Classic Rock News

Well, there’s no doubt Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour is one of the hottest shows out there, and it’s earned Elton yet another honor.

StubHub is out with its 2022 Year In Live Experiences report and, thanks to the tour, which wrapped in the U.S. in November, Elton earns the honor of Top Global Touring Artist of the Year. He beats out Harry Styles for the top spot, with a third British act, Coldplay, landing at three. The rankings are based on cumulative ticket sales on StubHub North America and Viagogo international marketplaces over the past year.

Bad Bunny lands in the number four spot, with veteran rockers Mötley Crüe rounding out the top 5, thanks to their big stadium tour with Def Leppard.

StubHub’s Top Global Touring Artists of 2022

1. Elton John
2. Harry Styles
3. Coldplay
4. Bad Bunny
5. Mötley Crüe
6. Morgan Wallen
7. Billie Eilish
8. Garth Brooks
9. Adele
10. Justin Bieber

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The Beach Boys recently released the new six-CD box set Sail on Sailor -1972, which focuses on their early ’70s releases, Carl and the Passions and Holland. At the time, the band was moving away from their customary sound and image to blend in more with the music of the day. They were so committed to the new direction they actually contemplated a name change.

“At that time, we felt we needed to get away from the California culture and just start over,” Al Jardine tells Variety. “We were in the process of even changing our name. I had an idea to call ourselves ‘the Beach,’ you know? Take the ‘Boys’ out, because we were branded with that.”

He adds that the band was in the midst of an “identity crisis” and were questioning, “Who are they? What is this all about? This is another direction.” 

They of course opted against the name change.

Sail on Sailor – 1972, which can be ordered here, contains newly remastered versions of both albums, along with 80 previously unreleased recordings, including unreleased outtakes, alternate versions and mixes and isolated backing tracks.

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The annual M3 Rock Festival is out with the lineup for their 14th edition, and they’ve landed some heavy hitters. 

The festival, set for May 6th and 7th at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD, opens with Styx, Extreme, Winger, Slaughter, Lita Ford and Quiet Riot on Saturday, with Warrant, Great White, Loudness, former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler, FireHouse, Riley’s L.A. Guns, Vixen, White Lion’s Mike Tramp, and Maryland’s own KIX wrapping the weekend on Sunday.

Two-day tickets and VIP packages go on sale Friday at 12 p.m. ET via Ticketmaster and at the 9:30 Club, The Anthem and Lincoln Theatre box office. The Merriweather Post Pavilion box office will begin selling tickets Monday at 10 a.m. Single-day tickets will go on sale at a later date.

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Night Ranger and Ace Frehley are set to headline this summer’s Gettysburg Bike Week motorcycle rally, scheduled for July 6 to 9 at the Allstar Events Complex in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Former KISS guitarist Frehley is set to headline the Gettysburg Bike Week Main Stage on Friday night, with Night Ranger headlining Saturday and more live acts to be announced at a later date.

“We just keep rolling,” GBW event coordinator Kelly Shue shares. “We’re always trying to top the year before, and we’re giving it a run with this year’s Friday and Saturday headliners, Ace Frehley and Night Ranger!” 

In addition to the performances, the Bike Show, now in its 23rd year, features rides around the historic Gettysburg battlegrounds, along with a huge vendor village and swap meet, fun bike games, a cornhole tournament, memorial rides, the Moto Motion Stunt Show and more. Tickets can be purchased here.

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Ozzy Osbourne has contributed to a new holiday single in support of the Cancer Awareness Trust charity organization.

The track, titled “This Christmas Time,” is about soldiers fighting during World War I who called a temporary truce over Christmas. Osbourne provides an opening narration to the song.

Other artists featured on “This Christmas Time” include Pink Floyd‘s Nick Mason, Duran Duran‘s Andy Taylor and Noddy Holder of Slade.

For more info, visit TheCancerPlatform.com.

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The Alan Parsons Project is set to release a new box set of their fifth studio album, The Turn of a Friendly Card. 

The limited edition set, dropping February 24, will feature three CDs and one Blue-ray, with the album remastered and remixed by Alan from the original master tapes. It will also include 42 bonus tracks, culled from Eric Woolfson’s songwriting diaries, and studio session outtakes, as well as four promotional videos.

Plus it includes an illustrated book with new essays and photos, recollections from Alan and Sally Woolfson, and a reproduction poster. Fans can preorder it here.

The Turn of a Friendly Card was originally released in 1980 and spawned two hits, “Games People Play” and “Time.” A deluxe anniversary edition of the album was previously released in 2015.

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Patti Smith and New Order‘s Bernard Sumner will perform during the 2023 Tibet House US Benefit Concert, taking place March 1 at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.

The annual event, which will return to an in-person celebration in 2023 after the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to go virtual the past two years, raises money for Tibet House US, a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 that works to preserve Tibetan culture.

Other artists on the lineup include Laurie Anderson, Gogol Bordello, Allison Russell and artistic director Philip Glass.

For more info, visit the Tibet House US website, THUS.org.

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Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott‘s picks Demi Lovato‘s Holy Fvck as his favorite rock album of the year.

Speaking with Classic Rock magazine, the “Pour Some Sugar on Me” singer says that Holy Fvck “rocks harder than anything else I’ve heard this year,” adding that the record’s “riffs are fantastic” and Lovato’s vocals are “off the f***ing charts!”

Holy Fvck, which was released in August, finds Lovato exploring more of a rock, guitar-driven direction compared to the pop star’s previous releases. It includes features by Yungblud, Royal & the Serpent and Dead Sara; longtime Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss joined Lovato’s live band last summer.

Def Leppard released their own album this year, May’s Diamond Star Halos. Elliott and company also co-headlined the massive Stadium Tour with Mötley Crüe, and they’ll continue to share the road together on a world outing in 2023.

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The stars were out in London Monday to celebrate the premiere of the new Disney+ Abbey Road documentary, If These Walls Could Sing. 

Yahoo reports Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, accompanied by wives Nancy Shevell and Barbara Bach, attended the London premiere, along with Elton John and David Furnish, Stella McCartney, Spice Girls member Melanie Chisholm, Twiggy and more.

If These Walls Could Sing is directed by McCartney’s daughter Mary McCartney and is described as the “first feature-length documentary” on London’s Abbey Road studios. Many of the Beatles’ classic albums were recorded at the studio, including Abbey Road, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, offering fans “exclusive access to these famously private studios.” In addition to interviews with Paul, Ringo and Elton, the film features Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher and more.

If These Walls Could Sing is set to premiere on Disney+ Friday, December 16.

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Leonard Cohen died back in 2016, but now his family is in a battle over his estate. The New York Post reports Cohen’s daughter, Lorca, and son, Adam, have spent over a year trying to remove attorney Robert Kory as a trustee of the Leonard Cohen Family Trust. Cohen himself appointed Kory as trustee, overseeing the singer’s vast archives of music, poetry, novels and more, said to be valued at over $48 million. 

According to the court papers, Cohen’s adult children claim the singer “came to appreciate in his waning days that he had made a grave error by allowing Kory to insinuate himself into Leonard’s affairs and take control over virtually every aspect of Leonard’s finances and legacy.” The Cohen kids insist Kory isn’t keeping them in the loop about ways he’s trying to make money from the estate. They are also unhappy Kory hired his son to archive Cohen’s vast personal documents. 

A lawyer hired by Adam also claims they have proof documents from 2005 giving Kory control of Cohen’s legacy were forged in order to “fleece the estate of millions of dollars and steal the Hall of Famer’s legacy from his own children.” Lawyer Adam Streisand insists there are two versions of the documents, and the “one and only true version” gives the singer’s children and Anjani Thomas, Cohen’s former lover who happens to be Kory’s ex-wife, control of the Trust. They claim when Cohen died the original was “swapped out,” designating Kory as trustee.

But Kory insists he didn’t do anything wrong, and does all he can to keep Lorca and Adam in the loop on Trust matters. He describes the confusion over the documents as “a scrivener’s error.”

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