Classic Rock News

Pollstar is out with its list of the Top Tours of 2022, and while Bad Bunny’s tour lands at number one on both the worldwide and North American tours lists, artists like Elton John, Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe, Paul McCartney and more are also on them. 

Elton’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour lands at number two on both lists, bringing in over $201 million in North America alone. Elton also earned the number one spot on the year-end Artist Power Index, described by the mag as “the world’s most accurate index for an artist’s popularity.” Elton also held the top spot on that list back in February when it was first introduced. 

Other artists to land in the Top 10 on the worldwide tours list include Def Leppard/Mötley Crüe at six, Red Hot Chili Peppers at seven and The Rolling Stones at 10. For just North America, Def Leppard/Mötley Crüe land at three, Red Hot Chili Peppers at nine and Paul McCartney at 10.

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Iggy Pop has announced a batch of U.S. tour dates in support of his upcoming album, Every Loser.

The four-show outing includes stops in Los Angeles on April 20 and 27, San Francisco on April 22 and Las Vegas on April 29. For the performances, the Godfather of Punk will be accompanied by a band dubbed The Losers, featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan and Every Loser producer Andrew Watt on guitar.

For ticket info, visit IggyPop.com.

Every Loser will be released January 6, and includes the previously released singles “Frenzy” and “Strung Out Johnny.” Smith and McKagan both play on the record, as do Blink-182‘s Travis Barker, Jane’s Addiction‘s Dave Navarro and Eric Avery, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, ex-RHCP guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

Watt and Smith also toured together when they played in Eddie Vedder‘s solo band, The Earthlings.

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A new docuseries on soft rock is set to hit Paramount+ in the new year. According to Variety, Sometimes When We Touch: The Reign, Ruin and Resurrection of Soft Rock will debut in the U.S. and Canada on January 3.

The three-part series will feature interviews from a whole host of artists, including Sheryl Crow, The Police’s Stewart Copeland, Run DMC’s Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Richard Marx, Earth, Wind & Fire‘s Verdine White and The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, as well as actual soft rockers like Kenny Loggins, Toni Tennille, Rupert Holmes and Air Supply.

The series will delve into the popularity of the music, some of which has been deemed “yacht rock” in recent years and has gained in popularity. It will focus on such artists as Loggins, Air Supply, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Christopher Cross, the Carpenters, Lionel Richie, Captain & Tennille and more, and will feature new and archival interviews, as well as concert clips. It promises to celebrate “the impact of soft rock while acknowledging the cringey excesses that sometimes led it astray.”

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Julian Lennon is sharing his thoughts on the 2019 film Yesterday: he has mixed feelings, especially when it comes to how his father, John Lennon, is depicted in it.

The film stars Hamish Patel as a struggling musician who wakes up after an accident to a world that has never heard of the Beatles and begins to pass off the band’s tunes as his own, making him a huge superstar.

During an appearance on Kevin Nealon’s web series Hiking with Kevin, Julian shared that he “loved” the movie, “until they put that weird bit of an impression of what Dad would look like in his 70s and 80s or whatever, up on a Scottish or Irish island,” referring to the plot twist where Patel’s character finds out in this new world Lennon is still alive and goes to find him.

Julian says the twist “kind of threw the whole film off for me,” explaining, “I didn’t get—it wasn’t necessary for me, I don’t think. And it was just weird.”

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KISS is still on their End of the Road farewell tour and are making another trip to the United Kingdom, which they claim will be their last.

Pollstar reports the band — Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer — just announced their last ever U.K. dates, kicking off June 3 at Plymouth Argyle’s Home Park Stadium, with stops in Birmingham, Newcastle, London and Manchester, before wrapping things up July 8 at OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. 

They also previously announced they will headline England’s Download Festival, which takes place June 12 to 14, and also features Iron Maiden and System of a Down.

A ticket presale for the new U.K. dates is happening Tuesday at 10 a.m., followed by a general sale Friday at 10 a.m.

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Iggy Pop has shared a new song called “Strung Out Johnny,” a track off his upcoming album, Every Loser.

The tune finds the Godfather of Punk singing lines including “God made me a junkie/But Satan told me so” over a dark, ’80s-esque sound. You can listen to “Strung Out Johnny” now via digital outlets.

“Strung Out Johnny” is the second track to be released from Every Loser, following the lead single “Frenzy,”  which gave Iggy the new Billboard record for longest gap between appearances on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.

Every Loser arrives January 6. The album was produced by Andrew Watt and features Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Blink-182‘s Travis Barker, Jane’s Addiction‘s Dave Navarro and Eric Avery, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, ex-RHCP guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

(Video contains uncensored profanity) 

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ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd are teaming up for a new co-headlining tour. The Sharp Dressed Simple Man Tour is set to hit 22 North American cities this summer, including Phoenix, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Denver and Saratoga Springs.

The trek kicks off July 21 in West Palm Beach, Florida, and runs through September 17 in Camden, New Jersey. It’s mostly made up of outdoor amphitheaters shows.

Tickets go on sale starting Friday at 10 a.m. local time. Check out the complete list of dates here.

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Bono isn’t done talking about his biography. The U2 frontman just announced a new set of dates for his Stories of Surrender book tour, which is dubbed “an evening of words, music and some mischief.”

The new dates are also called Bono at the Beacon, since all the dates take place at New York’s Beacon Theater. The leg consists of eight shows starting April 16 and running through May 3.

The shows have Bono recounting stories from his recently released memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, and also performing stripped down versions of U2 songs. He’ll be backed by Gemma Doherty on harp, keyboard and vocals, and Kate Ellis and cello, keyboard and vocals, with Jacknife Lee serving as musical director.

Tickets for all shows go on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. Check out the complete list of dates here.

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Peter Frampton recently finished up the 2022 dates of his farewell tour, after announcing a few years ago that he’ll be retiring from the road due to a degenerative muscle condition.  He sat with Guitar World for a wide-ranging interview about his career, in which he discusses his struggles with his ’70s-era fame, and how David Bowie saved his career.

After 1976’s Frampton Comes Alive made him one of the world’s biggest stars, Frampton says that after the follow-up, 1977’s I’m In You, “I could feel it slipping away…I started to lose a lot of audience…I felt like I was in a sinking ship.” As the ’80s arrived, Frampton admits he wasn’t making his best work, and he wasn’t having much commercial success, either. But in 1986, things turned around for him — and he gives the credit to Bowie, his old schoolmate.

“I did a record for Atlantic called Premonition,” he tells Guitar World. “It still wasn’t a great record…but that’s the album David Bowie listened to…he said, ‘Can you come and play some guitar for me?’”

Frampton ended up playing on Bowie’s 1987 album Never Let Me Down, and then joined him on his Glass Spider tour. 

“He could have chosen anybody…but he chose me. I can never thank him enough for that,” admits Frampton. Rather than missing the spotlight, he says being a sideman is his “comfy chair,” explaining, “I’ve always been more comfortable playing guitar, not singing.”

He notes, “David inviting me to do the album and tour changed my credibility; I got my credibility back that I felt I’d lost when I’m In You came out. I’m a musician first and foremost. David gave me back that credibility to continue and bring people back to me.”

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AC/DC will celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2023, and in honor of the occasion, an officially licensed book on the band is on its way.

AC/DC: 50 Years Of High Voltage Rock ‘N’ Roll will arrive at some point next year from Rufus Publications. Right now there’s only a teaser video for the book, so it’s not clear if it’ll be a band biography, a photo collection or both. The company describes it only as “something very special.”

AC/DC was formed in November 1973 by Malcom and Angus Young, bass player Larry Van Kriedt, singer Dave Evans and drummer Collin Burgess. In 1974, Bon Scott replaced Evans as vocalist and they released their first album, High Voltage. The band’s big U.S. breakthrough didn’t come until 1980’s Back In Black, released with new singer Brian Johnson following Scott’s death, became their all-time best-selling album.

AC/DC’s most recent album, 2020’s Power Up, hit number one on the Billboard 200 album chart and earned the band three Grammys.

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