Classic Rock News

Ozzy Osbourne‘s hometown soccer team, Aston Villa of Birmingham, England, will be honoring the late Prince of Darkness during their upcoming opening game of the 2025-26 Premier League season.

The game will take place Saturday at Aston Villa’s home stadium of Villa Park, which Ozzy and Black Sabbath performed at during their Back to the Beginning concert on July 5. 

Before the match begins, the stadium’s big screens will display a video tribute to Ozzy. Then, the players’ walkout will be soundtracked by Ozzy’s Back to the Beginning performance of “Crazy Train.”

Additionally, the stadium’s Fan Zone will feature a performance of Ozzy and Sabbath songs by Bostin Brass, which also played during Ozzy’s public funeral procession in Birmingham. Attendees will also be able to sign a book of condolences in the team store, which will later be presented to the Osbourne family.

“Aston Villa is proud to remember Ozzy Osbourne, a music legend, and his connection to our club,” the team says.

Ozzy died at age 76 on July 22, just over two weeks after performing at Back to the Beginning. 

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38 Special is sharing another preview of their upcoming album, Milestone, due out Sept. 19.

The band, best known for songs like “Hold on Loosely” and “Caught up in You,” just dropped the new single, “Slightly Controversial,” featuring a guest appearance by the band Train. It is the second song they’ve released from the album following “All I Haven’t Said.”

“This song is wrapped around a mystery woman who’s been through a few things in her life,” frontman and co-founder Don Barnes shares. “She wants to keep people guessing and talking about her every move and they just can’t seem to figure her out. Her choice to be an enigma is for her own emotional protection.”

Barnes calls the tune a “powerful guitar banger,” noting that Train’s Pat Monahan “absolutely crushed it.”

“Slightly Controversial” is available now via digital outlets.

Milestone is the first new music from 38 Special since their 2004 release, Drivetrain. In addition to Monahan, the album features songs co-written by Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s Randy Bachman and the band’s longtime collaborator Jim Peterik, who also co-produced the record.

Milestone is available for preorder now.

38 Special is currently on the road. Their next show is happening Friday in Aberdeen, South Dakota. A complete list of dates can be found at 38special.com.

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On This Day, Aug. 15, 1991…

Paul Simon headlined a free concert at New York’s Central Park, as part of his Born at the Right Time tour.

The concert, attended by an estimated 48,500 people, aired live on HBO.

Simon’s set included solo songs like “Kodachrome,” “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard,” “Graceland,” “Still Crazy After All These Years” and more, with his performance of “You Can Call Me Al,” featuring a guest appearance by comedian Chevy Chase.

He also performed several Simon & Garfunkel tunes, including “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “The Boxer,” “America” and “The Sound of Silence.”

A live album of the concert, Paul Simon’s Concert in the Park, was released in November of 1991.

This wasn’t the first time Simon played a Central Park concert. He and his former musical partner Art Garfunkel headlined a free benefit concert on the Great Lawn in September 1981.

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It’s time for The Who to say goodbye to North America, and Billy Idol has some feelings about it.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers are set to kick off The Song Is Over North American Farewell tour in Sunrise, Florida, on Saturday. Idol is the support act for the tour’s final show on Sept. 28 in Las Vegas. He tells ABC Audio he has mixed feelings about opening, saying it’s “gonna be a great day and it’s gonna be a terrible day.”

“I hate to think about that because I love those guys,” he says. He notes that even if he wasn’t opening the show he “was gonna come anyway” and that he told Roger Daltrey he was coming “by hook or by crook.”

Daltrey first suggested that Idol perform a song from Quadrophenia, as Idol previously performed with The Who on their 1996-1997 Quadrophenia tour. In the end, Daltrey and Pete Townshend decided to offer Idol a slot as opener.

“So that’s gonna be fantastic, and I’ll be able to commiserate with The Who fans,” he says. “We’ll all be feeling the same way.” 

The Who announced in May they would embark on what they say will be their final tour of North America.

Daltrey said during a press conference, “It’s not easy to end the big part of my life that touring with The Who has been.” Townshend noted that “all good things must come to an end.”

He added, “This tour will be about fond memories, love and laughter.”

In addition to Idol, opening acts on the tour include Candlebox, Billy Bob Thornton and his band The Boxmasters, The Joe Perry Project, Booker T. Jones, Joe Bonamassa, Tom Cochoran and ZZ Ward.

A complete list of The Who tour dates can be found at TheWho.com.

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Rocker Eddie Van Halen is being remembered in a new post by his ex-wife Valerie Bertinelli.

“Some days I really do miss you,” she writes in the post on Instagram, next to a black-and-white photo of them smiling together. “There will always be a loud absence in these gratifying sideline years.”

Bertinelli writes of missing being able to talk to the guitar great about their son, Mammoth frontman Wolfgang Van Halen.

“Who do I yap to when there was really only one person I could talk to about Wolfie the way that we did? The pride we both felt. Still feel,” she writes. “I’m grateful for where we landed. Through the ups and the downs to still alight where we did is a blessing.”

She adds about their son, “You’d be so proud of Wolf. I know we’d be screaming together in the stands watching him on stage. Seeing who could whistle the loudest. I will never not miss being able to experience that with you.”

Eddie and Valerie wed in 1981, separated in 2001 and divorced in 2007. They had Wolfgang, their only child, in 1991. Eddie died in October 2020 at the age of 65.

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Deep Purple is set to release a new super deluxe edition of their 1972 live album Made in Japan on Friday, and they are giving fans a way to enjoy it together.

The band is set to host a special Made in Japan listening party on YouTube Friday, where fans will get to experience producer Steven Wilson‘s stereo remix of the album. The party starts at 3 p.m. ET.

The album features performances from two shows in Osaka and one in Tokyo. The new super deluxe edition of the record is a five-CD/Blu-Ray set that includes the new stereo and Dolby ATMOS mixes of the original album by Wilson, as well as newly remixed versions of all three concerts and three rare single edits.

The set will also be released digitally and as a 10-LP black vinyl edition, which will be exclusively available on DeepPurple.com and Rhino.com. There will also be a two-LP vinyl edition featuring the Wilson remix, available in the U.S. on Oct. 3.

Live in Japan featured performances of songs from Deep Purple’s then-new album Machine Head, including their now-classic “Smoke on the Water,” as well as “Child in Time” and “Strange Kind of Woman.”

The double LP was supposed to come out only in Japan, but eventually got a wider release. It was released in America that December and was a huge success. It peaked at #6 on the Billboard 200 and has been certified Platinum by the RIAA.

Made in Japan (Super Deluxe Edition) is available for preorder now.

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The Joe Perry Project launched their North American tour in Tampa Wednesday night, treating the audience to a whole bunch of Aerosmith classics and more.

Perry’s band is made up of his Aerosmith bandmate Brad Whitford; Buck Johnson, a member of Aerosmith’s touring band since 2014; The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson; Stone Temple Pilots‘ Robert DeLeo; and longtime JPP drummer Jason Sutter. According to setlist.fm, each band member’s music was represented in the set.

Aerosmith tunes performed during opening night included “Same Old Song and Dance,” “Get the Lead Out,” “Mama Kin” and “Get It Up,” “Last Child,” “Draw the Line” and “Walk This Way.” The set also featured The Black Crowes’ “Jealous Again” and “Twice as Hard,” and Stone Temple Pilots tracks “Vasoline” and “Interstate Love Song.”

The set also featured several of Perry’s own tracks, including “Fortunate One” and “Won’t Let Me Go.”

Perry formed The Joe Perry Project back in 1979 after his departure from Aerosmith. They released three albums before Perry returned to Aerosmith in 1984. He last toured as The Joe Perry Project in 2023.

The tour hits Hollywood, Florida, on Thursday. A complete list of dates can be found at JoePerry.com.

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Robert Plant has released another track off his upcoming album with his acoustic band Saving Grace. The latest is the tune “Gospel Plough,” which is now available.

According to a description on Instagram, with “Gospel Plough” the band transforms “a centuries-old spiritual number into a hypnotic mélange of vocals, steel banjo, acoustic guitar, and percussion.”

Plant and Saving Grace are set to release their debut album, Saving Grace, on Sept. 26. It’s an album that’s six years in the making, as Plant began working with Saving Grace — drummer Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, banjo and string player Matt Worley, cellist Barney Morse Brown and vocalist Suzi Dian — in 2019.

The album, which Plant describes as “a song book of the lost and found,” was recorded between April 2019 and January 2025. It has them covering songs by Memphis Minnie, Bob Mosley of Moby Grape, Blind Willie Johnson and more.

Plant and Saving Grace are set to launch their first U.S. tour on Oct. 30 in Wheeling, West Virginia, with dates confirmed through Nov. 23 in Valley Center, California. A complete list of dates can be found at RobertPlant.com.

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A new box set celebrating John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s political activism and early life in New York City is on the way.

Power to the People (Super Deluxe Edition), produced by the couple’s son Sean Ono Lennon, will be released Oct. 10, on what would have been John’s 85th birthday. It’s a nine-CD/3-Blu-ray box set, featuring 123 tracks, 90 of which have either never been heard before or were previously unreleased. They include demos, outtakes, home recordings and more.

The set includes a new version of their 1972 album Sometime in New York City, as well as a completely remixed version of the pair’s 1972 One to One concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which were John’s only full length concerts after leaving The Beatles.  The concerts will also be released outside the box set in a variety of configurations. 

As a preview of the box set, a previously unreleased performance of “Come Together” from the One to One concerts has now been released.

“I was completely floored putting this collection together and getting to remix the concerts and hearing all the unreleased material from my parents’ archive for the first time,” said Sean. “People may not realize how special it is for me to hear my dad talking or to see him. I grew up with a set number of images and audio clips that everyone’s familiar with. So to come across things that I’ve never seen or heard is really deep for me, because it’s almost like getting more time with my dad.”

The super deluxe edition will come with a 204-page hardcover book and more goodies. There will also be two-CD, four-LP and two-LP colored vinyl editions. 

All formats are available for preorder now.

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On This Day, Aug. 14, 1971…

English rockers The Who released their iconic album Who’s Next, featuring such future Who classics as “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Behind Blue Eyes.”

The album was originally conceived as another rock opera, Lifehouse, following their 1969 hit Tommy. Pete Townshend eventually scrapped the whole project.

Who’s Next was a critics’ darling, and consistently lands on lists of the greatest albums of all time. The album was the band’s only #1 in the U.K.; it hit #4 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart and has been certified triple Platinum by the RIAA.

The Who revisited Who’s Next/Lifehouse in 2023 with a new 10-CD/Blu-ray set that featured 155 tracks, with 89 songs that had never been released and 57 fresh remixes. It included Lifehouse demos, various session recordings and two complete concerts from 1971: one recorded at London’s Young Vic theater and one recorded at San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium.

The Who is getting ready to launch their last tour of North America. The Song is Over North American Farewell tour will kick off Saturday in Sunrise, Florida, and wrap Sept. 28 in Las Vegas.

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