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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
