Classic Rock News

It seems safe to call Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard‘s Stadium Tour a success.

The outing, which also featured Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts on the bill, took in a total of $173.5 million from 1.3 million tickets sold, according to Billboard.

Since Billboard began tracking tour data in the late ’80s, neither Mötley Crüe nor Def Leppard had grossed as much money or had sold as many tickets on any other previous tour.

Both bands’ previous peaks as solo headliners averaged between 10,000-11,000 tickets sold and never more than $1 million earned per show. The Stadium Tour, meanwhile, averaged 37,520 tickets sold and $4.96 million earned each night.

For Mötley Crüe, the tour marked their return to the live stage after playing their “final” show on New Year’s Eve 2015. The concert was preceded by a “cessation of touring” contract, which was meant to legally prevent the “Dr. Feelgood” rockers from touring together again. Upon announcing their return, the Crüe declared that they’d voided the contract.

Adding to the buildup was the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed the Stadium Tour from its initially scheduled 2020 launch to 2022.

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Carlos Santana and his famous band have extended their long-running Las Vegas residency well into the spring of 2023.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers have announced two new eight-date engagements of their An Intimate Evening with Santana: Greatest Hits Live show at the House of Blues inside Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. The first runs from January 25 through February 5 and the second from May 17 through May 28.

Tickets for all of the new performances go on sale to the general public this Saturday, September 24 at 10 a.m. local time via House of Blues.com/Santana, MandalayBay.com and Ticketmaster.com. Fans can also call 800-745-3000 to purchase tickets.

Santana fan club members and Citi card members can buy presale tickets starting Wednesday, October 21 at 10 a.m. PT; visit CitiPrivatePass.com for more information. House of Blues, Live Nation and Ticketmaster presales will begin Thursday, September 22 at 10 a.m. PT.

Part of the money from the tickets sold for Santana’s Las Vegas shows benefits the Milagro Foundation, the charity Carlos co-founded that helps young people in impoverished communities around the world. Some proceeds will also be donated to the House of Blues’ Music Forward Foundation, which uses music to help young people develop life skills.

Meanwhile, Santana has three shows left on his current run of House of Blues residency concerts — Sept. 21, 23, 24 and 25 — and the band also has another previously announced eight-date stand this year that’s scheduled from November 2 to November 13.

Visit Santana.com to check out the group’s full tour schedule.

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Elvis Costello has announced plans for a unique, 10-night stand dubbed 100 Songs and More that will take place from February 9 to February 23 at New York City’s Gramercy Theatre.

Costello will perform a completely different set each night and will play more than 200 of his songs over the course of the engagement. Elvis has confirmed 10 tunes that he’ll perform at each show; he’ll play at least 10 additional songs during every gig.

The first five concerts will feature Costello performing solo; he will be joined by his Attractions and Imposters keyboardist Steve Nieve at the remaining five shows. Elvis penned a clever poem that hints that some surprise guests may also be joining him during the run. For more information, visit ElvisCostello.com.

Tickets for the 100 Songs and More concerts go on sale to the general public this Friday, September 23, while presale tickets are avaiable to Citi card members through the company’s Citi Entertainment program. Visit CitiEntertainment.com for more details.

In other news, Costello has two special charity shows scheduled on September 30 at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. The concerts will feature him playing tunes by late Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia and Garcia’s longtime songwriting partner Robert Hunter. The event will raise money for Prader-Willi Homes of California, a charity dedicated to the creation of a residential center for people with Prader-Willi syndrome and other developmental disabilities.

In addition, Costello will be performing at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on October 1.

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Guns N’ Roses‘ classic 1991 albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II will be reissued on November 11 in multiple configurations and formats, including expansive CD and vinyl box sets featuring remastered versions of both records, plus a treasure trove of bonus content.

The super deluxe box sets will feature either seven CDs or 12 LPs. Both versions will include a Blu-ray featuring a previously unreleased video of the band’s May 1991 performance at The Ritz Theatre in New York City, as well as a new live music video for “You Could Be Mine.”

In addition, the box sets will include the full audio of the New York City show and of a complete and previously unreleased concert that Guns N’ Roses played in January 1992 in Las Vegas.

Also included in the the super deluxe box sets are a 100-page hardcover book that boasts rare photos, memorabilia and archival documents; collectible items as a replica fan club materials and backstage pass; uniquely designed lithographs; seven band photo prints; a poster and more.

The reissues will be available together as a four-LP colored-vinyl collection and separately as deluxe two-CD sets, single CDs and two-LP black-vinyl sets. Digital versions of all the version also will be available.

Released simultaneously in September 1991, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II debuted at #2 and #1, respectively, on the Billboard 200 chart. Use Your Illusion I features the top-10 hits “Don’t Cry” and “November Rain,” while Use Your Illusion II includes the top-30 single “You Could Be Mine.”

Both albums have gone on to be certified seven-times Platinum by the RIAA.

You can preorder the reissues now.

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This Saturday, Elton John is set to perform at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., but on Friday, while he’s in the neighborhood, he’ll be stopping by to visit the Bidens.

President Joe Biden and the first lady will host a performance by Elton on the South Lawn of the White House as part of an event called “A Night When Hope and History Rhyme.” Organized in collaboration with A+E Networks and The History Channel, the event will honor teachers, nurses, frontline workers, mental health advocates, students LGBTQ+ advocates and more.

It will also “celebrate the unifying and healing power of music” and pay tribute to Elton’s “life and work.”

The Bidens will deliver remarks at the event. The fact that A+E and The History Channel are involved seems to indicate that the whole thing will be televised at some point, but there are no details on that as of yet.

This week, Elton is also performing in Atlanta as part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour.

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The Smashing Pumpkins are coming back in a big way.

The alt-rock vets — now consisting of original members Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, plus longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder — have announced a new album called Atum, a 33-track, three-act “rock opera” described as the sequel to the Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Machina/Machine of God albums.

Your first preview of Atum is the song “Beguiled,” which is available now via digital outlets. The “Beguiled” video premieres Tuesday at 12:33 p.m. ET on YouTube, and you can catch the Pumpkins perform the track on NBC’s The Tonight Show this Friday.

Atum, the follow-up to 2020’s Cyr, will be released in three parts, with Act 1 dropping November 15. Acts 2 and 3 will follow in 2023 on January 31 and April 21, respectively.

Along the way, Corgan will be breaking down each song off of Atum on his new podcast, Thirty-Three with William Patrick Corgan. The first two episodes are out now.

If that’s not enough Smashing Pumpkins for you, a vinyl box set edition of Atum will be available on April 21 with 10 more bonus tracks.

Meanwhile, you can also catch The Smashing Pumpkins on the road on their Spirits on Fire tour alongside Jane’s Addiction. The outing launches October 2 in Dallas, Texas.

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Journey guitarist Neal Schon recently shared some details about his band’s concrete and potential touring plans for 2023 and beyond during pro wrestler/rock singer Chris Jericho‘s Talk Is Jericho podcast and in a separate interview with ABC Audio.

In July, Journey announced that four North American concerts that were postponed earlier this year had been moved to March 2023 and that their Freedom Tour 2022 support act Toto would be opening the rescheduled shows.

Schon revealed to Jericho that the makeup shows will be part of a full 2023 tour leg featuring Toto that will kick off in February and will include about 40 dates.

“[W]e’re gonna do the secondary markets in the United States and do some of the main markets that we didn’t hit this last time,” Neal explained.

He added that, after taking “a little break,” Journey and Toto will head to Europe and Japan, noting that Journey would open for Toto in Europe, where the latter group is more popular.

Meanwhile, Schon revealed to ABC Audio that he hoped to schedule a series of U.S. stadium shows in late 2023 that would feature Journey, Toto and Santana.

Neal, who was a member of Santana from 1971 to 1972, noted that with 2023 marking the 50th anniversary of Journey’s formation, “it makes total sense to do something with Carlos [Santana] … because that’s where I came from before I started Journey.”

Schon told ABC Audio that he talks to Carlos multiple times a week, and revealed that Santana wants to play shows with Journey, and that the guitarists have also discussed getting together to collaborate on some new music.

“[There’s] a lot of musical history there,” Neal said. “And of course … we love playing together too.”

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Alice in Chains is digging through the archives leading up to the 30th anniversary of the band’s 1992 album, Dirt.

The grunge rockers have unearthed video from their May 1993 appearance on the BBC’s Later…with Jools Holland program, including renditions of the Dirt tracks “Them Bones” and “Would?” You can watch video of performances streaming now on YouTube.

Dirt, Alice in Chains’ sophomore album, officially turns 30 on September 29. The five-times RIAA Platinum-certified record spawned singles including “Them Bones,” “Down an a Hole,” “Rooster,” “Would?” and “Angry Chair.”

AiC will be celebrating the milestone with a vinyl reissue of Dirt, due out September 23. They’re also collaborating with Funko to make a Dirt-themed collection of Pop! figures.

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The classic Journey hit ballad “Faithfully” will be featured on the premiere episode of ABC sitcom The Goldberg‘s 10th season, which airs this Wednesday, September 21, at 8:30 p.m. ET.

The song, which was written by Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain, was recorded 40 years ago and was the second single released from the band’s multi-Platinum 1983 studio album, Frontiers. “Faithfully” peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“It’s truly an honor for me and my bandmates to have ‘Faithfully’ featured in the season premiere of The Goldbergs,” says Cain. “We’re big fans of the show and hope our fans enjoy hearing one of our biggest hits in the episode. We’re looking forward to watching the episode.”

Jonathan began writing “Faithfully” while on Journey’s tour bus en route to a concert in Saratoga Springs, New York, starting with the lyrics “highway run into the midnight sun,” which he wrote down on a napkin. Cain finished composing the song the next day in just a half hour while sitting down at a grand piano backstage at Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

The Goldbergs is based on executive producer Adam F. Goldberg‘s own family and experiences coming of age during the 1980s.

The new episode, which is titled “If You Build It,” finds the Goldberg clan dealing with chaos as the entire family is back living at home, while daughter Erica is expecting a baby.

The Goldbergs is available for streaming on Hulu and ABC.com.

Meanwhile, Journey, whose new studio, Freedom, was released in July, will wind down their 2022 tour schedule in the coming weeks with five shows — on September 23 in San Juan, Puerto Rico; September 28 in Monterrey, Mexico; September 30 in Mexico City; and October 5-6 in Honolulu.

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Metallica has announced the ticket details for the band’s 2022 Helping Hands charity concert.

The general public on-sale begins this Friday, September 23 at 10 a.m. PT, while members of Metallica’s fan club will have access to a a pre-sale beginning this Wednesday, September 21.

For all ticket info, visit Metallica.com.

As previously reported, the concert will take place December 16 in Los Angeles. Along with the ticket details, Metallica has also revealed LA’s Microsoft Theater as the venue for the show, which will include an auction, as well.

Helping Hands, which supports Metallica’s All Within My Hands charity foundation, first launched in 2018. The second concert took place in late 2020 and streamed online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both shows featured rare acoustic Metallica sets.

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