enters the chart at #3, with 64,000 equivalent album units, 61,000 of which were traditional album sales, making it the best-selling album of the week.

Its debut sales week is the second-best of 2021 for a hard-rock album, following only Foo Fighters‘ Medicine at Midnight.

Iron Maiden’s previous two studio albums, 2010’s The Final Frontier and 2015’s The Book of Souls, both peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200.

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David Lee Roth helped bring the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards to a close on Sunday when he hit the stage to present the Video of the Year honor.

Backstage at the event, the Van Halen frontman was interviewed by Us Weekly, and he shared some words of tribute to his late band mate Eddie Van Halen and also revealed that he has plans for a special performance at the end of the year.

Asked if he had any new music plans, Diamond Dave revealed that he was going to be playing “Las Vegas on New Year’s,” and then said a few words about Eddie.

“You know, my guitar player passed away, Eddie Van Halen,” Roth said. “He’s either in heaven raising hell or he’s in hell, consequently in heaven. Read into that as you wish, and he would have me say it just like that.”

Eddie died on October 6, 2020, after a long battle with cancer. He was 65.

Roth also offered a brief quip about one of his other Van Halen band mates, drummer Alex Van Halen.

“I just spoke to Alex,” Dave told Us Weekly. “We’re about to celebrate our 50th year of ragging on each other.”

While no official announcement has been made about Roth performing in Las Vegas later this year, he had been about to play a second series of 2020 shows in Sin City at the House of Blues in March of last year when he was forced to postpone the engagement because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He played his first run of House of Blues gigs in January 2020.

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David Byrne’s American Utopia, the Spike Lee-directed TV special presenting former Talking Heads singer David Byrne‘s critically acclaimed Broadway show of the same name, won two awards Sunday at the 2021 Creative Arts Emmys ceremony.

The program was a winner in two technical categories — Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety Special and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Variety Series or Special.

The program, which premiered on HBO and HBO Max in October 2020, also will vie a trophy in the Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) category at the 2021 primetime Emmy Awards, airing live this Sunday, September 19, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

The American Utopia show features Byrne accompanied by 11 musicians, dancers and singers who move freely about an almost-empty stage. The production includes monologues by David connecting performances of songs from his 2018 American Utopia album, as well as Talking Heads songs and several other Byrne solo tunes.

For more details about the Creative Arts Emmys, visit Emmys.com.

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Last November, founding Byrds bassist Chris Hillman published an autobiography called Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother and Beyond, and now an audiobook version is set for release on October 19.

In addition to Hillman reading the entire book, the audio version of Time Between also includes newly recorded snippets of 21 songs that span the influential musician’s long and wide-ranging career.

“Recording my narration for the book was far more challenging than I could have ever imagined,” Hillman notes. “For me it was completely different from going into a studio and recording music, and vocals, which I’ve been doing for nearly six decades.”

He adds, “We tossed around the idea of adding a bit of music to embellish the title of each chapter. Each chapter was named after a song I had written, and or had recorded. This began to take on a whole new dimension in the presentation.”

As previously reported, Time Between follows Hillman from his childhood in Southern California, through the adversity of his father’s death by suicide when he was a teenager, and the development of his passion for bluegrass music, to becoming a member of legendary ’60s folk-rock band The Byrds and beyond.

The book not only details Chris’ adventures with The Byrds, but also his experiences with The Flying Burrito Brothers, the influential country-rock band he co-founded with Gram Parsons, and with his later groups Manassas, Souther-Hillman-Furay, McGuinn, Clark & Hillman and The Desert Rose Band.

Meanwhile, Hillman has several concerts lined up this year and about a dozen in 2022 that will feature him performing with his former Desert Rose Band mates Herb Pedersen and John Jourgenson. Echoing his memoir’s title, the concerts have been dubbed “Time Between: An Evening of Stories and Songs.”

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