Lynyrd Skynyrdhas postponed four of their concerts because longtime guitarist Rickey Medlocke has tested positive for COVID-19.
In a note to fans, the band says their shows in Canton, OH; Jackson, MI; Atlanta, GA and Cullman AL will no longer go forward. “Rickey is home resting and responding well to treatment. We will continue to update you on his condition,” the note adds.
The Atlanta show on August 13 has been rescheduled to October 23. No word yet on the other dates.
After the Alabama show, the next date on Skynyrd’s Big Wheels Keep on Turning tour is August 20 in Canandaigua, NY. The tour is currently scheduled to wrap up November 19 in Bossier City, LA.
Grateful Dead spinoff group Dead & Company are set to continue their long strange trip with a new U.S. tour that kicks off later this month, and the nugs.net concert-streaming service will be offering livestreams of all 18 of the band’s shows scheduled through September.
Streams of the concerts, spanning from an August 16 performance in Raleigh, North Carolina, through a September 18 show at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, will be available in the HD and 4K formats. Visit LiveDead.co for more information.
An interesting feature of the Dead & Company livestreams will be a virtual experience hosted by Grateful Dead experts Gary Lambert and David Gans, who will take part in a live conversation via Zoom during set breaks at each show.
Dead & Company features Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, as well as singer/guitarist John Mayer, ex-Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge, and RatDog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti.
The group’s 2021 tour is scheduled though an October 29-31 stand at Los Angles’ famed Hollywood Bowl.
Here’s a full list of shows that are available for livestream:
8/16 — Raleigh, NC, Coastal Credit Union Music Park
8/18 — Bristow, VA, Jiffy Lube Live
8/20 — New York, NY, Citi Field
8/21 — Philadelphia, PA, Citizens Bank Park
8/23 — Bethel, NY, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
8/25 — Darien, NY, Darien Lake Amphitheater
8/27 — Saratoga Springs, NY, Saratoga Performing Arts Center
8/28 — Hershey, PA, Hersheypark Stadium
9/2 — Mansfield, MA, Xfinity Center
9/3 — Mansfield, MA, Xfinity Center
9/5 — Hartford, CT, The Xfinity Theatre
9/7 — Cuyahoga Falls, OH, Blossom Music Center
9/10 — Clarkston, MI, DTE Energy Music Theatre
9/11 — Cincinnati, OH, Riverbend Music Center
9/13 — Maryland Heights, MO, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
9/15 — Noblesville, IN, Ruoff Music Center
9/17 — Chicago, IL, Wrigley Field
9/18 — Chicago, IL, Wrigley Field
The expanded 50th anniversary reissue of George Harrison‘s classic 1970 solo album All Things Must Pass was released today in multiple formats and configurations.
Among the various versions available is a Super Deluxe box set featuring either eight vinyl LPs or five CDs and Blu-ray-audio disc.
The Super Deluxe reissue features a new mix of the original 23-track album, demos that Harrison recorded during the first two days of the All Things Must Pass sessions, and a variety of outtakes and studio jams. Forty-two of the tracks are previously unreleased.
The collection comes packaged with a 60-page scrapbook curated by Harrison’s widow, Olivia, that features rare images, handwritten lyrics, studio notes and more. A replica of the original album poster also is included.
Originally released in November 1970, All Things Must Pass spent the seven weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200. It features George’s enduring spiritual anthem “My Sweet Lord,” which spent five weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Other standout tunes on the album include “Isn’t It a Pity” — released as a two-sided single with “My Sweet Lord” — the top-10 hit “What Is Life,” “Wah-Wah,” and George’s memorable cover of Bob Dylan‘s “If Not for You.”
The All Things Must Pass reissue was executive-produced by Harrison’s son, Dhani.
In celebration of the reissue’s release, a living-art installation depicting the album’s cover opened today at London’s Duke of York Square and will remain on display until August 20. The installation includes two giant garden gnomes made out of flowers and foliage.
Visit GeorgeHarrison.com for a full track list and more details about the various versions of the All Things Must Pass reissue.
Foo Fighters have some advice for the Westboro Baptist Church: Why not try dancing, instead?
The Kansas-based hate group, known for its inflammatory homophobic and racist remarks and demonstrations, set up a protest against Dave Grohl and company’s concert Thursday in Bonner Springs. In response, the Foos drove past the protest while blasting their cover of the Bee Gees song “You Should Be Dancing.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve got something to say,” Grohl can be heard saying in footage capturing the interaction. “Because you know what? I love you. I do! They way I look at it, I love everybody. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Can’t you just love everybody?”
He continued, “‘Cause I think it’s about love! That’s what I think. I think we’re all about love, and you shouldn’t be hating. You know what y’all should be doing? You should be dancing!”
You may recall that the Westboro Baptist Church set up similar protests when Foo Fighters played Kansas City, Missouri, in 2011 and 2015, which were met with similar responses. For the 2015 show, the Foos shot back with an IRL Rickroll by driving by the crowd while playing Rick Astley‘s ’80s hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Pearl Jam will finally return to the road this fall for a series of festival shows, marking the band’s first full live performances since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. They shows also will be the grunge icons’ first concerts since they released their new album Gigaton in March 2020.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” bassist Jeff Ament tells Spin. “We’ve never played the Gigaton songs live yet.”
Ament then explains, “We’ll need a solid week [of six focused hours per day] with just that. Some of the technical stuff, like me playing keyboard on ‘Dance of the Clairvoyants,’ will be set so we won’t have to figure out what we have to do.”
Being sidelined by the pandemic also means that the upcoming shows will be Pearl Jam’s first since 2018.
“The rest of the catalog we haven’t played in three years,” Ament says. “There’s the physical thing where your hands just know where to go with a lot of the songs and I think the earlier tunes, like ‘Even Flow’ and ‘Corduroy,’ will be easy. But if we decide to play like a ‘Swallowed Whole,’ or ‘Infallible’ or even ‘Pendulum’ — any of those kinds of songs, we’re gonna have to work.”
PJ’s fall schedule includes sets at the Sea.Hear.Now Festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey, as well as three performances at frontman Eddie Vedder‘s Ohana Festival.
Brown recorded the updated rendition of “Fire” with Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice, Stooges guitarist James Williamson, veteran U.K. jazz-rock keyboardist Brian Auger, and Jürgen Engler of the German industrial-metal band Die Krupps.
The single can be purchased on either red or yellow vinyl. The track also is available as a digital download and for streaming.
The B-side of the disc features a new tune titled “Zombie Yelp,” which Brown originally released last October digitally and via streaming services.
The track also features Vanilla Fudge keyboardist Mark Stein and former Hawkwind bassist Alan Davey. Brown co-wrote the monster-themed song with Davey.
Meanwhile, a companion music video for Brown’s new version of “Fire” is streaming now at Cleopatra Records’ official YouTube channel. The clip features scenes from the 2017 horror film The Black Room.
Both “Fire” and “Zombie Yelp” also will be part of a star-studded new Arthur Brown album that’s due out in 2022.
Arthur says of the forthcoming project, “It’s a great pleasure being involved in making this high quality, imaginative piece of terror and fun.”
“Fire” originally peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and topped the U.K. and Canadian singles charts.
The Doobie Brothers have unveiled plans to release a brand-new studio album called Liberté on October 1, and in advance of the record, the band has issued a self-titled digital EP featuring four of the new songs.
Liberté, which you can pre-order now on CD and digital formats, features 12 new original tunes by the group’s core members — Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons and John McFee — produced and co-written with John Shanks, who’s previously collaborated with Bon Jovi, Stevie Nicks and many others.
Liberté is The Doobie Brothers’ 15th full-length studio effort and their first album of new original tunes since 2010’s World Gone Crazy.
The EP, which features songs titled “Oh Mexico,” “Cannonball,” “Don’t Ya Mess with Me” and “Better Days,” is available now as a digital download and via streaming services.
Meanwhile, The Doobie Brothers, who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year, are finally preparing to launch their 50th anniversary tour, which was postponed from 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As previously reported, the trek, which sees former singer/keyboardist Michael McDonald rejoining the group, kicks off August 22 in Des Moines, Iowa. The 2021 portion of the two-leg outing is mapped out through an October 29 concert in Allentown, Pennsylvania, while a second leg runs from a June 2, 2020, show in West Palm Beach, Florida, through a June 30 performance in London, Ontario, Canada.
Fans who purchased a ticket-album bundle for shows to the tour between December 2019 and November 2020 will receive a copy of the Liberté CD starting on September 17 of this year.
Here’s Liberté‘s full track list:
“Oh Mexico”*
“Better Days”*
“Don’t Ya Mess with Me”*
“Cannonball”*
“Wherever We Go”
“The American Dream”
“Shine”
“We Are More Than Love”
“Easy”
“Just Can’t Do This Alone”
“Good Thang”
“Amen Old Friend”
Forget the jungle: Guns N’ Roses are back in the studio.
The reunited rockers have released an official version of the song “Absurd,” which they previously debuted live earlier this week during a concert in Boston. While nominally a “new” song, “Absurd” is actually a reworked version of the GN’R rarity “Silkworms,” a track written during the infamously long sessions for Chinese Democracy but that was never released.
According to the song’s credits, “Absurd” was produced by Axl Rose and Chinese Democracy producer Caram Costanzo, and features drums by Bryan “Brain” Mantia, who played in Guns from 2000 to 2006. The credits also list “Absurd” as being performed and written by Guns N’ Roses — neither Slash nor Duff McKagan, who rejoined Rose in 2016 after a 20-year absence from the group, are explicitly mentioned.
“Absurd” is now available via digital outlets. It follows the 2018 release of the unearthed Appetite for Destruction B-side “Shadow of Your Love.” The band also has debuted a companion music video on its official YouTube channel featuring an animated demonic medusa-like creature with snakes for hair.
Guns’ most recent album, of course, is 2008’s Chinese Democracy, which featured Rose as the only original member.
Co-founding Guess Who members Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings were preparing to finally launch the often-postponed U.S. leg of their reunion tour in September, but unfortunately the Canadian duo has canceled the trek because of travel issues.
A message on the official Bachman Cummings Facebook page reads, “While Randy and Burton have been looking forward to reuniting for their fans throughout the United States, they extend their love and appreciation to all of the fans that were planning to come to these shows, and they cannot wait to see you all again when things are more predictable in terms of travel in and out of Canada.”
The stateside leg of the “Bachman Cummings: Together Again, Live in Concert” tour was to have featured 12 shows in the Midwest that spanned from a September 1 date in Fort Wayne, Indiana, through a September 18 performance at the Deadwood Jam 2021 in Deadwood, South Dakota.
As previously reported, the concerts would have featured Bachman and Cummings performing Guess Who songs, as well as material from Randy’s other famous band, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and from Burton’s solo career.
Here’s the full list of Bachman Cummings’ canceled U.S. shows:
9/1 — Fort Wayne, IN, Foellinger Theatre
9/2 — Akron, OH, The Goodyear Theater
9/4 — Prior Lake, MN, Mystic Lake Casino Hotel
9/5 — Milwaukee, WI, The Riverside Theater
9/7 — Cincinnati, OH, PNC Pavilion
9/8 — Huber Heights, OH, The Rose Music Center at The Heights
9/10 — Rosemont, IL, Rosemont Theatre
9/11 — Green Bay, WI, Resch Center
9/13 — Kansas City, MO, Muriel Kauffman Theatre
9/15 — Omaha, NE, Orpheum Theater
9/16 — St. Charles, MO, The Family Arena
9/18 — Deadwood, SD, Deadwood Jam 2021
Charlene & Dusty Hill in 2011; Gary Miller/FilmMagic
The widow of ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill has penned a heartfelt message about the passing of her husband, including what happened during his final moments. The band has shared it on their official website.
Charlene “Chuck” Hill begins the note, titled “My Sweet Dusty,” by saying, “After 19 wonderful years of marriage that ended too soon, I’ve decided to step out into Dusty’s spotlight to thank all of his fans, colleagues and friends for the overwhelming outpouring of love for The Dust.”
She continues, “He was the kindest, most gentle and caring man a woman could ever Hope to find in a lifetime. Many don’t believe in fairy tale marriages but Dusty and I truly lived one! We were inseparable.”
Charlene then notes that after Dusty was forced to leave ZZ Top’s trek because of his health issues, “[t]he plan was for another round of physical therapy, with a different approach, to help his chronic bursitis. The plan was he would return to the second leg of the tour in September.”
Describing Dusty’s passing early in the morning on July 28, Charlene notes, “He woke me up and we talked and as he was sweetly chatting with me he suddenly stopped and he was gone in an instant.”
She also points out that Hill greatly loved and appreciated all of his fans.
Charlene finishes her message by paraphrasing a quote from the TV series This Is Us, which she calls her “last love letter” to her husband: “The single most extraordinary thing I have ever done in my life is fall in love with you. The single most extraordinary gift I have ever received in my life was for you to ask me to marry you…I will be with you again. Love you to infinity and back.”
